An. 901. Here died Ælfred Æthulfing [Æthelwulfing–the son of Æthelwulf], six nights ere All Hallow Mass. He was king over all English-kin, bar that deal that was under Danish weald [dominion]; and he held that kingdom three half-years less than thirty winters. There came Eadward his son to the rule. And there seized Æthelwold ætheling, his father's brother's son, the ham [villa] at Winburne [Wimbourne], and at Tweoxneam [Christchurch], by the king's unthank and his witan's [without leave from the king]. There rode the king with his fyrd till he reached Badbury against Winburne. And Æthelwold sat within the ham, with the men that to him had bowed, and he had forwrought [obstructed] all the gates in, and said that he would either there live or there lie. Thereupon rode the ætheling on night away, and sought the [Danish] host in Northumbria, and they took him for king and bowed to him. And the king bade ride after him, but they could not outride him. Then beset man the woman that he had erst taken without the king's leave, and against the bishop's word, for that she was ere that hallowed a nun. And on this ilk year forth-fared Æthelred (he was ealdorman on Devon) four weeks ere Ælfred king. During the Augustan age the Chronicle grows less full, but contains several fine war-songs, of the genuine old English type, full of savagery in sentiment, and abrupt or broken in manner, but marked by the same wild poetry and harsh inversions as the older heathen ballads. Amongst them stand the lines on the fight of Brunanburh, whose exordium is quoted above. Its close forms one of the finest passages in old English verse:– Behind them they Left, the Lych to devour, The Sallow kite and the Swart raven, Horny of beak,– and Him, the dusk-coated, The white-afted Erne, the corse to Enjoy, The Greedy war-hawk, and that Grey beast, The Wolf of the Wood. No such Woeful slaughter Aye on this Island Ever hath been, By edge of the Sword, as book Sayeth, Writers of Eld, since of Eastward hither English and Saxons Sailed over Sea, O'er the Broad Brine,– landed in Britain, Proud Workers of War, and o'ercame the Welsh, Earls Eager of fame, Obtaining this Earth. During the decadence, in the disastrous reign of Æthelred, the Chronicle regains its fulness, and the following passage may be taken as a good specimen of its later style. It shows the approach to comment and reflection, as the compilers grew more accustomed to historical writing in their own tongue:–