The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

by Benjamin R. Merkle

  © ISTOCK PHOTOS

  Throughout the evening, the band of men occasionally would grow silent when the thrumming of the lyre began and the poet-bard, the scop, began his singing. The song of the scop hovered somewhere between a haunting melody and rhythmic chant, with its steady meter strummed out on the lyre. The words of the scop brought back to life the legends of old at the same time that they immortalized the names of the men sitting in the hall. They told of the glory of battles fought bravely, whether won or lost. They spoke of the nobility of loyal thegns who stood resolutely by their lord no matter the cost. They spoke of the treachery of men who had eaten at the lord’s table, taken his gifts, but then become unmanned at the sight of the enemy shieldwall and, filled with cowardice, turned their backs on their lord and ran from battle. They listed the names of the heroes and the cowards.

  When the songs were finished, the king would give out gifts to his thegns. Generously, the gift giver would open up his treasure hoard and pour out his wealth to his loyal men. He gave gracious gifts of land with estates to noblemen. He gave farms and the profit that came with them. He gave horses, sacks of gold and silver coins, shields, helmets, swords, axes, necklaces, bracelets, and rings. This last category, the category of rings, came to epitomize the gifts of a gracious king. All Anglo-Saxon lords became known as “ring-givers.” In return for these generous gifts, the men of the mead hall would pledge their complete devotion back to the ring-giver. If the king ever found himself in need of an army to face down an enemy, he would find that his gift giving had not been in vain. His loyal thegns would rise up and stand unflinching in the shieldwall to live or die with their ring-giver.

  Years later, when Alfred had the leisure to write, he described feasting in the mead hall and the warm fellowship between the ring-giver and his thegns, the deep bond of comitatus, as the closest approximation he could make to life in heaven. This was life in the court of a king as it should be. Whenever something went wrong in Anglo-Saxon society, it was inevitably revealed as a failure to honor the most basic obligations pledged in the ring-giver’s mead hall.

  Those who were ostracized from this fellowship became the outcasts of Anglo-Saxon society—the men who had betrayed their lords or committed such heinous deeds that they had been driven from civilization. The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf opens with Grendel, a goblin-like descendent of Cain who prowls outside the great mead hall of Heorot, provoked to anger by the sounds of the comradery and fellowship of the ring-giver and his thegns within the hall. The monster Grendel walks the marshes and moors at night, listening to the voice of the scop chanting to the thrumming of his lyre, singing about Almighty God’s creation of the earth. The song drives Grendel into a bloodthirsty rage, and he breaks into the mead hall that night to gorge on the flesh of the warriors sleeping there. For the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon, to be cast out of the mead hall was to be placed in the same company as Grendel, to be haters of God, haters of humanity.2

  King Alfred had become a wanderer, a Grendel, prowling the wilds of Wessex. Betrayed and forsaken by many of his nobles, he turned to a close inner circle of family and friends who had remained loyal and followed him into hiding. This small band of warriors built a hidden camp for themselves in the far reaches of the Somerset levels at Athelney. From here, Alfred was able to continue his campaign against the Danes, by means of a sort of guerrilla warfare.

  A large part of the success of this campaign came from the strategic location of his new hideout. A small piece of raised ground, guarded on one side by the river Tone and on all other sides by swamps, bogs, and flooding lakes, Athelney was approachable only by boat. William of Malmesbury, the early twelfth-century historian, described Athelney as an island, “though not an island of the sea.” A scarce two acres of dry land rose up out of the marshy surrounds, but it was more than enough space to support the exiled king and his band of followers. With their stags, goats, and other wild beasts, these two wooded acres soon became Alfred’s swampy fortress, a mead hall of the marshes and moors.

  Alfred and his men spent the first wintery months of AD 878 at Athelney looking for opportunities to harass the Viking army as it attempted to occupy and consolidate power in its newly conquered territory. In small bands, the warriors of Wessex would creep out of the Somerset levels and seek Viking vulnerabilities. Where they encountered smaller parties of Danes, they attacked and slaughtered ruthlessly. Where they found larger Viking camps, they crept cautiously in, under cover of darkness, and quietly looted the camp of all its portable provisions. Those men of Wessex who had deserted their lord and pledged their allegiance to the pagan invaders also became targets of Alfred’s frequent raids. Alfred wanted to make it clear to the people of Wessex that the king of the nation had not abandoned his land; he was still the ring-giver of Wessex, repaying his faithful thegns for their loyalty and punishing the traitors. Nearly all the great legends for which Alfred is still remembered refer to these few months as Alfred wandered the wilds of Wessex figuring out how to retake his kingdom.

  Since many of these legends did not originate until several centuries later, they are probably not as reliable as the more contemporary accounts of Alfred’s life. Admittedly, these later stories tend to be more fantastic. For instance, William of Malmesbury recounted how Alfred dressed himself up as a juggler and walked openly into the camp of the Danes, who, not recognizing him and thinking he was some sort of entertainer, welcomed him into their camp and demanded that he perform. The disguised king obliged them and performed for the Viking camp for several days, delighting them thoroughly. During this time he was able to walk freely through the camp, spying out their numbers, checking on their state of readiness, and collecting all the information necessary for forming his own strategies of attack.

  Other legends emphasize how Alfred retained his care and compassion for the people of Wessex, despite the difficult lesson of humility that God was teaching him throughout his exile. In one account, as the king’s men went out to fish one afternoon, the king and his wife stayed behind with a servant in their small dwelling on Athelney. A pilgrim came and begged bread of the king, who sent the servant to see how much food they had to spare. The servant returned to say that the family only had one loaf of bread and a bit of wine. Alfred immediately commanded that half of the loaf and half of the wine be given to the beggar, who took the gifts with gratitude. Of course, it was discovered later that the loaf of bread and the bit of wine had not been diminished at all, despite having been shared. That afternoon the fishing party returned with a miraculously bountiful catch. But the greatest surprise came that night when Saint Cuthbert, the great saint of Lindisfarne, appeared to Alfred to reveal that he had been the wandering pilgrim who had taken Alfred’s bread and wine. Because of Alfred’s generosity, Cuthbert would be the king’s shield and friend and would watch over Alfred from then on. Cuthbert also gave Alfred a prophecy of his upcoming victory over the Danes, as well as the promise that Alfred would soon be the king of all Britain.

  Most of these accounts first appeared in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, leaving good reason to suspect that exaggerations have crept into the stories through many retellings of the tale. But the earliest legend of Alfred’s months of wandering, and by far the most famous of all the stories of Alfred, is the story of Alfred and the cakes. The story appears in the tenth-century Life of Saint Neot, less than a century after Alfred’s death. Neot had served as a monk in Cornwall, dying around AD 870, only a few years before Alfred came to Athelney.

  According to the Life of Saint Neot, Alfred had heard Neot teach earlier in his life and was reflecting on a lesson that seemed to apply to his current hapless state. Neot had taught on Hebrews 12:6, in which the writer had quoted Proverbs 3:11–12, exhorting one not to despise the chastening of the Lord, because he chastises and scourges every son whom he receives. Alfred had this teaching in mind when he first arrived at Athelney, where he found an old swineherd’s cottage. Alfred, completely alone at this point, sought refuge in this
cottage where he was taken in and given food and shelter. The king did not divulge his true identity to the swineherd or his wife, however, and pretended to be a wandering commoner.

  One afternoon as the swineherd was out in the pastures, Alfred sat in the cottage kitchen while the swineherd’s wife busied herself with her household chores. As the king sat, he became absorbed in deep deliberation about his desperate plight. So lost in the contemplation of his own sorrows, Alfred failed to notice that a tray of cakes the peasant woman had placed into the oven to bake had begun to burn right in front of him. When the swineherd’s wife saw the smoke of the burning cakes pour out of the oven and the distracted king sitting right in front of the oven doing nothing to save the cakes, she became furious and castigated Alfred for failing to turn the cakes. “Even though you are more than willing to eat the cakes when they come warm from the oven,” she chided, “you still won’t take the trouble to turn them when you see them burning!” Alfred, recalling the lesson he had been meditating on from Saint Neot, humbly accepted the correction and turned his attention to the baking cakes.

  From his swampy refuge in Athelney, Alfred communicated through his continued attacks on the Danish camps, as well as on the traitors of Wessex, his undying determination to resist the Viking occupation, promising that he would one day soon rise up and drive the Danes from the borders of Wessex. The tales of Alfred’s escapades comforted those who had remained loyal to the king throughout the occupation and discomforted those with Danish sympathies. As the legends of Alfred’s resistance grew, they began to inspire other Wessex nobles to resist the Danish trespassers with greater resolve.

  Toward the close of the winter of AD 878, as Alfred tended the cakes, the fyrd of Devon mobilized to fend off another invading Viking army. Ubbe, son of Ragnar Lothbrok, had sailed with a navy from Dyfed, in southwest Wales, to the northern coast of Devon. Ubbe had wintered in Dyfed, where in those few months he had slaughtered many of the Welsh natives. Now, hearing of Guthrum’s advances in Wessex, Ubbe longed for a share in the booty and spoils of this last-standing Saxon nation.

  Ubbe entered the Bristol Channel with twenty-three ships and landed on the shore of Devon. Odda, the ealdorman of Devon, led the Devon fyrd to the coastal town of Countisbury, where they prepared to intercept the newly arrived Viking army. The fyrd of Devon attempted to fortify Countisbury, but their work was cut short by the approaching Danish army long before it had been completed. Fortunately, despite the unfinished defenses, the craggy terrain that surrounded Countisbury provided a significant natural defense for the town. Because of the awkward situation of the town, Ubbe disliked the idea of a frontal assault on Odda’s men. Instead, Ubbe opted to lay siege to the town, intent on starving the Saxons out.

  Ubbe carried a legendary flag with him, which had been sewn by his three sisters for their father before his death. The flag was a triangular pennant with a border of tassels and the image of a raven sewn into the center. The raven symbolized Odin, the war god of the Vikings who gave the Danish warriors strength against their enemies. Odin was said to keep two ravens perched on his shoulders, one named Hugin, “thought,” and the other Munin, “memory.” These two birds flew off every morning at dawn, traveling throughout the world and bringing back news to whisper into Odin’s ears. The presence of ravens wheeling and circling over a battlefield before a great combat, waiting to feast on the flesh of the fallen warriors, testified to Odin’s special love for battles. The carrion birds devouring the dead was taken as a clear sign that Odin had accepted the carnage of the battle as a pleasing sacrifice.

  The raven on the flag that Ubbe carried was said to have been imbued with magical qualities by his own sisters. Before a battle, if the Viking forces were to be victorious, the flag would prophesy that victory by fluttering and flapping, regardless of whether there was a breeze or not. If the battle was doomed to go against the Viking army, then the flag would hang still, no matter how fierce a gale blew against it.

  As the men of Devon considered their situation, it was clear that they were fairly unprepared for a siege. Their preparations had been too hasty. In addition to not completing the fortifications of the town, they had not had time to stock Countisbury with the necessary provisions. Food supplies were already low, and there was no source of water within the town’s defenses. Their future looked grim as they peered over the fortifications of Countisbury at the ominous raven banner, trying to discern whether the banner hung still or stood out, unfurled by a nonexistent breeze. And so, rather than wait until the situation became dire, the men of Devon decided to strike while they still had their strength, placing the Viking attackers on the defensive. It seemed to them that if one was doomed to die, it would be better to die while grasping for freedom, rather than while being starved into submission.

  Bursting suddenly out of the besieged stronghold at dawn, they crashed into the astonished Viking army in an utterly unexpected frenzy. The Danish army was completely unprepared for this assault, and their front forces were overrun in an instant. Though outmanned, the sheer audacity of the attack gave the battle to the Saxon army. As the rampaging men of Devon cut through the astonished Viking front line, the rest of Ubbe’s men had no choice but to turn and run. The savage predator had become the frantic prey. All the way to the coast of Devon, the Saxons chased the fleeing Vikings, hacking down virtually the entire Viking force. By the time the slaughter was finished, Ubbe and eight hundred of his men lay dead, a fresh feast for the ravens. Ragnar’s banner, the raven flag, was carried proudly from the place of slaughter by Ealdorman Odda.

  Many of the ealdormen of Wessex continued to put up a resistance against the Danish occupation. Men like Odda of Devon regularly proved to the Vikings that the Wessex resistance had not been entirely crushed. Had Alfred wanted to, he could have easily withdrawn from Athelney to a shire where the resistance to the Viking occupation was more established. Hampshire and Dorset seemed to be relatively untouched by the Viking invaders, and Alfred could have simply retreated to one of these royal estates. But the king refused to leave Somerset. Through his persistent raids on the unsuspecting Danes, he sought to remind Guthrum that the king of Wessex had not abandoned his nation. He also kept fresh in the minds of the people of Wessex that their king was soon to return, ready to repay the faithful and the unfaithful accordingly. But most of all, Alfred remained in Somerset because he insisted on staying as close to Guthrum as possible, shadowing all of his movements and observing his tactics. Alfred was studying his enemy, learning to hunt all over again.

  1 Wassail was a drink that derived its name from the Old English wæs hæl, meaning “be you well.”

  2 Another poem, The Wanderer, describes the sorrows of a man who had served a lord who had died in battle. His ring-giver gone, the wanderer has been robbed of the hall fellowship that he once had with his lord. He, too, has been driven to wander the unforgiving wastelands of Anglo-Saxon England.

  CHAPTER 5

  Whitsunday and the

  Battle of Edington

  Now his passion and his resurrection have become our Eastertide, since he has loosed us from the bondage of the Devil, and our persecutors are submerged through that holy baptism, just as Pharaoh and his men in the Red Sea.

  —ÆLFRIC , Catholic Homilies I. xxii

  The months spent at Athelney gave Alfred the opportunity to reflect on his defeats and the various missteps he had made during the first few years of his reign. He could not be faulted for his zeal or for his raw courage during that brief period, but he began to realize he had lacked the cunning necessary to outwit such a battle-savvy opponent as Guthrum. The only great victory he had experienced to date had been the glorious triumph at Ashdown. But that victory had come largely as a result of an entirely accidental ruse the Saxons had played on the Vikings. Hiding half of Wessex’s forces until after the battle was well under way had been a brilliant and effective trick. But it had been an entirely unintended stratagem, whereas the pagan warriors seemed capable of deceivi
ng and manipulating the Saxons almost at will. They could lure the gullible Christians into almost any treaty and then break it without a second thought. They could exchange hostages as a great show of good intentions and then slit the throats of the innocents a moment later.

  Not only were the Vikings significantly more cunning, they were also far more logistically effective. They could successfully organize incredibly complex troop movements, sending one army over land and another by sea to meet at a prearranged point—hundreds of miles deep into their enemy’s territory and weeks into the future. Even more astonishing, they could execute these troop movements through hundreds of miles of Wessex territory, with Wessex only beginning to notice when one of her great cities had already been seized and fortified against her. If Alfred was to be victorious against Guthrum, he would need the ability to defeat the Danish king at his own game.

  Additionally, if Alfred was to make a stand against the Viking conquerors, then he would need to find a way of instilling a deeper sense of principle in the Wessex ealdormen. Across Britain, the Vikings had thoroughly exploited all the character defects in the Saxon leadership. By capitalizing on these weaknesses, the Danes had easily divided the Saxon nobility and weakened Britain’s resistance to their conquest. For instance, when the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok invaded Northumbria, they struck just as the nation had fallen into a vicious civil war between Osberht and Ælle, two contenders for the Northumbrian throne. The bitter infighting of the Northumbrian leadership had left the nation defenseless and ripe for the picking.