In January, 878, King Alfred disappears from the eyes of Saxon and
Northmen, and we follow him, by such light as tradition throws upon
these months, into the thickets and marshes of Selwood. It is at this
point, as is natural enough, that romance has been most busy, and it
has become impossible to disentangle the actual facts from monkish
legend and Saxon ballad. In happier times Alfred was in the habit
himself of talking over the events of his wandering life pleasantly
with his courtiers, and there is no reason to doubt that the foundation
of most of the stories still current rests on those conversations of
the truth-loving king, noted down by Bishop Asser and others.
The best known of these is, of course, the story of the cakes. In the
depths of the Saxon forests there were always a few neat-herds and
swine-herds, scattered up and down, living in rough huts enough we
may be sure, and occupied with the care of the cattle and herds of
their masters. Amongst these in Selwood was a neat-herd of the king, a
faithful man, to whom the secret of Alfred’s disguise was intrusted,
and who kept it even from his wife. To this man’s hut the king came
one day alone, and, sitting himself down by the burning logs on the
hearth, began mending his bows and arrows. The neat-herd’s wife had
just finished her baking, and, having other household matters to attend
to, confided her loaves to the king, a poor, tired looking body, who
might be glad of the warmth, and could make himself useful by turning
the batch, and so earn his share while she got on with other business.
But Alfred worked away at his weapons, thinking of anything but the
good housewife’s batch of loaves, which in due course were not only
done, but rapidly burning to a cinder. At this moment the neat-herd’s
wife comes back, and flying to the hearth to rescue the bread, cries
out, “D’rat the man! never to turn the loaves when you see them
burning. I’ze warrant you ready enough to eat them when they’re done.”
But beside the king’s faithful neat-herd, whose name is not preserved,
there are other churls in the forest, who must be Alfred’s comrades
just now if he will have any. And even here he has an eye for a good
man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to the best of his power.
Such a one he finds in a certain swine-herd called Denewulf, whom he
gets to know, a thoughtful Saxon man, minding his charge there in the
oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not which, has great
capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and desire to learn. So the king
goes to work upon Denewulf under the oak trees, when the swine will let
him, and is well satisfied with the results of his teachings and the
progress of his pupil.
But in those miserable days the commonest necessaries of life were hard
enough to come by for the king and his few companions, and for his wife
and family, who soon joined him in the forest, even if they were not
with him from the first. The poor foresters cannot maintain them, nor
are this band of exiles the men to live on the poor. So Alfred and his
comrades are soon foraging on the borders of the forest, and getting
what subsistence they can from the Pagan, or from the Christians who
had submitted to their yoke. So we may imagine them dragging on life
till near Easter when a gleam of good news comes up from the west, to
gladden the hearts and strengthen the arms of these poor men in the
depths of Selwood.
Soon after Guthrum and the main body of the Pagans moved from Gloster,
southwards, the Viking Hubba, as had been agreed, sailed with thirty
ships of war from his winter quarters on the South Welsh coast, and
landed in Devon. The news of the catastrophe at Chippenham, and of the
disappearance of the king, was no doubt already known in the west; and
in the face of it Odda the alderman cannot gather strength to meet the
Pagans in the open field. But he is a brave and true man, and will
make no term with the spoilers; so, with other faithful thegns of
King Alfred and their followers, he throws himself into a castle or
fort called Cynwith, or Cynnit, there to abide whatever issue of this
business God will send them. Hubba, with the war-flag Raven, and a host
laden with the spoil of rich Devon vales, appear in due course before
the place. It is not strong naturally, and has only “walls in our own
fashion,” meaning probably rough earth-works. But there are resolute
men behind them, and on the whole Hubba declines the assault, and sits
down before the place. There is no spring of water, he hears, within
the Saxon lines, and they are otherwise wholly unprepared for a siege.
A few days will no doubt settle the matter, and the sword or slavery
will be the portion of Odda and the rest of Alfred’s men; meantime
there is spoil enough in the camp from Devonshire homesteads, which
brave men can revel in round the war-flag Raven, while they watch the
Saxon ramparts. Odda, however, has quite other views than death from
thirst, or surrender. Before any stress comes, early one morning, he
and his whole force sally out over their earth-works, and from the
first “cut down the Pagans in great numbers;” eight hundred and forty
warriors (some say one thousand two hundred), with Hubba himself, are
slain before Cynnit fort; the rest, few in number, escape to their
ships. The war-flag Raven is left in the hands of Odda and the men of
Devon.
This is the news which comes to Alfred, Ethelnoth the alderman of
Somerset, Denewulf the swine-herd, and the rest of the Selwood Forest
group, some time before Easter. These men of Devonshire, it seems,
are still staunch, and ready to peril their lives against the Pagans.
No doubt up and down Wessex, thrashed and trodden out as the nation
is by this time, there are other good men and true, who will neither
cross the sea or the Welsh marches, nor make terms with the Pagan; some
sprinkling of men who will yet set life at stake, for faith in Christ
and love of England. If these can only be rallied, who can say what
may follow? So, in the lengthening days of spring, council is held in
Selwood and there will have been Easter services in some chapel, or
hermitage, in the forest, or, at any rate in some quiet glade. The “day
of days” will surely have had its voice of hope for this poor remnant.
Christ is risen and reigns; and it is not in these heathen Danes, or
in all the Northmen who ever sailed across the sea, to put back his
kingdom, or enslave those whom he has freed.
The result is, that, far away from the eastern boundary of the
forest, on a rising ground—hill it can scarcely be called—surrounded
by dangerous marshes formed by the little rivers Thone and Parret,
fordable only in summer, and even then dangerous to all who have not
the secret, a small fortified camp is thrown up under Alfred’s eye, by
Ethelnoth and the Somersetshire men, where he can once again raise his
standard. The spot has been chosen by the king with the utmost care,
for it is his last throw. He names it the Etheling’s eig or island,
“Athelney.” Probably his young son, the Etheling of England, is there
amongst the first, with his mother and his grand-mother Eadburgha, the
widow of Ethelred Mucil, the venerable lady whom Asser saw in later
years, and who has now no country but her daughter’s. There are, as
has been reckoned, some two acres of hard ground on the island, and
around vast brakes of alder-bush, full of deer and other game. Here the
Somersetshire men can keep up constant communication with him, and a
small army grows together. They are soon strong enough to make forays
into the open country, and in many skirmishes they cut off parties of
the Pagans, and supplies. “For, even when overthrown and cast down,”
says Malmesbury, “Alfred had always to be fought with; so then, when
one would esteem him altogether worn down and broken, like a snake
slipping from the hand of him who would grasp it, he would suddenly
flash out again from his hiding-places, rising up to smite his foes in
the height of their insolent confidence, and never more hard to beat
than after a flight.”
But it was still a trying life at Athelney. Followers came in slowly,
and provender and supplies of all kinds are hard to wring from the
Pagan, and harder still to take from Christian men. One day, while it
was yet so cold that the water was still frozen, the king’s people had
gone out “to get them fish or fowl, or some such purveyance as they
sustained themselves withal.” No one was left in the royal hut for the
moment but himself and his mother-in-law, Eadburgha. The king (after
his constant wont whensoever he had opportunity) was reading from the
Psalms of David, out of the Manual which he carried always in his
bosom. At this moment a poor man appeared at the door and begged for a
morsel of bread “for Christ his sake.” Whereupon the king, receiving
the stranger as a brother, called to his mother-in-law to give him to
eat. Eadburgha replied that there was but one loaf in their store, and
a little wine in a pitcher, a provision wholly insufficient for his
own family and people. But the king bade her, nevertheless, to give
the stranger part of the last loaf, which she accordingly did. But
when he had been served, the stranger was no more seen, and the loaf
remained whole, and the pitcher full to the brim. Alfred, meantime,
had turned to his reading, over which he fell asleep and dreamed that
St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne stood by him, and told him it was he who
had been his guest, and that God had seen his afflictions and those of
his people, which were now about to end, in token whereof his people
would return that day from their expedition with a great take of fish.
The king awaking, and being much impressed with his dream, called to
his mother-in-law and recounted it to her, who thereupon assured him
that she too had been overcome with sleep, and had had the same dream.
And while they yet talked together on what had happened so strangely
to them, their servants came in, bringing fish enough, as it seemed to
them, to have fed an army.
The monkish legend goes on to tell that on the next morning the king
crossed to the mainland in a boat, and wound his horn thrice, which
drew to him before noon five hundred men. What we may think of the
story and the dream, as Sir John Spelman says, “is not here very much
material,” seeing that whether we deem it natural or supernatural,
“the one as well as the other serves at God’s appointment, by raising
or dejecting of the mind with hopes or fears, to lead man to the
resolution of those things whereof he has before ordained the event.”