Selwood Forest

Selwood Forest is an area of woodland on the borders between Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire in south west England. In Anglo-Saxon times it was far more substantial and covered a much greater area forming a natural barrier between the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex and the Britons of Dumnonia and the Severn Valley.

The name Selwood is first recorded in Old English around 894 as Seluudu which some etymologists consider to derive from Sealhwudu or Sallow wood.

Selwood may have been the location of the Battle of Peonnum in 658. At this battle King Cenwalh of Wessex defeated the Britons and annexed Somerset as far west as the River Parret. Selwood is the location of Egbert's Stone, where Alfred the Great rallied his forces against the Great Heathen Army in 878. The event is recorded in Asser's Life of King Alfred:

In the seventh week after Easter, Alfred rode to the stone of Egbert, which is in the eastern part of the wood which is called Selwood, which means in Latin Silva Magna, the Great Wood, but in British Coit mawr and there met him all the inhabitants of Somerset and Wiltshire, and all such inhabitants of Hampshire as had not sailed beyond sea for fear of the Pagans, and upon seeing the King received him as was proper like one come to life again after so many troubles, and were filled with excessive joy, and there they encamped for one night."
Asser's "The Life of King Alfred"^[1]

See also

• Ælfgar of Selwood

References