This selection, the entry for the year 755 (an error for 757) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, offers a detailed account of the deaths of two feuding members of the West-Saxon royal family. The wealth of detail here is remarkable for such an early Chronicle entry (the final paragraph, on the Mercian succession, is much more typical of the eighth-century entries). Presumably the chronicler thought this exemplary tale of loyalty in extreme circumstances compelling enough to justify a radical departure from his usual style.

For a complete text of the earliest manuscript of the Chronicle, see Janet Bately, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition: Vol. 3, MS A (Cambridge, 1986).