Immediately from the Pedridan swamp the ground began to rise to north and north-west towards a run of hilly and woodland country forty miles long, and from ten to twenty miles broad; a country which remains singular to this day for its natural breed of red deer and its chase of the great game. This royal sport survives on Exmoor and in the Quantocks, and there are Minehead people who can tell you that they have seen the stag-hunt scamper through their main street in full cry. At the entrance of this country, at a point which is conveniently situated for uniting activity inland with a constant observation of the line of Pedrida, is a village which is now called North Newton, with which Petherton Park had been so long and closely linked that it went by the popular name of Newton Park. I am led by a number of small indications to infer that this is the place where Alfred had his chief residence during those early months of the year 878. When Easter came, his action began to be overt; he dropped personal disguise, and stood forth as ÆLFRED CYNING. ‘When Easter came, king Alfred, with a small force, constructed a fort at Athelney, and out of that fort was warring against the invading host, he and the men of Somerset, that portion of them which was nighest[44].’ This is the action of a commander who has made sure of his following, and is now beginning his operations against the enemy. He fortifies himself on the east side of the bridge, where a conical hill offers an opportune position; and from that basis he opens a guerilla warfare with the invaders. He does not show his hand: he rather wants to be thought weak. This naturally draws away from head quarters more and more of the hostile force, who think that they shall presently deal a last blow to the Saxon resistance. And so with a petty and apparently futile display of military force, he continues to amuse and distract the enemy for the next six weeks. The impression made on the mind of the people by these events is traceable in two names: Athelney, which now represents Æthelinga Eig, the island of princes; and Borough Bridge, which means the bridge at the fortification. The fort which Alfred made in 878 is well preserved, the entrenchments occupying the summit of a conical hill near the east end of the bridge which spans the Parret, after its junction with the Tone. How the king had employed the unrecorded months is manifest in the result. His muster-roll at Brixton Deveril, in the words of a contemporary, is brief yet eloquent: ‘Then in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Ecgbrihtes Stân, on the eastern side of Selwood, and to meet him at that place came the men of Somerset, all of them, and the Wiltshire men, and of Hampshire the part that was on the hither side of the sea; and of him fain they were.’ This passage of the _Saxon Chronicle_ seems to render a satisfactory account of the manner in which the king had employed his time from Epiphany to Easter in the year 878.