The place where the armies met was called in those times AEscesdune, which means Ashdown.  It was, in fact, a hill-side covered with ash trees.  The name has become shortened and softened in the course of the ten centuries which have intervened since this celebrated battle, into Aston; if, indeed, as is generally supposed, the Aston of the present day is the locality of the ancient battle.

The armies came into the vicinity of each other toward the close of the day.  They were both eager for the contest, or, at least, they pretended to be so, but they waited until the morning.  The Danes divided their forces into two bodies.  Two kings commanded one division, and certain chieftains, called earls, directed the other.  King Ethelred undertook to meet this order of battle by a corresponding distribution of his own troops, and he gave, accordingly, to Alfred the command of one division, while he himself was to lead the other.  All things being thus arranged, the hum and bustle of the two great encampments subsided at last, at a late hour, as the men sought repose under their rude tents, in preparation for the fatigues and exposures of the coming day.  Some slept; others watched restlessly, and talked together, sleepless under the influence of that strange excitement, half exhilaration and half fear, which prevails in a camp on the eve of a battle.  The camp fires burned brightly all the night, and the sentinels kept vigilant watch, expecting every moment some sudden alarm.

The night passed quietly away.  Ethelred and Alfred both arose early.  Alfred went out to arouse and muster the men in his division of the encampment, and to prepare for battle.  Ethelred, on the other hand, sent for his priest, and, assembling the officers in immediate attendance upon him, commenced divine service in his tent—­the service of the mass, according to the forms and usages which, even in that early day, were prescribed by the Catholic Church.  Alfred was thus bent on immediate and energetic action, while Ethelred thought that the hour for putting forth the exertion of human strength did not come until time had been allowed for completing, in the most deliberate and solemn manner, the work of imploring the protection of Heaven.

Ethelred seems by his conduct on this occasion to have inherited from his father, even more than Alfred, the spirit of religious devotion at least so far as the strict and faithful observance of religious forms was concerned.  There was, it is true, a particular reason in this case why the forms of divine service should be faithfully observed, and that is, that the war was considered in a great measure a religious war.  The Danes were pagans.  The Saxons were Christians.  In making their attacks upon the dominions of Ethelred, the ruthless invaders were animated by a special hatred of the name of Christ, and they evinced a special hostility toward every edifice, or institution, or observance which bore