It has been disputed by grave historians, who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. I do not know when or where the story started it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, as the old balladists did. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. But King Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. This ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. This online edition was created and published by Global Grey on the 22nd February 2023.īook 6.
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