When the Viking warlord, Guthrum, ambushed King Alfred the Great of Wessex while he was celebrating Christmas at Chippenham, Alfred had no choice but to run with his family and a few guards. 

Hearing that Guthrum's forces were spreading out all over Wessex, the only safe place for Alfred to go was the marshland of Somerset which he knew as a boy.

Alfred was now a fugitive in his own kingdom, hiding out in a swamp with his family and just a few guards. Mercia had fallen four years earlier, crushed by the Vikings just as Northumbia and East Anglia had been before it.

It seemed Wessex was going the same way.

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