So their religion was only a religion of war; and, to be brave in battle, they thought the most pleasing devotion they could show to their warlike gods. So this contest between the Danes and Saxons was not only one for the possession of the fruitful land of England, but was a contest between Paganism and Christianity. King Alfred was a devout Christian, and although the Saxons’ ideas of religion were mixed with much superstition and bigotry, they believed in the true God, Jehovah, and in salvation through the redemption of Jesus Christ; although the pure Gospel, as taught by Christ himself when on the earth more than eight hundred years before this time, had become mixed with all sorts of legends of saints and marvellous stories fabricated by the priests, and handed down as traditions among the people, whose ignorance placed them completely under the sway of the only class of men who were educated sufficiently to read and write, and by whom all copies were made of such books as they possessed at that day, which consisted only of rolls of parchment, penned laboriously by hand in the various monasteries, scattered throughout the different kingdoms of the then civilized world. The most famous battle between the Saxons and the Danes is known as the battle of Ashdown, and is thus described in the old English annals:— [Illustration: ALFRED. _Roy d’Angleterre,_ _Né en 849. Mort le 28.8bre. 899._] “At early dawn the hosts were on foot. Alfred marched up promptly with his men to give battle, but King Ethelred stayed long time in his tent at prayer hearing the mass. Now the Christians had determined that King Ethelred with his men should fight the two pagan kings, and that Alfred his brother, with his men, should take the chance of war against the earls. Things being so arranged, the king remained long time in prayer, while the pagans pressed on swiftly to the fight. Then Alfred, though holding the lower command, could no longer support the onslaught of the enemy without retreating, or charging upon them without waiting for his brother. A moment of fearful anxiety was this for the young prince, who thus no doubt mused: ‘Bagsac and the two Sidrocs at the top of the down with double my numbers, already overlapping my flanks: Ethelred still at mass—dare I go up at them? In the name of God and St. Cuthbert, yes!’ and with a strong heart, brave for this great crisis, Alfred puts himself at the head of his men, and leads them up the slope against the whole pagan host, ‘With the rush of a wild boar.’ For he too relied on the help of God. He formed his men in a dense phalanx to meet the foe, which was never broken in that long fight. Mass being over, Ethelred comes up to the help of his brother, and the battle raged along the whole hillside. The pagans occupied the higher ground, and the Christians came up from below. There was also in that place, a single stunted thorn-tree. Round this tree the opposing hosts