The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

by Benjamin R. Merkle

  Alfred’s own story is not without embellishment. According to one legend, Alfred gathered the men of Wessex to the battle of Ashdown by using the ghostly blast of the blowing stone, a peculiar hunk of sarsen stone that was found on the top of a nearby hill. The stone stands around three feet high and is pierced throughout by a maze of holes, some going only a few inches and stopping and some threading all the way through the stone via a network of winding chambers and chasms. The stone now sits in the front yard of a cottage not far from Blowing Stone Hill, where it once sat. The hole that serves as a mouthpiece is found 47 on top of the stone, its rim polished by centuries of lips pressing it smooth. Passersby are still welcome to give the stone a toot. The occupant of the cottage, I imagine, could be identified by a jittery, haunted aspect and poor hearing.

  The numerous fantastical elements attributed to Whitehorse Hill have had the effect of making the whole setting seem too mystical to be true. It has become the sort of setting that scholars tend to wave their hands at and say, “It’s all shrouded in myth. We’re not even sure if there ever really was a Whitehorse Hill.” But there is the horse, ghostly white and galloping along the hillside, whether or not we believe in his countless legends. We know that there really was an Alfred, who stood and faced the Viking invaders on the battlefield in AD 871. And though we may not know for certain that Whitehorse Hill was the site of the battle, it is easily the most likely candidate.

  When Alfred composed his will many years later, he left three of his fifty-five estates to his wife Ealswith. One was Wantage, the place of his birth. The other two were Edington and Lambourn. Edington was the site of one of Alfred’s later victories over Viking forces. Lambourn was an estate just south of Whitehorse Hill, the site where, according to legend, Alfred gathered his forces just before the battle of Ashdown. It would seem that when Alfred composed his will, he picked three properties filled with personal significance to give to his wife. Last, it should be remembered that the only identifying feature the historian Asser gave for the battlefield of Ashdown was a solitary thorn tree. Oddly, the Anglo-Saxon charter describing the Whitehorse hillside named a solitary thorn tree as one of the identifying features of the property line.

  Though these clues may not form definitive proof that 48 Whitehorse Hill was the site of the battle of Ashdown, they present a much stronger case than any of the other proposed locations. One certainly begins to wonder what caused scholars to become so sensitive about the legend of the white horse and forced them to prefer other more speculative options. Virtually the only thing that makes Kingstanding Hill more preferable than Whitehorse Hill is that it is not legendary.

  Kingstanding Hill is not smothered with legends and has a non-mythical, unromanticized, scholarly plainness about it. It can be slipped into a footnote without attracting attention to itself, whereas the Whitehorse immediately evokes snorts and guffaws because of the preposterously fantastical legends heaped onto it. But this is such a remarkably miserly way to interpret the evidence. It is more likely that the many layers of legends surrounding Whitehorse Hill have accumulated there because, as the location of the great battle of Ashdown, it was assumed that other spectacular events must have happened there as well.

  © MARK ROSS/SURFACE

  The Viking forces carefully chose their battle positions before the soldiers of Wessex had arrived at Ashdown. Bagsecg and Halfdan, the two Viking kings, selected the highest point on the hillside for their defensive position, lining up their men along the crest of the ridge and forcing the Wessex army to attack from below. Though the Vikings may have been using horses or ponies to speed their travel, the horses would have been released before the battle because the Vikings preferred to fight on their feet rather than on horseback. The Danish army was then divided into two units—one commanded by the two Viking kings, Bagsecg and Halfdan, and the other commanded by a collection of the Viking earls.

  Though the Vikings, as a result of cunning and not cowardice, may have frequently used a strategy that minimized engaging in the sort of open-field combat they were about to face the Viking soldiers were nothing but battle hungry on that bitterly cold morning. Like hungry wolves, they waited uneasy, almost parched with blood thirst. They sat on the ridge, watching for the approach of the Wessex soldiers from below, testing their blades and tightening their armor, promising their gods a grisly sacrifice of victims soon to be offered up on the battlefield.

  The tools of the trade, the weapons of the Viking warrior, played such a significant role that they were often prescribed by Danish law and were regularly inspected by legal officials to ensure that each and every free Viking male was prepared to play the important role of warrior. Each soldier was required to carry a sword or a battle-axe, a shield, and a spear. Swords tended to be the weapons of the wealthier Viking warriors. The sword blade was generally around two-and-a-half to three-feet long, double-edged, and constructed to be held in one hand. Since swords were already significantly more expensive than axes, they tended to be more ornate. The hilt of the sword was often elaborately decorated with costly metals, figures, and patterns. Some were marked with runic letters, engraved into the blade, which either named the blade or invoked magical powers to give the blade bloody success in battle.

  The less wealthy of the Viking warriors, who could not afford a sword, settled for an axe. Most of these axes were everyday tools and were not reserved solely for battle. They were not double-edged, contrary to many modern depictions. They were single-edged blades, measuring anywhere from three to seventeen inches across the arc of the blade. The haft on which the axe head sat was anywhere from twenty to forty inches long. The shorter the handle, the easier the axe would have been to wield with one hand, leaving another hand free to hold a shield, and the easier to throw as well. Longer-handled axes required two hands for swinging, so the soldier lost the ability to use a shield but added great force and reach to the deadly chop.

  The Viking shield was circular, two and a half to three feet in diameter. The bulk of the shield was constructed of wooden planks, less than half of an inch thick, butted together, bound together by metal bands, and covered in leather. At the center of the shield was a large hole in the wood, covered by a six-inch iron dome called the “shield boss.” Inside the boss a handle was mounted for gripping the shield. The protection offered by the wooden planks of the outer shield was not much use in close hand-to-hand fighting since a few blows of an enemy sword or axe would cut it to kindling. The usefulness of the shield was the protection it offered from the attack of arrows and spears fired as the opposing forces were still closing in on one another. Though the missiles pierced the wooden planks slightly, the shield offered adequate protection from the barrage.

  The shield boss ensured that the point where the Viking gripped his shield was entirely protected, keeping his shield hand safe from harm. The shield boss also offered a second offensive weapon once the clash of close combat had begun. Though the wooden shield would be slowly chopped away in the hand-to-hand hacking, the large iron dome gripped in the fist of the shield hand became a deadly cudgel delivered in the form of a left hook.

  Lastly, each man carried his spear. Though the modern audience tends to think of the spear as a clumsy accessory and not as crucial to the warrior’s arsenal as the sword or shield, this opinion was not shared by the ninth-century Viking. Once two forces had closed on each other, the spear was often the most effective tool for reaching past the enemies’ defenses and striking a lethal blow. The iron spearhead was anywhere from eight inches to two feet in length. It was crafted with a savage beauty, lethally barbed and inlayed with intricate designs in precious metals. The shaft of the spear, cut from the wood of the ash tree, could reach up to ten feet in length. The spears were carefully balanced so that they could be thrown with a deadly accuracy. In open battle, however, most spears were held, rather than thrown, and used for thrusting once the two armies clashed.

  Armor, like the sword, was expensive and therefore available only to th
ose who paid handsomely. It would be possible but rare to find a Viking in a mail “byrnie,” a large mail shirt. The Viking helmet with its iconic horns, ever-present in modern depictions of the Viking warrior, is almost entirely a fantasy. Occasionally a particularly wealthy Danish chieftain might be found in an iron helmet with an ornamented ridge arcing over the top of the skull, for added protection, and an extravagant faceguard, crafted more with an eye toward terrifying the enemy than actually protecting the face. But the horns are a myth and never appeared on the Viking helmet.

  The Viking forces lined up on the winter-chilled slope of Ashdown and stood proudly waiting for the troops of Wessex to make their way up the hillside. The division of the Viking army into two units had been communicated to King Æthelred and his brother Alfred earlier in the morning, while they were still in their camps a short distance from the battle. The two decided on a course of action similar to the strategy of the Danish army. Æthelred would take half of the troops and face the two Viking kings—Bagsecg and Halfdan. It was only appropriate that the Wessex king face off against the Viking kings. Alfred would take the second half of the Wessex army and take his stand against the Viking earls and their warriors. This battle plan having been fixed, the two brothers said their good-byes to one another and returned to their troops to face their fortunes in war.

  As he returned to his men, Alfred was faced with a difficult task. He was barely twenty-two years old and had only experienced his first combat four days earlier, an experience that had not gone well for him or his troops. He was neither a king nor a seasoned warrior. He had little to commend himself to the men of Wessex who were now expected to follow him up the soon-to-be-bloodied slope of Ashdown. Lacking age, experience, and the crown, Alfred had no room for indecision, bumbling, or cowardice. His demeanor had to be resolute, sharp, and bold.

  After he had returned to his men, he wasted little time before informing them of the task at hand. He charged them to acquit themselves like men, to be worthy of the king they served, to remember their God, and to trust in God’s strength and mercy. Then he ordered them to take up their weapons, form their ranks, and be quick about it all. This done, he led his soldiers, marching silently, fighting back the uneasiness in the stomach and the trembling in the hand, through the frosted woods that cluttered the base of Ashdown. After a short march, they spilled out of the woods and onto the rising slope of the battleground, into the full view of the Viking throng.

  Upon seeing the arrival of the men of Wessex, the Vikings erupted into a barrage of derisive howls and jeers. The Viking taunt was a studied and oft-practiced literary genre among the Danish warriors. The subject matter of this mockery moved from general observations about the cowardice of the opponent and how his corpse would soon be fed to birds, to more personal speculations about the various womenfolk waiting behind in the Wessex villages, and usually culminated in the accusation that the men of Wessex actually lacked any natural affections for women in the first place. Though it may have been easy for Alfred to ignore the content of the Danish insults, what could not be ignored was that the Viking warriors, who swarmed the crest of the hill above, were utterly unafraid of the battle to come. In fact, they hungered for it with a bemusing confidence.

  But far more dismaying to Alfred than the taunting force on the hillside ahead was the absence on either flank of his brother and the second half of the Wessex army. The plan had been for both Alfred and Æthelred to immediately muster their forces and march to face the Danes. But Æthelred was nowhere in sight. Alfred would later learn that after the two had made their battle plans and separated, Æthelred had returned to his tent and summoned his priest in order that he might hear mass before facing the morning’s combat. The king was late for battle because, as the historian would later explain, he was lingering long in his prayers.

  Whether Æthelred had expected Alfred to take longer to muster his troops or whether he had been overwhelmed by the moment, is unrecorded. It would be understandable if Æthelred had felt a little more fear than Alfred at the prospect of charging into this particular battle. Considering the fates of the previous Anglo-Saxon kings who had lost to the invading Northmen, there was a uniquely gory risk that the king took in picking up his sword for this fight.

  The Wessex army appeared to the Vikings to be much smaller than expected and were also transparently bewildered and unprepared for combat. The Viking commanders saw a welcome opportunity and commanded their men to attack. Alfred stood with only half of the Wessex army, looking confusedly about him, unsure whether he should wait for his brother to appear or quickly withdraw his men. Next the confusion turned to desperation when he saw the Viking men above, stretched out in battle array and beginning to advance. Unprepared and halved in strength, how could his men face the descending swarm?

  But it was clear that withdrawing his men was no longer an option. If he pulled his men from the battlefield, the Vikings would hotly pursue. Then the men of Wessex would be chased through the forests like hunted rabbits and their corpses strewn all along the Berkshire Downs. Alfred had run from the Viking army only four days before. As terrifying as the battle line before him may have been, he knew that he preferred to face the crashing wave of Vikings head-on, rather than to be hunted and cut down from behind.

  Alfred gave the command to form the shieldwall.

  Even as early as the time of Alfred, the shieldwall was already considered an ancient tactic, hearkening all the way back to the ancient Greek hoplites of the seventh century BC. It consisted simply of a line of men standing shoulder to shoulder with their shields overlapping one another, forming a continuous wall of protection. This line of shields was supported by a depth of approximately ten ranks of additional soldiers positioned behind the front line, leaning into the front rank to allow them to hold their ground and stay locked together (not unlike a rugby scrum). This tight formation had the potential to be virtually impenetrable, provided that the courage and endurance of the soldiers held. Having formed the shieldwall, the Wessex army was prepared to face the oncoming crush of the Viking horde. Alfred joined the shieldwall, standing shoulder to shoulder with his men. The notion of being led into battle by a man who wasn’t willing to personally lead the charge would have been unthinkable to the men of Wessex.

  As the two armies closed on each other, the various taunts and jeers of the Viking throng began to coalesce into a steady guttural rumble that rolled down the hillside. The deep rumble grew ever louder until that moment—after a seemingly interminable approach—when the first spear tip drove hard into the defiant shieldwall and the valley shook with the crack of the collision. Every nervous stomach, every quivering hand, every dry tongue, all foreboding fears and presentiments, were instantly transformed into resolution and determination; and the shieldwall erupted with a deafening war cry.

  Much to the surprise of the Viking army, the Wessex shield-wall not only held after the first impact, but it began to push the Viking force backward almost immediately after that initial impact. The sensation for Alfred’s men was probably similar to the feeling a boy has in his first athletic competition, when he suddenly realizes he is equal to his opponent who had seemed so invincible when considered from a distance. Emboldened by the initial success of the shieldwall, the Anglo-Saxons began to slash and hack their way forward, pushing hard against the Viking host, driving them back up the hillside.

  Alfred’s biographer later emphasized the rightness of the cause of the Wessex soldiers, a confidence that their fight was just and that God was on their side. The intensity of the fight, the thrill of the early success, the confidence of divine favor, all worked powerfully on Alfred, awakening a savage fury in him. His men later described him as a wild boar on the battlefield, a bloody beast, rampaging through the Viking lines in a ruthless rage. On and on the combat continued, swirling around a lone thorn tree. Many years after the battle was over, veterans would come and point with pride to that thorn tree, which marked the very spot on the hillside where they had
stood with Alfred and fought in the battle of Ashdown.

  The surprising strength with which the Wessex shieldwall resisted the initial Viking charge may have sent a momentary disappointment through the Danish host. They quickly converted their hope for an easy victory into an indefatigable determination to bathe the slopes of Ashdown in Wessex blood. Soon the ground gained by Saxon troops was being slowly granted back again to the Viking horde, passing the lonely thorn tree once more.

  A well-formed shieldwall was virtually impenetrable, so long as the wall held together. If a gap could be cut into the wall, then the enemy would pour through the line and attack from behind, where the wall was vulnerable. Once a hole was cut into the shieldwall, even if for just a moment, the sudden attack of enemy soldiers from behind made it impossible to keep the formation together; the shieldwall would be abandoned quickly, and general chaos would ensue. Thus, most methods for assaulting the wall focused on ripping open the wall, hoping to capitalize on the bedlam that inevitably followed.

  An attack would come as a sudden hard push, a human battering ram, where one shieldwall tried to outmuscle the other. In this type of engagement, the primary weapon was the spear. Instead of being thrown, the spear was kept in hand and thrust over and in between the shields. The spear’s length made it possible to wield it effectively against the enemy while standing several ranks back from the front line of the shieldwall. A Norse manual would later insist that a spear was worth two swords when fighting against a shieldwall.