ance of
his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, as well as from
Germany, and he was thence joined by a fresh army under the command
of Porte, and of his sons Bleda and Megla.[***] Strengthened by these
succors, he fought, in the year 508, a desperate battle with the
Britons, commanded by Nazan Leod, who was victorious in the beginning of
the action, and routed the wing in which Cerdic himself commanded. But
Kenric, who had prevailed in the other wing, brought timely assistance
to his father, and restored the battle, which ended in a complete
victory gained by the Saxons.[****] Nazan Leod perished, with
five thousand of his army; but left the Britons more weakened than
discouraged by his death. The war still continued, though the success
was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short swords and manner
of fighting gave them great advantage over the missile weapons of the
Britons.

[* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

[** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. I, p. 12. Chron. Sax. p.
15.]

[*** Chron. Sax. p. 17.]

[**** H. Hunting, lib ii. Ethelwerd, lib. i. Chron.
Sax. p. 17.]

Cerdic was not wanting to in good fortune; and in order to extend
his conquests, he laid siege to Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath,
whither the most obstinate of the discomfited Britons had retired. The
southern Britons, in this extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur,
prince of the Silures, whose heroic valor now sustained the declining
fate of his country.[*] This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the
songs of Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, ana
use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians, as
among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
exaggerations. Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by the
Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in a
great battle.[**] This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic; but
was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had already
made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established the kingdom
of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of Hants, Dorset,
Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their new-acquired
dominions to their