by Chesterton · Cluster: Heroism · Hero · Last Stand
Abstract
Chesterton’s epic ballad of King Alfred’s last stand against the pagan Danes at Ethandune, framed by a vision of the Virgin; the struggle of Christianity and heathenism, heroism, hope without guarantee.
Capitoli / Chapters
Connections
Topoi: Last Stand, War as Glory, Quest Archetypes: King, Hero, Villain, Great Mother Motifs: Horse, Swords and Weapons, Supernatural, Blood, Battlefield (2), Fire, Sea, Music and Song, Flags and Banners, Concealment Hidden Identity, Sea and Voyage Themes & Concepts: Faith, Heroism, War and its Cost, Good vs Evil, Nationalism and Patriotism, Honour, Fate and Free Will, Grace and Redemption, Hope, Conversion, History Forms & Genres: Epic, Ballad Ballade, Narrative Poem Historical References: King Alfred, Battle of Ethandun, Danish Invasions, Christianity, Norse Pagan Myth, Medieval England Settings: Battlefield, Rural England Characters: King Alfred (2), Virgin Mary, Guthrum, Colan, Eldred, Mark of Italy, Elf, Ogier, Harold, Gorlias
Testo integrale / Full text
Preface
This reissue of the illustrated tenth edition of The Ballad of the White Horse provides an elegant copy of Chesterton’s epic of Alfred. Robert Austin’s illustrations place the reader in King Alfred’s embattled world; the introduction and endnotes supply the historical and legendary underpinnings of the “aboriginal struggle of the Pagans and the Christians.” The uniqueness of the notes lies in excerpts from Asser’s Deeds of Alfred, in the inclusion of annals from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and in criticisms and appreciations by modern scholars. Now on its eighty-second anniversary through the generosity of Kathleen Bohn, Thelma A. Haley, Janet Happy Jackson, Jean Scanlan, and Anna Marie Summerlin, a new generation of readers may ponder and savor Chesterton’s way of looking at life.
My warmest gratitude goes to Anna Mary Waickman whose love and encouragement have promoted the publication of this literary classic.
Donald F. Finlay, Louise H. Girard, and Connie Lewin of St. Michael University College Library in Toronto receive special mention for providing ideal facilities for users of the Chesterton Archives.
The editor is deeply indebted to A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund for permission to use quotations from G. K. Chesterton’s Cobbett, A Short History of England, and for excerpts from the Chesterton Archives: the first stanza of an early unpublished poem about Moses and two lines from a rejected stanza of the BWH.
The editor gratefully acknowledges the permission to quote from the following publications: James Campkell’s The Anglo-Saxons, Cornell University Press; Alice S. Green’s History of the Irish to 1014, Macmillan; P. J. Chandlery’s Mary’s Praise on Every Tongue, Manresa Press; Christopher Hollis’s The Mind of Chesterton, University of Miami Press; Richard Muir’s History from the Air, Mickael Joseph Ltd.; Duncan Norton-Taylor’s The Emergence of Man: The Celts. Time-Life Books; Maisie Ward’s The English Way, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and The Splendor of the Rosary, Sheed & Ward; Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s Autobiography, and The Queen of Seven Swords, Sheed & Ward; Garry Wills’s Chesterton, Man and Mask, Sheed & Ward.
The following periodicals allow quotations from their pages: Archaeological Journal (G. B. Grundy’s “Ancient Highways and Tracks”), Christian Century (Garry Wills’s “A Chesterton for the Right”), New York Times Book Review (“The Ballad of the White Horse”), (“The Making of England”), and (“The Ebullient Genius of G.K. Chesterton”), Times Literary Supplement (“Mr. Chesterton in Verse”), and (“G.K. Chesterton: Child and Man”).
Sincere appreciation goes to Linnea Dudley and LaTayna Hurt for their valuable technical assistance. Revisions, clarifications, and new interpretations resulted from the critical reading of the manuscript by Garry Wills, Patricia Glaab, David Adam Ezel, Hilda Bonham, Ruth McGuire, Mary Laubacher, and Anne Marie Murphy.
The editor also expresses thanks to Andrea Lee, John R. Novak, Candace Webster, Catherine Mulroy, Helena Connelly, and Rose C. Burgess who in important ways contributed to the publication of this edition of The Ballad of the White Horse.
Bernadette Sheridan, IHM
Introduction
“The Ballad of the White Horse” is the record of a noble vision flung on to the canvas with told strong colours. It is what Matthew Arnold said poetry should always be: “A criticism of life.” Chesterton tells the story of Alfred, following and rightly following the popular legend. The story of how he played the harp and sang in the Danish camp, of how he burnt the cakes in the herdsman’s hut, and how his ultimate victory came about in the Valley of the White Horse. That is the bones of the story, and this is treated in the true ballad form by a masterly hand, and with driving inspiration. Besides this, there is the philosophic import and significance of the poem, “The Criticism of Life” which is so large that it almost swamps the ballad element. The point of this is the contrast between Pagan and Christian ideals. Alfred, in the poem, is the incarnation of the Christian tradition. The Danes Chesterton represents as the types of paganism. (Excerpted from Baring 1911,378-79).
The introduction is limited to five topics: an overview of The Ballad of the White Horse, the White Horse in reality and symbol, the BWH on the stocks (1901-1911), the locale of Ethandune, and sidelights on the Ballad.
i
The Ballad of the White Horse presents the struggle between Christianity and heathenism in the heroic days of King Alfred, and at the same time touches contemporary issues of the twentieth century. In form it employs the rhymed romantic poetry so suited to the stirring events unfolded, while in substance it depicts the valorous Wessex king as “a conqueror, with no ambition; an author only too glad to be a translator; a concentrated, wary man, watching the fortunes of one thing, which he piloted both boldly and cautiously, and which he saved at last” (Chesterton 1917,52). The use of King Alfred’s addition to Boethius for the epigraph emphasizes that people and events are under the influence of “a divine purpose that rules.” The scope of this narrative includes the story of the Anglo-Saxon people during the late ninth century when the Danes seriously threatened their autonomy. Its subject-matter deals with history, legend, mythology, and religion. Since the supernatural element is quite pronounced and some of the events are under its control, it has the atmosphere appropriate for an epic. Action is on a huge scale. Not only do events center around an ultimate battle, but true to epic requirements, the characters are also heroes or supernatural beings. Alfred is a national hero, Guthrum is a historical national leader, and Mary a celestial being. These characters interest us by the part they play in furthering or hindering the efforts to dominate England.
Symmetry characterizes the development of the plot. Stanzas fourteen to thirty of book I refer to previous Danish incursions. The succeeding three boohs show Alfred recruiting, reconnoitering, and planning for the all-out battle with the entire Danish army. Boohs V and VI tell of the battle at Ethandune, while booh VII relates how the routed West Saxons rallied and with heavenly help win the day. To balance the brief account of Alfred’s encounters with the heathen in the first booh, the last part of the eighth records how the king checked the invaders in 892-96. Chesterton could have focused only on Ethandune. Instead he depicts Alfred continuously at work preparing for the return of the Danes who, in fact, assaulted his kingdom during the last decade of his rule. In this allotment of material, Chesterton puts a bloody stress on Ethandune and gives his poem proper balance and proportion.
While integrating the events and legends related by the chroniclers, Chesterton embellishes the Ballad by the inclusion of preternatural and magical charms. Since it is common knowledge that the Gaels and the Northmen of the ninth century held strange beliefs, Colan’s superstition and Elf’s magic sword abet the genuineness of the narrative even while introducing elements from a fairy world. Supernatural intervention accounts for the victory of the Christians, as well as for the subsequent conversion of Guthrum.
The characters are an intriguing assemblage. They stand out before us alive—deftly drawn by a few strokes of the poet’s pen. In presenting the Saxon Eldred, the Roman Mark, and the Gaelic-Welsh Colan, he suggests the characteristics of their races and sustains these features each time the chieftains appear. Mary’s presence and effectiveness in books I and VII are ineffable. The irascible woman in the forest serves as a foil to Alfred’s humble forbearance (IV:161-279). Among the Danish leaders, King Guthrum, educated in the Latin tongue, possesses a more discerning nature than the three earls: Harold, Ogier, and Elf. While looking at things as they are, he is not impelled by hatred. He is thoughtful, seeks truth, yet is despairing. Chesterton describes Guthrum quite thoroughly, not only because he is the war-chief, but also to prepare us for his embracing Christianity (ASC).
Chesterton achieved unity in this epic by binding together its episodes by a common relationship to Alfred who is responding to a message from Mary.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
(II:153-56)
The king excels in martial pursuits as well as in peacetime achievements. From Alfred’s skirmishes with the enemy in the first booh to his triumphant ride into London in the eighth, readers follow his deeds with interest.
Considered under the Coleridgian concept of organic unity, the poem has atmosphere, continuous moral concern, chronological continuity of the main events and characters, references hack and forward to people and occurrences, and links between tales and legends. In commenting on “the satisfactory character of a poem” Coleridge suggests it should “produce the pleasurable interest which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart” ([1817]1907,2:6). “It must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement—The reader should be carried forward… by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself… . Like the motion of a serpent,… at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward” ([1817] 1907,2:10-11). Chesterton uses this serpentine movement frequently. Observe how it emphasizes and clarifies meaning and feeling. Note how the second stanza looks back at the previous one while moving forward:
But halted in the woodways
Christ’s few were grim and grey,
And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night,
Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Th en weakened every warrior’s mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood;
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.
(V:46-57)
“Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole” ([1817] 1907,2:13).
Chesterton displays all the marks of poetic genius mentioned by Coleridge. Good sense is shown in his choice of Alfred “boldly and cautiously defending his kingdom.” Wisdom is apparent in his use of the ballad stanza to relate his romantic tale. Fancy is evident in surprising ways. Particularly noteworthy is the appearance of the Mother of God in book VII. Imagination is truly everywhere. Here it has a humorous turn:
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill.
(II:42-45)
GK splashes his pages with color (III:108-11), makes his stanzas reverberate with sound (VII:225-234), and hurries his readers on into the heart of the battle (VII:179-94); re-creating at the same time the atmosphere and setting of ninth century England. His use of alliteration, kennings, and words of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English origin effectively flavor and enliven this story of West Saxon times. Critics, commenting on the BWH, “cannot believe that verse in which the living spirit of balladry exults more simply in its strength than ever since Scott will wholly disappear” (Times Literary Supplement, 7 November 1936). John Raymond asserts, “Alfred will be making his last stand at Ethandune long after the sun has gone down on Notting Hill and the Flying Inn” (Conlon 1987,161).
ii
Aerial View of the White Horse, Uffington, Berkshire Courtesy of the British Information Services
But he only pointed: bade them heed
Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,
Who plucked the old Horse of the weed
As they pluck it to this hour.
(VIII:180-83)
“Towards the west, above Uffington, the hills reach a culminating point of 856 feet in White Horse Hill. In its northern flank, a gigantic figure of a horse is cut, the turf being removed to show the white chalky sub-soil beneath… . It is 374 feet long and of the rudest outline, the neck, body and tail varying little in width. Its origin is unknown” (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 ed. s.v. “White Horse”). In the Prefatory Note to the Ballad, Chesterton asserts that “a tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse.” Thomas Hughes (1822-1896), a native of the locality, recorded this tradition associated with the Vale: “Here [there are] legends connecting [the White Horse] with the name of our greatest king, and with his great victory over the Pagans, and a festival which has been held at very short intervals ever since the ninth century” (1859, viii-ix). This written evidence confirms the Berkshire White Horse as the one Chesterton selected for his epic of Alfred. It also corrects statements made by distinguished English writers. Patrick Braybrooke recognizes the Wiltshire horse: “There have been many white horses, but there is The White Horse, and he lies alone on the side of a hill down Wiltshire way” (1922,68). Christopher Hollis also missed Chesterton’s many references to the location of the battle. “There are a number of White Horses scattered about… but there are two of immemorial antiquity—the Wiltshire White Horse above Westbury and the Berkshire White Horse above Wantage. It is characteristic of Chesterton’s carelessness about detail that he never in his Ballad makes up his mind which of these horses was the scene of the battle and talks indifferently of ‘Berkshire hinds’ and of finding the horse ‘along the road to Frome’ ” (1970,149). Dudley Barker (1973) as well as Michael Coren (1989) also mistakenly refer to the horse in Wilts. On the contrary, Chesterton in the poem invariably pinpointed White Horse Hill and the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire as the location of Ethandune. In his final proof reading of VIII: 181 he changed Wessexto Berkshire (Chesterton Archives). The Westbury White Horse, Wiltshire, has no place in Chesterton’s epic.
In his Autobiography Chesterton mentions seeing the White Horse while he was electioneering in its vicinity (1936, 127-28). Elsewhere he says that the White Horse may have been picked out of the grass in a previous “geological age before the sea burst through the narrow Straits of Dover… . That rude but evident white outline that I saw across the valley may have been begun when Britain was not an island” (1911,256). On another occasion GKC points out that it is local patriotism that keeps alive “the memory of Alfred in that noble Berkshire valley where the White Horse has been picked clean of grass continuously for a thousand years” (Illustrated London News, 8 August 1908).
Chesterton personifies the Horse in the opening stanzas of The Ballad of the White Horse. The White Horse “looked on,” he “knew England,” he “saw the first oar break or bend.” Two verses from a rejected stanza, originally placed after 111:372, portray the White Horse as figuratively alive.
The White Horse struggles in the grass
The White Horse whinnyeth
(Chesterton Archives)
From his vantage point on the brow of White Horse Hill, the Horse looks down upon Berkshire’s valley of decision. When Alfred’s men are winning, “the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale.” In the eighth book
The still-eyed King sat pondering,
As one that watches a live thing,
The scoured chalk;
(VIII:233-35)
Here Alfred speaks directly to the Horse about a vision of the return of the heathen.
King Alfred the Great very probably knew the White Horse. Born at Wantage, a few miles east of the Hill, he must have seen it often while hunting or traveling in the vicinity. One should look up before ascending the Hill, because the White Horse is too large to be seen in its entirety at close range. [This hill-top site is a country park with ample parking within a few hundred yards of the Horse. Admission is free.]
The White Horse may serve as a readers’ scoreboard which reveals whether the Christians or the pagans are in command. If the Horse lies unkempt, the Danes are lording it over Wessex.
The great White Horse was grey,
For it was ill scoured of the weed;
And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed,
Since the foes of settled house and creed
Had swept old works away.
(III:33-37)
But if the White Horse is as white “as the first plume of the snows” (VIII:138), the countryside is at peace. Repeated scourings remind people that they can no more stop evil from cropping up in the nation, in politics, and in themselves, than they can prevent weeds from growing on the Horse by uprooting them but once (VIII:184-87). No, this cannot be, for weeds shall grow in England “faster than men can hum.” So, ’
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
(VIII:206-7)
Just how do readers feel about the White Horse? A random sampling shows a diversity of opinions. To one the galloping Horse is a symbol of the aliveness and forward movement of the English nation. Thomas Hughes regarded it as a presence which is worthy of respectful attention. Celeste Desmond states, “Chesterton uses the White Horse as a symbol as well as a landmark—a symbol of the conserving power of Christianity in opposition to the destructive forces of a many-headed Paganism” (1958,2). Douglas Woodruff sees the old White Horse of Uffington as “a symbol of all the human inheritance of the past.” Christopher Hollis thinks [Chesterton] “took the white horse as the symbol of continuing English life” (1970,149). Patrick Braybrooke believes, “The White Horse stands for something that year by year we are forgetting, those quaint old English feasts that have done so much to make England merry, and have made history into a beautiful legend that bears the name of Alfred” (1922,68). Garry Wills shares these insights: “The figure of the White Horse on the hill is a sacrament meant to reveal Alfred’s love of his native earth in all its autonomy” (1961,141). To Professor Wills the White Horse is unfathomable: “An honest mind will soon disappear into the depths of that richest of Chesterton’s symbols” (1961,132).
Every biographer refers to the number of white horses which have played a part in Chesterton’s existence. Writing of Irirnself in 1926, GK said, “To this day I can never see a big white horse in the street without a sudden sense of indescribable things” (1929,165). In an analytical mood he comments: “There are, as we say, certain real advantages in pictorial symbols, and one of them is that everything that is pictorial suggests without naming or defining. There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect” (1906,77-78).
iii
Chesterton was thirty-seven when The Ballad of the White Horse came off the press in 1911. He labored in between times from 1901 until 1911 in planning, researching, and writing the Ballad. In addition to his contributions to newspapers and periodicals, he published twenty-two books. His sustained attention to the epic of Alfred the Great [2683 lines] is unassailable proof that he could and did take trouble with his writing. Ronald Knox called it a “polished performance.”
Although Chesterton may have begun research even earlier on the poem, it is probable the Millenary of King Alfred’s death inspired and motivated him to write The Ballad of the White Horse in honor of “England’s darling.” [26 October 1899 was the actual date of the anniversary.]
NATIONAL COMMEMORATION 1901
17 September Tuesday Exhibition at the British Museum
Program at Winchester
18 Visit to the ancient Westgate, Winchester Castle, etc.
19 Visit to Wolvesey, site of the palace of the Saxon kings
20 Procession Unveiling of Statue Address by the Earl of Rosebery
21 Visit to St. Cross Garden party at Stratton
Two of Chesterton’s essays about Alfred the Great show his awareness of the Commemoration. His earlier article quotes Lord Rosebery as saying that the personality of Alfred was peculiarly English: “The great magnificence of the English character is expressed in the word ‘service’ ” (1905,203). In the later account (Ward 1933,56-64), he recalls the 1901 celebrations in both the United States and Great Britain. See E VII:54-55.
Chesterton had a special interest in epics during the opening years of the century. His précis of famous epics are brilliant: “Every great literature has always been allegorical—allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The ‘Iliad’ is only great because all life is a battle, the ‘Odyssey’ because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle” (1906,47).
In Father Brown on Chesterton John O’Connor informs us that in March 1904, after he and Mr. Chesterton had walked across the moors to the Steinthals, Mrs. Chesterton told him about “the Epic in contemplation.” Since he was writing about 35 years after the fact, it is not surprising that he has rearranged events and misdated them also. Fortunately, Father O’Connor’s 6 December 1903 letter in the Chesterton Archives sets the record straight. Chesterton’s Keighley lecture was on Thursday, 3 December 1903. Their walk together across the moors to Steinthals’s residence on the following day was on 4 December 1903, not in March 1904. Father O’Connor’s remark in the 6 December 1903 letter to Mrs. Chesterton, “I hope he got home to you undamaged and with his cold better,” proved that Mrs. Chesterton was in Battersea not in Ilkley when the two men arrived that December day. It follows that Father O’Connor’s remarks about the Ballad belong to a later occasion when the three were present. The 14 February 1904 letter from Fr. O’Connor to Mrs. Chesterton says: “I hope to see you both at Easter [3 April] in Ilkley.” Was it during this visit to the Steinthals that Frances, between lunch and tea, delighted Father O’Connor with samples from the ballad epic of Alfred? Frances also told Father O’Connor on that occasion that “a deal [of the epic] was already composed” (O’Connor 1938,30). “All through the ensuing year Gilbert kept planning and adding to the Epic of Alfred, now extant as The Ballad of the White Horse” (O’Connor 1938,31).
In Alarms and Discursions there are essays about Ethandune, Athelney, White Horses, and Glastonbury which give evidence of his trips alone or with his wife to “the battle-places and hiding places” of Alfred the Great. He was killing two birds with one stone: writing for the newspapers and doing research on The Ballad of the White Horse.
Chesterton’s veiled reference to the Ballad in his Autobiography reveals his inner thoughts and feelings about the “primitive things” revolving in his mind.
For all this funny little fuss of politics was in this case spread out like a sprawling sham fight… . For I remember the faint and hazy inspiration that troubled me one evening on the road, as I looked beyond the little hamlet, patched so incongruously with a few election posters, and saw hung upon the hills, as if it were hung upon the heavens, remote as a pale cloud and archaic as a gigantic hieroglyph; the White Horse (1936,127-28).
In the Chesterton Archives an early title of the poem is given as The Epic of the White Horse. Six microfiche (F22-F27) contain holograph copies of passages of the Ballad, stanzas copied by his wife, and a typescript of the poem. The evidence is there of sufficient minute corrections: insertions and deletions of stanzas, phrases, and words to convince everyone that Chesterton took infinite pains in composing and revising his epic of Alfred. Christopher Hollis’s statement that Chesterton wrote it in a fortnight may be true of the final version in 1911 (1970,151). Father O Connor mentions how the completed copy was given to him for appraisal in July 1911. Methuen published 1500 copies on 31 August 1911. [A second and third edition were called for in October and November 1911, with a fourth reprinted in 1912. John Lane brought out the first of many American editions in 1911.]
There is a facetious reference to the Tryggvhessa Saga in a letter Chesterton wrote to Frances on 11 July 1899. Could this suggest that he was doing background research on the Vikings in preparation for writing his epic? (Ward 1943,109-10)
From the foregoing it seems credible that Chesterton worked off and on for at least ten years researching and composing his tribute to the great Alfred who “rules England to the doom.”
iv
But who shall look from Alfred’s hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud
And the dense arrows drive.
(D:41-46)
Determining the true site of Alfred’s victory in 878 is still vexing Wessex antiquarians in the twentieth century. Chesterton’s choice of the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire exposed him to the wrath of the archaeologists of Wilts and Somerset. To forestall unpleasantness, he declared in his preface, “This ballad needs no historical notes.” A careful reading of the Prefatory Note reveals that GK is emphasizing tradition not denying history. In fact in his Autobiography he says the epic concerns “the genesis of all our history” (1936, 127-28). [Maurice Baring affirms this, “It is historical in the true sense of the word, in that it aims at and achieves seizing the spirit if not the letter of history” (Eye Witness, 7 September 1911,378).]
To discern why Chesterton penned that alibi, one must be aware of the wrangling among the antiquarians from Somerset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire regarding the location of Alfred’s great victory at Ethandune. Chesterton knew his selection of Berkshire would provoke an outcry. Yet his decision to place Ethandune in the Berkshire Vale of the White Horse preceded every other consideration. He side-stepped the issue by the following explanation: “I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land… . A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse” (Prefatory Note). Was there belated appeasement for the Wiltshire faction in his 1933 essay on “Alfred the Great?” “He [Alfred] gradually gathered round him the remnants of the Christian population, and in the spring of 878 appeared suddenly with an army before the Danish camp at Ethandune, possibly Edington [Wiltshire]; smashed in their palisades, captured their royal leader and bis raven banner, and imposed on him the famous treaty of Wedmore, by which he and his people were baptized and withdrew their forces from Wessex, retaining only lands further to the north and east” (Ward 1933,57).
Not long before the publication of The Ballad of the White Horse, Chesterton wrote in the Illustrated London News about these opposing claims for the site of Ethandune:
Mr. Greswell argues from the place of surrender, if, he says, the fight occurred in Wiltshire, why was the treaty at Wedmore and not at Chippenham? If I remember aright, Mr. Oman, in bis book on England before the Conquest, maintains that the surrender and treaty were made at the Wiltshire town, and not at Wedmore at all. He even calls the Treaty of Wedmore the Pact of Chippenham, which is a very desperate and ruthless thing to do. Whether or no he is right to maintain this, I am, of course, quite unfitted to discuss. But if he is right, it would get over this one objection of Mr. Greswell, the Somerset champion. I use the last phrase for the sake of brevity; I fear it sounds rather pugilistic. But if people will start quarrels… about battles long ago the pugilistic atmosphere is difficult to avoid. I only say that nothing will induce me to interpose my person between Greswell, the Somerset Bruiser, and Oman, the Wiltshire Pet. (19 November 1910,633)
Evidence that Chesterton knew before the publication of the poem that the decisive battle of Ethandune was probably fought near Chippenham in Wutshire is found in the concluding paragraph of his essay on Ethandune: “It gave me a queer emotion to think that, sword in hand, as the Danes poured with the torrents of their blood down to Chippenham, the great king may have lifted up his head and looked at that oppressive shape” (1911,230).
Appreciating Chesterton’s desire to feature the Berkshire White Horse in his epic and his aversion to hurt the feelings of his countrymen in Somerset and Wilts who were quite certain that the battle of Ethandune occurred within their confines, points up the predicament which occasioned his declaration “this ballad needs no historical notes.” But this misleading statement led some reviewers and critics to misinterpret the poem.
The learned English archaeologists and antiquarians feel very strongly about historical accuracy. Consider the exchanges between various claimants: John Thurman, “On the Barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham, with Remarks on the Site of, and on the Events Connected with the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandune, A.D. 878,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):67-86. [Yatton favored as the site of the Battle of Ethandune.] George Matcham, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857): 175-88. [Favors Ethandune (Edington). He was correct.] G. Poulett Scrope, “The Battle of Ethandun,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 3(1857):298-308. [Acrimoniously disagrees with Mr. Matcham.] In 1875 we find Bishop William Clifford, inquiring again into the real “Site of the Battle of Aethandune.” His opening sentences cogently express why this battle deserves epic treatment: “The battle of Aethandune, which took place in the year 878 between the English under King Aelfred and the Danish army under Gothrum, may justly be regarded as one of the most important events in our national history. The existence of the English as a nation was decided on that day” Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 21:1. Thirty years later, W. L. Radford writing in the same Somersetshire Proceedings probes again into the location of Ethandune. Athelney in Somerset is where King Alfred hid out while rallying his supporters. Aller and Wedmore, also in Somerset, have historic interest, too. Guthrum was baptized at Aller, and the chrism-loosing occurred at Wedmore eight days later. Mr. Radford believed that the decisive battle was also fought nearby 51(1905):169-80. Dr. B. G. Grundy in “Ancient Highways and Tracks of Wilts, Berks, and Hants, and the Saxon Battlefields of Wilts” placed the battle of Ethandune on the down at Bratton Castle in Wiltshire. He includes sketches of the preliminary movements of the Wessex army. Archaeological Journal 75(1918):178-81 [The eminent historians Hodgkin and Stenton approved of Dr. Grundy’s reconstruction.] Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Burne in “Ancient Wiltshire Battlefields: Ellandun—Ethandun” applies the test of inherent military probability to alternative sites for the battle of Ethandune. He accepts Dr. Grundy’s equating Ethandune with Edington. Wutshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 53(1950):397-412.
Timothy Wilson Smith calls our attention once again to the battle of Ethandune in “King Alfred: An Eleventh Centenary,” History Today 28(1978): 423-28. The commemorations continue of Alfred’s birth, death, and of his victory at Ethandune. It is to Chesterton’s credit that he reared the marvel of The Ballad of the White Horse over Alfred such as the
great Vergilius
Wrought for the Roman king.
(VIII:271-72)
v
In a letter written to his fiancé in 1901, Chesterton solemnly dedicated his pen to the spreading of truth. “All the same, my dear, this is a great and serious hour [the burial of Queen Victoria] felt so completely by all England that I cannot deny the enduring wish I have,… to renew… private vows of a very real character to do my Lest for this country of mine which I love with a love passing the love of Jingoes. It is sometimes easy to give one’s country blood and easier to give her money. Sometimes the hardest thing of all is to give her truth” (Ward 1943,144). Chesterton fulfilled his private vows to do his best for his native land by composing the ballad epic of Alfred the Great.
■ ■ ■
In Father Brown on Chesterton Father John O’Connor describes a memorable moment in his life. “I was confused, and then transfused with sober delight, when one July evening [1911] at Overroads, Beaconsfield, he [GKC] put the whole MS. of the Ballad into my hands, and Mrs. Chesterton explained that I was to censor it, as so much of mine was in it” (1938,67).
How Father John O’Connor of Yorhs became acquainted with the Chestertons in Battersea is revealed through letters found in the G. K. Chesterton Archived.
xi II 03
St. Ann’s Keighley,
Yorks
Dear Mr. Chesterton,
In the language of the responsive and discerning person who arranged Buck Fanshaw’s funeral, I like you, and advised by the Autocrat of the Breakfast-table I make bold to tell you so.
I am a Catholic priest, and though I may not find you quite orthodox in details, I first wish to thank you heartily, or shall I say, to thank God for having gifted you with the spirituality which alone makes literature immortal, as I think. I have not been so edified by prose work since I read Coventry Patmore’s Essays a few years since. My appreciation is based on ‘The Defendant’ and ‘Twelve Types’. When in the former book I met the phrase ‘the foolish and valiant heart of man’, I said to myself: ‘Blessed be God’, for that is often the only word that relieves my feelings. I can say no more except that even yet it gives me new pleasure to think it over. But I find many a kernel of brain renewing or heart renewing sweetness in your books. Francis, Savonarola, Walter Scott, your ‘types’ do appeal to me especially, but all through the latter book I find a keynote running ‘Oh! folly of Love, the intense last culmination of intelligence’.
But as you think immortal thoughts I hope you will distill them into verse some day. I feel very much impelled to send you a faulty sonnet I made last year containing the same keynote as so many of your essays. But I forbear, as I don’t know whether this will reach you, or if you care for such things, and I dread above all things to knock up against what D’Annunzio calls ‘inconsapevolezza’.
Very truly yours,
J. O’Connor
Father O’Connor was probably 33 and Gilbert 29 when this letter was sent. How affirmed Chesterton must have felt when he read: “I first wish to thank you heartily, or shall I say, to thank God for having gifted you with the spirituality which alone makes literature immortal, as I think. I have not keen so edified by prose work since I read Coventry Patmore’s Essays a few years since.” Here is a person acquainted with American, British, and Italian writers recognizing GK’s inner giftedness and extolling his essays. Is it any wonder that Chesterton wanted to meet him?
Eight months later:
iv X 03
St. Ann’s Keighley
Dear Mr. Chesterton,
It was a most pleasant surprise to me to read your letter with the good news it contains. I see by our Literary etc. Soc. Prospectus that you are lecturing to us in December. Prosit Amen.
Certainly you may come and see me. You are hereby cordially invited. Are you the guest of any member of the K. L. S.? If you are, so; if not, though I am hut a salaried minion of this establishment, I may get you put up for the night here. The rector is the uncle to Walter Crawley, who spoke as though he had met you more than once. [Four paragraphs omitted]
Yours very sincerely,
J. O’Connor
This is the beginning of a lifelong friendship. In Father Brown on Chesterton, Father O’Connor writes about their many conversations, including his influence on the composition of the Ballad and of his slight connection with the Father Brown detective stories.
■ ■ ■
Celeste Desmond contributed to the analysis of the prosody of The Ballad of the White Horse when she completed a master’s thesis on the Ballad. Chapter III, “Structures of Sound,” details the quantitative and qualitative elements of the 280 lines of Book II. Interested persons may examine this thesis in the Mullen Library, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
■ ■ ■
Julius West pleads with readers to respect the living wholeness of GK’s poems. “There is a temptation to treat… most of Chesterton’s poems, with special reference to their technique, but we must resist this temptation… . To give way to it would be to commit a form of vivisection. GKC is not a text, praise be, and whether he lives or dies, long may he be spared the hands of an editor or interpreter who is also an irrepressible authority on anapests and suchlike things” (1915,106).
Although Celeste Desmond practiced “vivisection” in me third chapter of her thesis, her final paragraph acclaims: “Structures of meaning and structures of sound have been explored and discoveries given. Yet, the most striking single feature of the ballad remains its ‘organic’ form, that is… such perfect fitting together of structural elements and meanings as will produce for a mind that contemplates the completed structure a sense of perfect harmony and consistency” (1958, 45-46).
■ ■ ■
As one ponders the commentaries on Chesterton’s epic of Alfred, the appraisals reveal its riches and the discernment of its critics. Two quotations, both from the Times Literary Supplement of London are poles apart in their evaluations. The 31 August 1911 review praises the poetry but objects to Chesterton’s method:
We are aware all trie while that Mr. Chesterton is trying to explain his ideas to us, and we see him behind all his Danes and Saxons… . At the end Alfred prophesies now ‘in some far century, sad and slow’, the heathen will come hack in a new guise to threaten faith and civilization again. When he does this the voice of Mr. Chesterton is clearer than ever and we know that he is telling us of our present sins.
A contrary viewpoint appeared shortly after GK’s death:
Criticism is in daring mood when it undertakes to deliver certificates of immortality… . But perhaps among the passages that will he remembered is that in which the disguised Alfred answers the heathen minstrels with the essence of the poet’s own faith:
“That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
That hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,
All swords he heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
(III:335-42)
He could always find those grave and simple words for prose as for verse when his heart was most deeply stirred. And words of that stamp are seldom written in water. (7 November 1936)
An annotated edition of the BWH would have enabled two critics in the New York Times Book Review to recognize the epic’s historical background. The linguistic observation of the first reviewer is striking:
It is being debated in London literary clubs whether ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ will live longer than the author’s essays and biographies. It is more than an epic poem related in simple narrative form. It is an attempt to do what Balzac did when he told his friends that he had discovered a rare MS of stories written in fifteenth century French, deceived everybody, and then confessed himself to be the author. Although the orthography of Mr. Chesterton’s ballad would prevent it from taking in a philologist, the style and coloring are as good as any of Chatterton’s imitations. But, as the author says in his preface, it needs no historical notes. The career of King Alfred, which is the theme, unlike that of King Arthur, is not a legend, although legends are the most important things about him. Mr. Chesterton has now augmented the list. (3 December 1911)
Chesterton is partly to blame for this estimate. He misled the American reviewers by saying “This ballad needs no historical notes.” The second review on 4 February 1912 begins:
And poetry is still being written. If any doubt, let him read Gilbert K. Chesterton’s ‘Ballad of the White Horse’. It is based upon legends told of Alfred the Great, and is (with the exception of some talky-talky monologues on the part of King Alfred) a rattling good poem of religion and war—two excellent things that in their purity usually go together. Here and there stanzas stand out in fairly startling relief… . ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is too long. There is good stuff even in its redundancies, but that is beside the point. If Mr. Chesterton had had the resolution to lop it discriminately, he might have produced one of the most robustly picturesque poems of the century.
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The Anglo-American Pulitzer prize poet, W. H. Auden, approves of the length: “In the case of his longest and perhaps, greatest serious poem, ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’, I do not, however, I am happy to say, find the length excessive. When, for example, Elf the Minstrel, Earl Ogier, and Guthrum express in turns their conceptions of the Human Condition, what they sing could not be further condensed without loss” (Cordon 1987,319).
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Professor Garry Wills, an eminent Chestertonian, perceives Alfred’s openness to God’s plans (1961,142):
Alfred’s vision at Athelney is only the beginning of the revelation, in and through him, of this Christian mysticism. The poem builds to a higher vision at its climax, the center of calm light in which a child plays—an odd, idyllic interlude placed dramatically in a setting of war and slaughter. It is this white light which fires the motley colors of battle and heroism and victory. Every line of the poem leads to that vision or follows from it. Alfred expresses a new facet of it in each episode.
Thirty years later Garry Wills laments: The Ballad of the White Horse is a “neglected masterpiece in narrative verse” 107 (1990):532.
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Space permits only brief selections from the chorus of admirers: C. S. Lewis asserts the poem is “permanent and dateless”: “Does not the central theme of the Ballad—the highly paradoxical message which Alfred receives from the Virgin—embody the feeling, and the only possible feeling, with which in any age almost defeated men take up such arms as are left them and win?” (Cordon 1987,71). James Dollard, while extolling the “masculine vigor and purity of tone,” predicts “The Ballad of the White Horse will continue to perpetuate the name of the author down through future years, and be treasured as a classic of English literature” Catholic World 95 (April 1912):41-55.
Reflect, too, on Christopher Hollis’s insightful summation:
The Ballad of the White Horse tells the story of the battle of Alfred and his Christian army against the heathen Danish invaders and their defeat of them at the battle of Ethandune in the shadow of the White Horse, but it is far more than a mere account of battle and victory. It is the story of the eternal warfare against evil to which the Christian man is by the nature of his profession unendingly committed. But of course it is totally to misinterpret the poem to see in it some promise of security finally achieved as a result of a victory. The whole lesson of the poem is that security can never be finally achieved. It is always of its nature under challenge and death is always the end (1970,150).
Michael Ffinch agrees in substance with many readers: “The theme is the cause Chesterton himself had championed, the cause of Christendom against the forces of pagan darkness that constantly assail it” (1986,197). In the opinion of George N. Shuster: “ ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is a poem to love and even to sing, which are more important matters than putting it on a shelf and calling it great” (1922,234).
Unities of Time and Place
Chesterton embodies prehistory, history, tradition, legend, mythology, the supernatural, and romance in The Ballad of the White Horse. While remaining faithful to history, GKC takes liberties with the geography of Wessex. He follows a popular tradition and locates the battle of Ethandune in the White Horse Vale within sight of the White Horse on White Horse Hill in Berkshire. In Book IV Chesterton places the woman in the forest near Egbert’s Stone, several miles from her legendary home on the marshy island of Athelney.
In early 878 the Mother of God appears to Alfred on the river island of Athelney in Somersetshire. In the Gathering of the Chiefs Alfred first goes north toward Eldred, the Franklin by the Severn estuary, then north and east to Mark, probably in the vicinity of Bath, and lastly into southeastern Wales to Colan at Caerleon on the Usk. In the Harp of Alfred we find the disguised king in Berkshire scouting the environs of the Danish camp in White Horse Vale. Some carousing Danes bring him into the camp where Guthrum invites him to play and sing. Wiser after his exploratory visit, Alfred awaits the arrival of his troops. See E IV:59-60.
The events in Books V, VI, and VII occur 6-20 May 878 in the Valeof the White Horse. Book VIII spans the interval between the baptism of Guthrum (878) and the conclusion of Alfred’s last war in 896. Action in the 892-896 conflict takes place in various sectors of Britain and along the coastal waters (VIII: 214-30,315-71, and Endnotes).
PREFATORY NOTE
HIS ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. 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. But King [10] Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him.
The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex [20] still alive in the land. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. 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, [30] as the old balladists did. 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. 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. It has been disputed by grave historians, [40] who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. The two chief charges against the story are, that it was first recorded long after Alfred’s death, and that (as Mr. Oman urges) Alfred never really wandered all alone without any thanes or soldiers. Both these objections might possibly be met. It has taken us nearly as long to learn the whole truth about Byron, and perhaps longer to learn [50] the whole truth about Pepys, than elapsed between Alfred and the first writing of such tales. And as for the other objection, do the historians really think that Alfred after Wilton, or Napoleon after Leipsic, never walked about in a wood by himself for the matter of an hour or two? Ten minutes might be made sufficient for the essence of the story. But I am not concerned to prove the truth of these [60] popular traditions. It is enough for me to maintain two things: that they are popular traditions; and that without these popular traditions we should have bothered about Alfred about as much as we bother about Eadwig.
One other consideration needs a note. Alfred has come down to us in the best way (that is by national legends) solely for the same reason as Arthur and Roland [70] and the other giants of that darkness, because he fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism. But since this work was really done by generation after generation, by the Romans before they withdrew, and by the Britons while they remained, I have summarised this first crusade in a triple symbol, and given to a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon, a part in the glory of Ethandune. [80] I fancy that in fact Alfred’s Wessex was of very mixed bloods: but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.
G. K. C.
TO
MY WIFE
DEDICATION
F great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night—
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light? [5]
Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun? [10]
In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history, [15]
But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died;
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things, [20]
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains, [25]
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time; [30]
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale; [35]
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man. [40]
But who shall look from Alfred’s hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud [45]
And the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred’s eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck, [50]
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw [55]
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon, [60]
And ‘mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, “I will go with you, [65]
As man with God has gone,
And wander with a wandering star,
The wandering heart of things that are,
The fiery cross of love and war
That like yourself, goes on.” [70]
O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purple forest and pearled foam,
God’s winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home, [75]
A flying home for me.
Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen [80]
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.
Up through an empty house of stars,
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space [85]
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour [90]
We strayed a space from home
And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.
G. K. C.
BOOK I
THE VISION OF THE KING
THE BALLAD OF THE
WHITE HORSE
EFORE the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods [5]
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone, [10]
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend, is
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.
For the end of the world was long ago—
And all we dwell to-day
As children of some second birth, [20]
Like a strange people left on earth
After a judgment day.
For the end of the world was long ago,
When the ends of the world waxed free,
When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves, [25]
And the sun drowned in the sea.
When Caesar’s sun fell out of the sky
And whoso hearkened right
Could only hear the plunging
Of the nations in the night. [30]
When the ends of the earth came marching in
To torch and cresset gleam,
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
Like faces in a dream. [35]
And men rode out of the eastern lands,
Broad river and burning plain;
Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
And tiger skies, striped horribly,
With tints of tropic rain. [40]
Where Ind’s enamelled peaks arise
Around that inmost one,
Where ancient eagles on its brink,
Vast as archangels, gather and drink
The sacrament of the sun. [45]
And men brake out of the northern lands,
Enormous lands alone,
Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
And the rain is changed to a silver dust
And the sea to a great green stone. [50]
And a Shape that moveth murkily
In mirrors of ice and night,
Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
As death and a shock of evil words
Blast a man’s hair with white. [55]
And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
Or the cry of the frost and foam,
Swept ever around an inmost place,
And the din of distant race on race
Cried and replied round Rome. [60]
And there was death on the Emperor
And night upon the Pope;
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
Hardened his heart with hope.
A sea-folk blinder than the sea [65]
Broke all about his land,
But Alfred up against them bare
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
Staggered, and strove to stand.
He bent them back with spear and spade, [70]
With desperate dyke and wall,
With foemen leaning on his shield
And roaring on him when he reeled
And no help came at all.
He broke them with a broken sword [75]
A little towards the sea,
And for one hour of panting peace,
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
With golden crown and girded fleece
Made laws under a tree. [80]
• • • • • • •
The Northmen came about our land
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea. [85]
Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange gold and fire,
And hairy men, as huge as sin,
With horned heads, came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire. [90]
Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood;
The world turned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood. [95]
Their souls were drifting as the sea,
And all good towns and lands
They only saw with heavy eyes,
And broke with heavy hands.
Their gods were sadder than the sea, [100]
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.
They seemed as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall, [105]
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.
They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted like the rose,
When Alfred came to Athelney [110]
To hide him from their bows.
There was not English armour left,
Nor any English thing,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To be an English king. [115]
For earthquake swallowing earthquake
Uprent the Wessex tree;
The whirlpool of the pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
When a flood smites the sea. [120]
And the great kings of Wessex
Wearied and sank in gore,
And even their ghosts in that great stress
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,
With the lords that died in Lyonesse [125]
And the king that comes no more.
And the God of the Golden Dragon
Was dumb upon his throne,
And the lord of the Golden Dragon
Ran in the woods alone. [130]
And if ever he climbed the crest of luck
And set the flag before,
Returning as a wheel returns,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
And all began once more. [135]
And naught was left King Alfred
But shameful tears of rage,
In the island in the river
In the end of all his age.
In the island in the river [140]
He was broken to his knee;
And he read, writ with an iron pen,
That God had wearied of Wessex men
And given their country, field and fen,
To the devils of the sea. [145]
And he saw in a little picture,
Tiny and far away,
His mother sitting in Egbert’s hall,
And a book she showed him, very small,
Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall [150]
With a golden Christ at play.
It was wrought in the monk’s slow manner,
From silver and sanguine shell,
Where the scenes are little and terrible,
Keyholes of heaven and hell. [155]
In the river island of Athelney,
With the river running past,
In colours of such simple creed
All things sprang at him, sun and weed,
Till the grass grew to be grass indeed [160]
And the tree was a tree at last.
Fearfully plain the flowers grew,
Like the child’s book to read,
Or like a friend’s face seen in a glass;
He looked; and there Our Lady was, [165]
She stood and stroked the tall live grass
As a man strokes his steed.
Her face was like an open word
When brave men speak and choose,
The very colours of her coat
Were better than good news. [170]
She spoke not, nor, turned not,
Nor any sign she cast,
Only she stood up straight and free,
Between the flowers in Athelney, [175]
And the river running past.
One dim ancestral jewel hung
On his ruined armour grey,
He rent and cast it at her feet:
Where, after centuries, with slow feet, [180]
Men came from hall and school and street
And found it where it lay.
“Mother of God,” the wanderer said,
“I am but a common king,
Nor will I ask what saints may ask, [185]
To see a secret thing.
“The gates of heaven are fearful gates,
Worse than the gates of hell;
Not I would break the splendours barred
Or seek to know the thing they guard, [190]
Which is too good to tell.
“But for this earth most pitiful,
This little land I know,
If that which is for ever is,
Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, [195]
Seeing the stranger go?
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high, [200]
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?”
And a voice came human but high up,
Like a cottage climbed among
The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft [205]
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,
But hears on his old bare roof aloft
A belfry burst in song.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain, [210]
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane,
“And any little maid that walks
In good thoughts apart, [215]
May break the guard of the Three Kings
And see the dear and dreadful things
I hid within my heart.
“The meanest man in grey fields gone
Behind the set of sun, [220]
Heareth between star and other star,
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,
The council, eldest of things that are,
The talk of the Three in One.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked, [225]
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told. [230]
“The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.
“The men of the East may search the scrolls, [235]
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.
“The wise men know what wicked things
Are written on the sky, [240]
They trim sad Lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the forgotten seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.
“The wise men know all evil things [245]
Under the twisted trees,
Where the perverse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas.
“But you and all the kind of Christ [250]
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire, [255]
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause, [260]
Yea, faith without a hope?”
Even as she spoke she was not,
Nor any word said he,
He only heard, still as he stood
Under the old night’s nodding hood, [265]
The sea-folk breaking down the wood
Like a high tide from sea.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,
Singing about some cruel thing [270]
Done by a great and smiling king
In daylight on a deck.
He only heard the heathen men,
Whose eyes are blue and blind,
Singing what shameful things are done [275]
Between the sunlit sea and the sun
When the land is left behind.
BOOK II
THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS
P across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause.
In the slopes away to the western bays, [5]
Where blows not ever a tree,
He washed his soul in the west wind
And his body in the sea.
And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,
And he sang aloud his laws, [10]
Because of the joy of the giants,
The joy without a cause.
For the King went gathering Wessex men,
As grain out of the chaff,
The few that were alive to die, [15]
Laughing, as littered skulls that lie
After lost battles turn to the sky
An everlasting laugh.
The King went gathering Christian men,
As wheat out of the husk; [20]
Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,
And Mark, the man from Italy,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
From the old tribe on Usk.
The rook croaked homeward heavily, [25]
The west was clear and warm,
The smoke of evening food and ease
Rose like a blue tree in the trees
When he came to Eldred’s farm.
But Eldred’s farm was fallen awry, [30]
Like an old cripple’s bones,
And Eldred’s tools were red with rust,
And on his well was a green crust,
And purple thistles upward thrust,
Between the kitchen stones. [35]
But smoke of some good feasting
Went upwards evermore,
And Eldred’s doors stood wide apart
For loitering foot or labouring cart,
And Eldred’s great and foolish heart [40]
Stood open like his door.
A mighty man was Eldred,
A bulk for casks to fill,
His face a dreaming furnace,
His body a walking hill. [45]
In the old wars of Wessex
His sword had sunken deep,
But all his friends, he sighed and said,
Were broken about Ethelred;
And between the deep drink and the dead [50]
He had fallen upon sleep.
“Come not to me, King Alfred,
Save always for the ale;
Why should my harmless hinds be slain
Because the chiefs cry once again, [55]
As in all fights, that we shall gain,
And in all fights we fail?
“Your scalds still thunder and prophesy
That crown that never comes;
Friend, I will watch the certain things, [60]
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums.”
And Alfred answered, drinking,
And gravely, without blame,
“Nor bear I boast of scald or king, [65]
The thing I bear is a lesser thing,
But comes in a better name.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men [70]
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den,
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I; [75]
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
“And this is the word of Mary, [80]
The word of the world’s desire:
‘No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.’ ”
Then silence sank. And slowly [85]
Arose the sea-land lord,
Like some vast beast for mystery,
He filled the room and porch and sky,
And from a cobwebbed nail on high
Unhooked his heavy sword. [90]
Up on the shrill sea-downs and up
Went Alfred all alone,
Turning but once e’er the door was shut,
Shouting to Eldred over his butt,
That he bring all spears to the woodman’s hut [95]
Hewn under Egbert’s Stone.
And he turned his back and broke the fern,
And fought the moths of dusk,
And went on his way for other friends,
Friends fallen of all the wide world’s ends, [100]
From Rome that wrath and pardon sends
And the grey tribes on Usk.
He saw gigantic tracks of death
And many a shape of doom,
Good steadings to grey ashes gone [105]
And a monk’s house white like a skeleton
In the green crypt of the combe.
And in many a Roman villa
Earth and her ivies eat,
Saw coloured pavements sink and fade [110]
In flowers, and the windy colonnade
Like the spectre of a street.
But the cold stars clustered
Among the cold pines
Ere he was half on his pilgrimage [115]
Over the western lines.
And the white dawn widened
Ere he came to the last pine,
Where Mark, the man from Italy,
Still made the Christian sign. [120]
The long farm lay on the large hill-side,
Flat like a painted plan,
And by the side the low white house,
Where dwelt the southland man.
A bronzed man, with a bird’s bright eye, [125]
And a strong bird’s beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow. [130]
His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine. [135]
Wide over wasted British plains
Stood never an arch or dome,
Only the trees to toss and reel,
The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;
But the eyes in his head were strong like steel, [140]
And his soul remembered Rome.
Then Alfred of the lonely spear
Lifted his lion head;
And fronted with the Italian’s eye,
Asking him of his whence and why, [145]
King Alfred stood and said:
“I am that oft-defeated King
Whose failure fills the land,
Who fled before the Danes of old,
Who chaffered with the Danes with gold, [150]
Who now upon the Wessex wold
Hardly has feet to stand.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This—that the sky grows darker yet [155]
And the sea rises higher.”
Long looked the Roman on the land;
The trees as golden crowns
Blazed, drenched with dawn and dew-empearled,
While faintlier coloured, freshlier curled, [160]
The clouds from underneath the world
Stood up over the downs.
“These vines be ropes that drag me hard,”
He said. “I go not far;
Where would you meet? For you must hold [165]
Half Wiltshire and the White Horse wold,
And the Thames bank to Owsenfold,
If Wessex goes to war.
“Guthrum sits strong on either bank
And you must press his lines [170]
Inwards, and eastward drive him down;
I doubt if you shall take the crown
Till you have taken London town.
For me, I have the vines.”
“If each man on the Judgment Day [175]
Meet God on a plain alone,”
Said Alfred, “I will speak for you
As for myself and call it true
That you brought all fighting folk you knew
Lined under Egbert’s Stone. [180]
“Though I be in the dust ere then,
I know where you will be.”
And shouldering suddenly his spear
He faded like some elfin fear,
Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tier, [185]
Tree overtoppling tree.
He shouldered his spear at morning
And laughed to lay it on,
But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,
With might and little mood to laugh, [190]
Or ever he sighted chick or calf
Of Colan of Caerleon.
For the man dwelt in a lost land
Of boulders and broken men,
In a great grey cave far off to south [195]
Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,
Giving darkness in his den.
And the man was come like a shadow,
From the shadow of Druid trees,
Where Usk, with mighty murmurings, [200]
Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,
Goes out to ghostly seas.
Last of a race in ruin—
He spoke the speech of the Gaels;
His kin were in holy Ireland, [205]
Or up in the crags of Wales.
But his soul stood with his mother’s folk,
That were of the rain-wrapped isle,
Where Patrick and Brandan westerly
Looked out at last on a landless sea [210]
And the sun’s last smile.
His harp was carved and cunning,
As the Celtic craftsman makes,
Graven all over with twisting shapes
Like many headless snakes. [215]
His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.
For the great Gaels of Ireland [220]
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
He kept the Roman order,
He made the Christian sign; [225]
But his eyes grew often blind and bright,
And the sea that rose in the rocks at night
Rose to his head like wine.
He made the sign of the cross of God,
He knew the Roman prayer, [230]
But he had unreason in his heart
Because of the gods that were.
Even they that walked on the high cliffs,
High as the clouds were then,
Gods of unbearable beauty [235]
That broke the hearts of men.
And whether in seat or saddle,
Whether with frown or smile,
Whether at feast or fight was he,
He heard the noise of a nameless sea [240]
On an undiscovered isle.
Lifting the great green ivy
And the great spear lowering,
One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,
And I am a conquered king.” [245]
And the man of the cave made answer,
And his eyes were stars of scorn,
“And better kings were conquered
Or ever your sires were born.
“What goddess was your mother, [250]
What fay your breed begot,
That you should not die with Uther
And Arthur and Lancelot?
“But when you win you brag and blow,
And when you lose you rail, [255]
Army of eastland yokels
Not strong enough to fail.”
“I bring not boast or railing,”
Spake Alfred not in ire,
“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set, [260]
This—that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose, [265]
“And if the sea and sky be foes,
We will tame the sea and sky.”
Smiled Alfred, “Seek ye a fable
More dizzy and more dread
Than all your mad barbarian tales [270]
Where the sky stands on its head?
“A tale where a man looks down on the sky
That has long looked down on him;
A tale where a man can swallow a sea
That might swallow the seraphim. [275]
“Bring to the hut by Egbert’s Stone
All bills and bows ye have.”
And Alfred strode off rapidly,
And Colan of the Sacred Tree
Went slowly to his cave. [280]
BOOK III
THE HARP OF ALFRED
N a tree that yawned and twisted
The King’s few goods were flung,
A mass-book mildewed, line by line,
And weapons and a skin of wine,
And an old harp unstrung. [5]
By the yawning tree in the twilight
The King unbound his sword,
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord. [10]
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm.
Until he came to the White Horse Vale [15]
And saw across the plains,
In the twilight high and far and fell,
Like the fiery terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes—
The fires of the Great Army [20]
That was made of iron men,
Whose lights of sacrilege and scorn
Ran around England red as morn,
Fires over Glastonbury Thorn—
Fires out on Ely Fen. [25]
And as he went by White Horse Vale
He saw lie wan and wide
The old horse graven, God knows when,
By gods or beasts or what things then
Walked a new world instead of men [30]
And scrawled on the hill-side.
And when he came to White Horse Down
The great White Horse was grey,
For it was ill scoured of the weed,
And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed, [35]
Since the foes of settled house and creed
Had swept old works away.
King Alfred gazed all sorrowful
At thistle and mosses grey,
Till a rally of Danes with shield and bill [40]
Rolled drunk over the dome of the hill,
And, hearing of his harp and skill,
They dragged him to their play.
And as they went through the high green grass
They roared like the great green sea; [45]
But when they came to the red camp fire
They were silent suddenly.
And as they went up the wastes away
They went reeling to and fro;
But when they came to the red camp fire [50]
They stood all in a row.
For golden in the firelight,
With a smile carved on his lips,
And a beard curled right cunningly,
Was Guthrum of the Northern Sea, [55]
The emperor of the ships—
With three great earls King Guthrum
Went the rounds from fire to fire,
With Harold, nephew of the King,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling, [60]
And Elf, whose gold lute had a string
That sighed like all desire.
The Earls of the Great Army
That no men born could tire,
Whose flames anear him or aloof [65]
Took hold of towers or walls of proof,
Fire over Glastonbury roof
And out on Ely, fire.
And Guthrum heard the soldiers’ tale
And bade the stranger play; [70]
Not harshly, but as one on high,
On a marble pillar in the sky,
Who sees all folk that live and die—
Pigmy and far away.
And Alfred, King of Wessex, [75]
Looked on his conqueror—
And his hands hardened; but he played,
And leaving all later hates unsaid,
He sang of some old British raid
On the wild west march of yore. [80]
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,
Where rain nor fruitage fails,
Where England of the motley states
Deepens like a garden to the gates
In the purple walls of Wales. [85]
He sang of the seas of savage heads
And the seas and seas of spears,
Boiling all over Offa’s Dyke,
What time a Wessex club could strike
The kings of the mountaineers. [90]
Till Harold laughed and snatched the harp,
The kinsman of the King,
A big youth, beardless like a child,
Whom the new wine of war sent wild,
Smote, and began to sing— [95]
And he cried of the ships as eagles
That circle fiercely and fly,
And sweep the seas and strike the towns
From Cyprus round to Skye.
How swiftly and with peril [100]
They gather all good things,
The high horns of the forest beasts,
Or the secret stones of kings.
“For Rome was given to rule the world,
And gat of it little joy— [105]
But we, but we shall enjoy the world,
The whole huge world a toy.
“Great wine like blood from Burgundy,
Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,
And marble like solid moonlight, [110]
And gold like frozen fire.
“Smells that a man might swill in a cup,
Stones that a man might eat,
And the great smooth women like ivory
That the Turks sell in the street.” [115]
He sang the throne of the thief of the world,
And the gods that love the thief;
And he yelled aloud at the cloister-yards,
Where men go gathering grief.
“Well have you sung, O stranger, [120]
Of death on the dyke in Wales,
Your chief was a bracelet-giver;
But the red unbroken river
Of a race runs not for ever,
But suddenly it fails. [125]
“Doubtless your sires were sword-swingers
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;
“But since you bent to the shaven men, [130]
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you,
A hare on the mountain height.”
King Guthrum smiled a little,
And said, “It is enough, [135]
Nephew, let Elf retune the string;
A boy must needs like bellowing,
But the old ears of a careful king
Are glad of songs less rough.”
Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel, [140]
With womanish hair and ring,
Yet heavy was his hand on sword,
Though light upon the string.
And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five, [145]
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive.
And they felt the land of the folk-songs
Spread southward of the Dane,
And they heard the good Rhine flowing [150]
In the heart of all Allemagne.
They felt the land of the folk-songs,
Where the gifts hang on the tree,
Where the girls give ale at morning
And the tears come easily. [155]
The mighty people, womanlike,
That have pleasure in their pain
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful, [160]
Whom the heavens could not save,
Till the world was like a sea of tears
And every soul a wave.
“There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well; [165]
A thing forgotten, as long ago
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
“The thing on the blind side of the heart, [170]
On the wrong side of the door,
The green plant groweth, menacing
Almighty lovers in the spring;
There is always a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure.” [175]
And all that sat by the fire were sad,
Save Ogier, who was stern,
And his eyes hardened, even to stones,
As he took the harp in turn;
Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling [180]
Was odd to ear and sight,
Old he was, but his locks were red,
And jests were all the words he said,
Yet he was sad at board and bed
And savage in the fight. [185]
“You sing of the young gods easily
In the days when you are young;
But I go smelling yew and sods,
And I know there are gods behind the gods,
Gods that are best unsung. [190]
“And a man grows ugly for women,
And a man grows dull with ale,
Well if he find in his soul at last
Fury, that does not fail.
“The wrath of the gods behind the gods [195]
Who would rend all gods and men,
Well if the old man’s heart hath still
Wheels sped of rage and roaring will,
Like cataracts to break down and kill,
Well for the old man then— [200]
“While there is one tall shrine to shake,
Or one live man to rend;
For the wrath of the gods behind the gods
Who are weary to make an end.
“There lives one moment for a man [205]
When the door at his shoulder shakes,
When the taut rope parts under the pull,
And the barest branch is beautiful
One moment, while it breaks.
“So rides my soul upon the sea [210]
That drinks the howling ships,
Though in black jest it bows and nods
Under the moons with silver rods,
I know it is roaring at the gods,
Waiting the last eclipse. [215]
“And in the last eclipse the sea
Shall stand up like a tower,
Above all moons made dark and riven,
Hold up its foaming head in heaven,
And laugh, knowing its hour. [220]
“And the high ones in the happy town
Propped of the planets seven,
Shall know a new light in the mind,
A noise about them and behind,
Shall hear an awful voice, and find
Foam in the courts of heaven. [225]
“And you that sit by the fire are young,
And true loves wait for you;
But the King and I grow old, grow old,
And hate alone is true.” [230]
And Guthrum shook his head but smiled,
For he was a mighty clerk,
And had read lines in the Latin books,
When all the north was dark.
He said, “I am older than you, Ogier; [235]
Not all things would I rend,
For whether life be bad or good
It is best to abide the end.”
He took the great harp wearily,
Even Guthrum of the Danes, [240]
With wide eyes bright as the one long day
On the long polar plains.
For he sang of a wheel returning,
And the mire trod back to mire,
And how red hells and golden heavens [245]
Are castles in the fire.
“It is good to sit where the good tales go,
To sit as our fathers sat;
But the hour shall come after his youth,
When a man shall know not tales but truth, [250]
And his heart fail thereat.
“When he shall read what is written
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods. [255]
“For this is a heavy matter,
And the truth is cold to tell;
Do we not know, have we not heard,
The soul is like a lost bird,
The body a broken shell. [260]
“And a man hopes, being ignorant
Till in white woods apart
He finds at last the lost bird dead:
And a man may still lift up his head
But never more his heart. [265]
“There comes no noise but weeping
Out of the ancient sky,
And a tear is in the tiniest flower
Because the gods must die.
“The little brooks are very sweet, [270]
Like a girl’s ribbons curled,
But the great sea is bitter
That washes all the world.
“Strong are the Roman roses,
Or the free flowers of the heath, [275]
But every flower, like a flower of the sea,
Smelleth with the salt of death.
“And the heart of the locked battle
Is the happiest place for men;
When shrieking souls as shafts go by [280]
And many have died and all may die;
Though this word be a mystery,
Death is most distant then.
“Death blazes bright above the cup,
And clear above the crown; [285]
But in that dream of battle
We seem to tread it down.
“Wherefore I am a great king,
And waste the world in vain,
Because man hath not other power, [290]
Save that in dealing death for dower,
He may forget it for an hour
To remember it again.”
And slowly his hands and thoughtfully
Fell from the lifted lyre, [295]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees
Till Alfred caught it to his knees
And smote it as in ire.
He heaved the head of the harp on high
And swept the framework barred, [300]
And his stroke had all the rattle and spark
Of horses flying hard.
“When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight [305]
That might betray his lord;
“He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell. [310]
“But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.
“What have the strong gods given? [315]
Where have the glad gods led?
When Guthrum sits on a hero’s throne
And asks if he is dead?
“Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without home, [320]
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,
“I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk, [325]
And bow to the White Lord’s broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.
“That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name; [330]
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.
“That though you hunt the Christian man [335]
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain, [340]
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.
“Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our King Alfred, lost from fame, [345]
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing;
“Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein, [350]
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;
“Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wondering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy [355]
Than feast for misery.
“Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the “White Horse fades in the grass, [360]
No work of Christian men.
“Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail, [365]
Was cut out of the grass.
“Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten, [370]
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.
“For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band [375]
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.”
And the King, with harp on shoulder,
Stood up and ceased his song; [380]
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,
And the Danes laughed loud and long.
BOOK IV
THE WOMAN IN THE FOREST
HICK thunder of the snorting swine,
Enormous in the gloam,
Rending among all roots that cling,
And the wild horses whinnying,
Were the night’s noises when the King, [5]
Shouldering his harp, went home.
With eyes of owl and feet of fox,
Full of all thoughts he went;
He marked the tilt of the pagan camp,
The paling of pine, the sentries’ tramp, [10]
And the one great stolen altar-lamp
Over Guthrum in his tent.
By scrub and thorn in Ethandune
That night the foe had lain;
Whence ran across the heather grey [15]
The old stones of a Roman way;
And in a wood not far away
The pale road split in twain.
He marked the wood and the cloven ways
With an old captain’s eyes, [20]
And he thought how many a time had he
Sought to see Doom he could not see;
How ruin had come and victory,
And both were a surprise.
Even so he had watched and wondered [25]
Under Ashdown from the plains;
With Ethelred praying in his tent,
Till the white hawthorn swung and bent,
As Alfred rushed his spears and rent
The shield-wall of the Danes. [30]
Even so he had watched and wondered,
Knowing neither less nor more,
Till all his lords lay dying,
And axes on axes plying,
Flung him, and drove him flying [35]
Like a pirate to the shore.
Wise he had been before defeat,
And wise before success;
Wise in both hours, and ignorant,
Knowing neither more nor less. [40]
As he went down to the river-hut
He knew a night-shade scent,
Owls did as evil cherubs rise,
With little wings and lantern eyes,
As though he sank through the under-skies; [45]
But down and down he went.
As he went down to the river-hut
He went as one that fell;
Seeing the high forest domes and spars.
Dim green or torn with golden scars, [50]
As the proud look up at the evil stars,
In the red heavens of hell.
For he must meet by the river-hut
Them he had bidden to arm,
Mark from the towers of Italy, [55]
And Colan of the Sacred Tree,
And Eldred who beside the sea
Held heavily his farm.
The roof leaned gaping to the grass,
As a monstrous mushroom lies; [60]
Echoing and empty seemed the place;
But opened in a little space
A great grey woman with scarred face
And strong and humbled eyes.
King Alfred was but a meagre man, [65]
Bright eyed, but lean and pale,
And swordless, with his harp and rags,
He seemed a beggar, such as lags
Looking for crusts and ale.
And the woman, with a woman’s eyes [70]
Of pity at once and ire,
Said, when that she had glared a span,
“There is a cake for any man
If he will watch the fire.”
And Alfred, bowing heavily, [75]
Sat down the fire to stir,
And even as the woman pitied him
So did he pity her.
Saying, “O great heart in the night,
O best cast forth for worst, [80]
Twilight shall melt and morning stir,
And no kind thing shall come to her,
Till God shall turn the world over
And all the last are first.
“And well may God with the serving-folk [85]
Cast in His dreadful lot;
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
“For was not God my gardener
And silent like a slave; [90]
That opened oaks on the uplands
Or thicket in graveyard gave?
“And was not God my armourer,
All patient and unpaid,
That sealed my skull as a helmet, [95]
And ribs for hauberk made?
“Did not a great grey servant
Of all my sires and me,
Build this pavilion of the pines,
And herd the fowls and fill the vines, [100]
And labour and pass and leave no signs
Save mercy and mystery?
“For God is a great servant,
And rose before the day,
From some primordial slumber torn; [105]
But all we living later born
Sleep on, and rise after the morn,
And the Lord has gone away.
“On things half sprung from sleeping,
All sleepy suns have shone, [110]
They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,
The beasts blink upon hands and knees,
Man is awake and does and sees—
But Heaven has done and gone.
“For who shall guess the good riddle [115]
Or speak of the Holiest,
Save in faint figures and failing words,
Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,
Labours, and is at rest?
“But some see God like Guthrum, [120]
Crowned, with a great beard curled,
But I see God like a good giant,
That, labouring, lifts the world.
“Wherefore was God in Golgotha,
Slain as a serf is slain; [125]
And hate He had of prince and peer,
And love He had and made good cheer
Of them that, like this woman here,
Go powerfully in pain.
“But in this grey morn of man’s life [130]
Cometh sometime to the mind
A little light that leaps and flies,
Like a star blown on the wind.
“A star of nowhere, a nameless star,
A light that spins and swirls, [135]
And cries that even in hedge and hill,
Even on earth, it may go ill
At last with the evil earls.
“A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star,
On the waste wind whirled and driven, [140]
But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,
A time discrowned of doom and birth,
And the kingdom of the poor on earth
Come, as it is in heaven.
“But even though such days endure, [145]
How shall it profit her?
Who shall go groaning to the grave,
With many a meek and mighty slave,
Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,
And woodman and waggoner. [150]
“Bake ye the big world all again
A cake with kinder leaven;
Yet these are sorry evermore—
Unless there be a little door,
A little door in heaven.” [155]
And as he wept for the woman
He let her business be,
And like his royal oath and rash
The good food fell upon the ash
And blackened instantly. [160]
Screaming, the woman caught a cake
Yet burning from the bar,
And struck him suddenly on the face,
Leaving a scarlet scar.
King Alfred stood up wordless, [165]
A man dead with surprise,
And torture stood and the evil things
That are in the childish hearts of kings
An instant in his eyes.
And even as he stood and stared [170]
Drew round him in the dusk
Those friends creeping from far-off farms,
Marcus with all his slaves in arms,
And the strange spears hung with ancient charms
Of Colan of the Usk. [175]
With one whole farm marching afoot
The trampled road resounds,
Farm-hands and farm-beasts blundering by
And jars of mead and stores of rye,
Where Eldred strode above his high [180]
And thunder-throated hounds.
And grey cattle and silver lowed
Against the unlifted morn,
And straw clung to the spear-shafts tall.
And a boy went before them all [185]
Blowing a ram’s horn.
As mocking such rude revelry,
The dim clan of the Gael
Came like a bad king’s burial-end,
With dismal robes that drop and rend [190]
And demon pipes that wail—
In long, outlandish garments,
Torn, though of antique worth,
With Druid beards and Druid spears,
As a resurrected race appears [195]
Out of an elder earth.
And though the King had called them forth
And knew them for his own,
So still each eye stood like a gem,
So spectral hung each broidered hem, [200]
Grey carven men he fancied them,
Hewn in an age of stone.
And the two wild peoples of the north
Stood fronting in the gloam,
And heard and knew each in its mind [205]
The third great thunder on the wind,
The living walls that hedge mankind,
The walking walls of Rome.
Mark’s were the mixed tribes of the west,
Of many a hue and strain, [210]
Gurth, with rank hair like yellow grass,
And the Cornish fisher, Gorlias,
And Halmer, come from his first mass,
Lately baptized, a Dane.
But like one man in armour [215]
Those hundreds trod the field,
From red Arabia to the Tyne
The earth had heard that marching-line,
Since the cry on the hill Capitoline,
And the fall of the golden shield. [220]
And the earth shook and the King stood still
Under the greenwood bough,
And the smoking cake lay at his feet
And the blow was on his brow.
Then Alfred laughed out suddenly, [225]
Like thunder in the spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
For the laughter of the King. [230]
And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
Under the greenwood tree— [235]
The giant laughter of Christian men
That roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack’s away with his master’s lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass, [240]
The farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick,
Yet end not all in scorning—
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock gone wrong and the world gone right, [245]
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
“Now here is a good warrant,”
Cried Alfred, “by my sword;
For he that is struck for an ill servant [250]
Should be a kind lord.
“He that has been a servant
Knows more than priests and kings,
But he that has been an ill servant,
He knows all earthly things. [255]
“Pride flings frail palaces at the sky,
As a man flings up sand,
But the firm feet of humility
Take hold of heavy land.
“Pride juggles with her toppling towers, [260]
They strike the sun and cease,
But the firm feet of humility
They grip the ground like trees.
“He that hath failed in a little thing
Hath a sign upon the brow; [265]
And the Earls of the Great Army
Have no such seal to show.
“The red print on my forehead,
Small flame for a red star,
In the van of the violent marching, then [270]
When the sky is torn of the trumpets ten,
And the hands of the happy howling men
Fling wide the gates of war.
“This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return [275]
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea
If the red star burn.
“One man shall drive a hundred, [280]
As the dead kings drave;
Before me rocking hosts be riven,
And battering cohorts backwards driven,
For I am the first king known of heaven
That has been struck like a slave. [285]
“Up on the old white road, brothers,
Up on the Roman walls!
For this is the night of the drawing of swords,
And the painted tower of the heathen hordes
Leans to our hammers, fires and cords, [290]
Leans a little and falls.
“Follow the star that lives and leaps,
Follow the sword that sings,
For we go gathering heathen men,
A terrible harvest, ten by ten, [295]
As the wrath of the last red autumn—then
When Christ reaps down the kings.
“Follow a light that leaps and spins,
Follow the fire unfurled!
For riseth up against realm and rod, [300]
A thing forgotten, a thing downtrod,
The last lost giant, even God,
Is risen against the world.”
Roaring they went o’er the Roman wall,
And roaring up the lane, [305]
Their torches tossed, a ladder of fire,
Higher their hymn was heard and higher,
More sweet for hate and for heart’s desire,
And up in the northern scrub and brier
They fell upon the Dane. [310]
BOOK V
ETHANDUNE: THE FIRST
STROKE
ING GUTHRUM was a dread king,
Like death out of the north;
Shrines without name or number
He rent and rolled as lumber,
From Chester to the Humber [5]
He drove his foemen forth.
The Roman villas heard him
In the valley of the Thames,
Come over the hills roaring
Above their roofs, and pouring [10]
On spire and stair and flooring
Brimstone and pitch and flames.
Sheer o’er the great chalk uplands
And the hill of the Horse went he,
Till high on Hampshire beacons [15]
He saw the southern sea.
High on the heights of Wessex
He saw the southern brine,
And turned him to a conquered land,
And where the northern thornwoods stand, [20]
And the road parts on either hand,
There came to him a sign.
King Guthrum was a war-chief,
A wise man in the field,
And though he prospered well, and knew [25]
How Alfred’s folk were sad and few.
Not less with weighty care he drew
Long lines for pike and shield.
King Guthrum lay on the upper land,
On a single road at gaze, [30]
And his foe must come with lean array,
Up the left arm of the cloven way,
To the meeting of the ways.
And long ere the noise of armour,
An hour ere the break of light, [35]
The woods awoke with crash and cry,
And the birds sprang clamouring harsh and high,
And the rabbits ran like an elves’ army
Ere Alfred came in sight.
The live wood came at Guthrum, [40]
On foot and claw and wing,
The nests were noisy overhead,
For Alfred and the star of red,
All life went forth, and the forest fled
Before the face of the King. [45]
But halted in the woodways
Christ’s few were grim and grey,
And each with a small, far, bird-like sight
Saw the high folly of the fight;
And though strange joys had grown in the night, [50]
Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,
Like cold foam of a flood,
Then weakened every warrior’s mood,
In hope, though not in hardihood; [55]
And each man sorrowed as he stood
In the fashion of his blood.
For the Saxon Franklin sorrowed
For the things that had been fair,
For the dear dead women, crimson-clad, [60]
And the great feasts and the friends he had;
But the Celtic prince’s soul was sad
For the things that never were.
In the eyes Italian all things
But a black laughter died; [65]
And Alfred flung his shield to earth
And smote his breast and cried—
“I wronged a man to his slaying,
And a woman to her shame,
And once I looked on a sworn maid [70]
That was wed to the Holy Name.
“And once I took my neighbour’s wife,
That was bound to an eastland man,
In the starkness of my evil youth,
Before my griefs began. [75]
“People, if you have any prayers,
Say prayers for me:
And lay me under a Christian stone
In that lost land I thought my own,
To wait till the holy horn is blown, [80]
And all poor men are free.”
Then Eldred of the idle farm
Leaned on his ancient sword,
As fell his heavy words and few;
And his eyes were of such alien blue [85]
As gleams where the Northman saileth new
Into an unknown fiord.
“I was a fool and wasted ale—
My slaves found it sweet;
I was a fool and wasted bread, [90]
And the birds had bread to eat.
“The kings go up and the kings go down,
And who knows who shall rule;
Next night a king may starve or sleep,
But men and birds and beasts shall weep [95]
At the burial of a fool.
“O, drunkards in my cellar,
Boys in my apple tree,
The world grows stern and strange and new,
And wise men shall govern you, [100]
And you shall weep for me.
“But yoke me my own oxen,
Down to my own farm;
My own dog will whine for me,
My own friends will bend the knee, [105]
And the foes I slew openly
Have never wished me harm.”
And all were moved a little,
But Colan stood apart,
Having first pity, and after [110]
Hearing, like rat in rafter,
That little worm of laughter
That eats the Irish heart.
And his grey-green eyes were cruel,
And the smile of his mouth waxed hard, [115]
And he said, “And when did Britain
Become your burying-yard?
“Before the Roman lit the land,
When schools and monks were none,
We reared such stones to the sun-god [120]
As might put out the sun.
“The tall trees of Britain
We worshipped and were wise,
But you shall raid the whole land through
And never a tree shall talk to you, [125]
Though every leaf is a tongue taught true
And the forest is full of eyes.
“On one round hill to the seaward
The trees grow tall and grey
And the trees talk together [130]
When all men are away.
“O’er a few round hills forgotten
The trees grow tall in rings,
And the trees talk together
Of many pagan things. [135]
“Yet I could lie and listen
With a cross upon my clay,
And hear unhurt for ever
What the trees of Britain say.”
A proud man was the Roman, [140]
His speech a single one,
But his eyes were like an eagle’s eyes
That is staring at the sun.
“Dig for me where I die,” he said,
“If first or last I fall— [145]
Dead on the fell at the first charge,
Or dead by Wantage wall;
“Lift not my head from bloody ground,
Bear not my body home,
For all the earth is Roman earth [150]
And I shall die in Rome.”
Then Alfred, King of England,
Bade blow the horns of war,
And fling the Golden Dragon out,
With crackle and acclaim and shout, [155]
Scrolled and aflame and far.
And under the Golden Dragon
Went Wessex all along,
Past the sharp point of the cloven ways,
Out from the black wood into the blaze [160]
Of sun and steel and song.
And when they came to the open land
They wheeled, deployed, and stood;
Midmost were Marcus and the King,
And Eldred on the right-hand wing, [165]
And leftwards Colan darkling,
In the last shade of the wood.
But the Earls of the Great Army
Lay like a long half moon,
Ten poles before their palisades, [170]
With wide-winged helms and runic blades
Red giants of an age of raids,
In the thornland of Ethandune.
Midmost the saddles rose and swayed,
And a stir of horses’ manes, [175]
Where Guthrum and a few rode high
On horses seized in victory;
But Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes.
Far to the King’s right Elf the bard [180]
Led on the western wing
With songs and spells that change the blood;
And on the King’s left Harold stood,
The kinsman of the King.
Young Harold, coarse, with colours gay, [185]
Smoking with oil and musk,
And the pleasant violence of the young,
Pushed through his people, giving tongue
Foewards, where, grey as cobwebs hung,
The banners of the Usk. [190]
But as he came before his line
A little space along,
His beardless face broke into mirth,
And he cried: “What broken bits of earth
Are here? For what their clothes are worth [195]
I would sell them for a song.”
For Colan was hung with raiment
Tattered like autumn leaves,
And his men were all as thin as saints,
And all as poor as thieves. [200]
No bows nor slings nor bolts they bore,
But bills and pikes ill-made;
And none but Colan bore a sword,
And rusty was its blade.
And Colan’s eyes with mystery [205]
And iron laughter stirred,
And he spoke aloud, but lightly,
Not labouring to be heard.
“Oh, truly we be broken hearts,
For that cause, it is said, [210]
We light our candles to that Lord
That broke Himself for bread.
“But though we hold but bitterly
What land the Saxon leaves,
Though Ireland be but a land of saints, [215]
And Wales a land of thieves,
“I say you yet shall weary
Of the working of your word,
That stricken spirits never strike,
Nor lean hands hold a sword. [220]
“And if ever ye ride in Ireland,
The jest may yet be said,
There is the land of broken hearts,
And the land of broken heads.”
Not less barbarian laughter [225]
Choked Harold like a flood,
“And shall I fight with scarecrows
That am of Guthrum’s blood?
“Meeting may be of war-men,
Where the best war-man wins; [230]
But all this carrion a man shoots
Before the fight begins.”
And stopping in his onward strides,
He snatched a bow in scorn
From some mean slave, and bent it on [235]
Colan, whose doom grew dark; and shone
Stars evil over Caerleon,
In the place where he was born.
For Colan had not bow nor sling,
On a lonely sword leaned he, [240]
Like Arthur on Excalibur
In the battle by the sea.
To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow, [245]
But swifter sprang the Gael.
Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky,
Flying before the shaft could fly— [250]
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.
Colan stood bare and weaponless,
Earl Harold, as in pain,
Strove for a smile, put hand to head, [255]
Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;
And the small white daisies all waxed red
With blood out of his brain.
And all at that marvel of the sword,
Cast like a stone to slay, [260]
Cried out. Said Alfred: “Who would see
Signs, must give all things. Verily
Man shall not taste of victory
Till he throws his sword away.”
Then Alfred, prince of England, [265]
And all the Christian earls,
Unhooked their swords and held them up,
Each offered to Colan, like a cup
Of chrysolite and pearls.
And the King said, “Do thou take my sword [270]
Who have done this deed of fire,
For this is the manner of Christian men,
Whether of steel or priestly pen,
That they cast their hearts out of their ken
To get their hearts’ desire. [275]
“And whether ye swear a hive of monks,
Or one fair wife to friend,
This is the manner of Christian men,
That their oath endures the end.
“For Love, our Lord, at the end of the world, [280]
Sits a red horse like a throne,
With a brazen helm and an iron bow,
But one arrow alone.
“Love with the shield of the Broken Heart
Ever his bow doth bend, [285]
With a single shaft for a single prize,
And the ultimate bolt that parts and flies
Comes with a thunder of split skies,
And a sound of souls that rend.
“So shall you earn a king’s sword, [290]
Who cast your sword away.”
And the King took, with a random eye,
A rude axe from a hind hard by
And turned him to the fray.
For the swords of the Earls of Daneland [295]
Flamed round the fallen lord.
The first blood woke the trumpet-tune,
As in monk’s rhyme or wizard’s rune
Beginneth the Battle of Ethandune
With the throwing of the sword. [300]
BOOK VI
ETHANDUNE: THE SLAYING
OF THE CHIEFS
S the sea flooding the flat sands
Flew on the sea-born horde,
The two hosts shocked with dust and din,
Left of the Latian paladin,
Clanged all Prince Harold’s howling kin [5]
On Colan and the sword.
Crashed in the midst on Marcus,
Ogier with Guthrum by,
And westward of such central stir,
Far to the right and faintlier, [10]
The house of Elf the harp-player,
Struck Eldred’s with a cry.
The centre swat for weariness,
Stemming the screaming horde,
And wearily went Colan’s hands [15]
That swung King Alfred’s sword.
But like a cloud of evening
To westward easily,
Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears
As a tall ship breaks the sea. [20]
His face like a sanguine sunset,
His shoulder a Wessex down,
His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;
Men could not count the crests he broke,
So fast the crests went down. [25]
As the tall white devil of the Plague,
Moves out of Asian skies,
With his foot on a waste of cities
And his head in a cloud of flies;
Or purple and peacock skies grow dark [30]
With a moving locust-tower;
Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,
Like hell’s red banners beat and fly,
When death comes out of Araby,
Was Eldred in his hour. [35]
But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.
Even as he strode like a pestilence, [40]
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home.
Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes, [45]
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet times—
Till on the helm of a high chief
Fell shatteringly his brand,
And the helm broke and the bone broke [50]
And the sword broke in his hand.
Then from the yelling Northmen
Driven splintering on him ran
Full seven spears, and the seventh [55]
Was never made by man.
Seven spears, and the seventh
Was wrought as the faerie blades,
And given to Elf the minstrel
By the monstrous water-maids;
By them that dwell where luridly [60]
Lost waters of the Rhine
Move among roots of nations,
Being sunken for a sign.
Under all graves they murmur,
They murmur and rebel, [65]
Down to the buried kingdoms creep,
And like a lost rain roar and weep
O’er the red heavens of hell.
Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,
And washed as dead on sand; [70]
And the third time men found him
The spear was in his hand.
Seven spears went about Eldred,
Like stays about a mast;
But there was sorrow by the sea [75]
For the driving of the last.
Six spears thrust upon Eldred
Were splintered while he laughed;
One spear thrust into Eldred,
Three feet of blade and shaft. [80]
And from the great heart grievously
Came forth the shaft and blade,
And he stood with the face of a dead man,
Stood a little, and swayed—
Then fell, as falls a battle-tower, [85]
On smashed and struggling spears,
Cast down from some unconquered town
That, rushing earthward, carries down
Loads of live men of all renown—
Archers and engineers. [90]
And a great clamour of Christian men
Went up in agony,
Crying, “Fallen is the tower of Wessex
That stood beside the sea.”
Centre and right the Wessex guard [95]
Grew pale for doubt and fear,
And the flank failed at the advance,
For the death-light on the wizard lance—
The star of the evil spear.
“Stand like an oak,” cried Marcus, [100]
“Stand like a Roman wall!
Eldred the Good is fallen—
Are you too good to fall?
“When we were wan and bloodless
He gave you ale enow; [105]
The pirates deal with him as dung,
God! are you bloodless now?”
“Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!
Slaves, and I make you free!
Stamp, Hildred hard on English land, no
Stand Gurth, stand Gorlias, Gawen stand!
Hold, Halfgar, with the other hand,
Halmer, hold up on knee!
“The lamps are dying in your homes,
The fruits upon your bough; us
Even now your old thatch smoulders, Gurth,
Now is the judgment of the earth,
Now is the death-grip, now!”
For thunder of the captain,
Not less the Wessex line, [120]
Leaned back and reeled a space to rear
As Elf charged with the Rhine maids’ spear,
And roaring like the Rhine.
For the men were borne by the waving walls
Of woods and clouds that pass, [125]
By dizzy plain and drifting sea,
And they mixed God with glamoury,
God with the gods of the burning tree
And the wizard’s tower and glass.
But Mark was come of the glittering towns [130]
Where hot white details show,
Where man can number and expound,
And his faith grew in a hard ground
Of doubt and reason and falsehood found,
Where no faith else could grow. [135]
Belief that grew of all beliefs
One moment back was blown
And belief that stood on unbelief
Stood up iron and alone.
The Wessex crescent backwards [140]
Crushed, as with bloody spear
Went Elf roaring and routing,
And Mark against Elf yet shouting,
Shocked, in his mid-career.
Right on the Roman shield and sword [145]
Did spear of the Rhine maids run;
But the shield shifted never,
The sword rang down to sever,
The great Rhine sang for ever,
And the songs of Elf were done. [150]
And a great thunder of Christian men
Went up against the sky,
Saying, “God hath broken the evil spear
Ere the good man’s blood was dry.”
“Spears at the charge!” yelled Mark amain, [155]
“Death on the gods of death!
Over the thrones of doom and blood
Goeth God that is a craftsman good,
And gold and iron, earth and wood,
Loveth and laboureth. [160]
“The fruits leap up in all your farms,
The lamps in each abode;
God of all good things done on earth
All wheels or webs of any worth,
The God that makes the roof, Gurth, [165]
The God that makes the road.
“The God that heweth kings in oak
Writeth songs on vellum,
God of gold and flaming glass,
Confregit potentias, [170]
Arcuum, scutum, Gorlias,
Gladium et bellum.”
Steel and lightning broke about him,
Battle-bays and palm,
All the sea-kings swayed among [175]
Woods of the Wessex arms upflung,
The trumpet of the Roman tongue,
The thunder of the psalm.
And midmost of that rolling field
Ran Ogier ragingly, [180]
Lashing at Mark, who turned his blow,
And brake the helm about his brow,
And broke him to his knee.
Then Ogier heaved over his head
His huge round shield of proof; [185]
But Mark set one foot on the shield,
One on some sundered rock upheeled,
And towered above the tossing field,
A statue on a roof.
Dealing far blows about the fight, [190]
Like thunder-bolts a-roam,
Like birds about the battle-field,
While Ogier writhed under his shield
Like a tortoise in his dome.
But hate in the buried Ogier [195]
Was strong as pain in hell,
With bare brute hand from the inside
He burst the shield of brass and hide,
And a death-stroke to the Roman’s side
Sent suddenly and well. [200]
Then the great statue on the shield
Looked his last look around
With level and imperial eye;
And Mark, the man from Italy,
Fell in the sea of agony, [205]
And died without a sound.
And Ogier, leaping up alive,
Hurled his huge shield away
Flying, as when a juggler flings
A whizzing plate in play. [210]
And held two arms up rigidly,
And roared to all the Danes:
“Fallen is Rome, yea, fallen
The city of the plains!
“Shall no man born remember, [215]
That breaketh wood or weald,
How long she stood on the roof of the world
As he stood on my shield.
“The new wild world forgetteth her
As foam fades on the sea, [220]
How long she stood with her foot on Man
As he with his foot on me.
“No more shall the brown men of the south
Move like the ants in lines,
To quiet men with olives [225]
Or madden men with vines.
“No more shall the white towns of the south,
Where Tiber and Nilus run,
Sitting around a secret sea
Worship a secret sun. [230]
“The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,
And forum and garland gone,
For the ice of the north is broken,
And the sea of the north comes on.
“The blind gods roar and rave and dream [235]
Of all cities under the sea,
For the heart of the north is broken,
And the blood of the north is free.
“Down from the dome of the world we come,
Rivers on rivers down, [240]
Under us swirl the sects and hordes
And the high dooms we drown.
“Down from the dome of the world and down,
Struck flying as a skiff
On a river in spate is spun and swirled [245]
Until we come to the end of the world
That breaks short, like a cliff.
“And when we come to the end of the world
For me, I count it fit
To take the leap like a good river, [250]
Shot shrieking over it.
“But whatso hap at the end of the world,
Where Nothing is struck and sounds,
It is not, by Thor, these monkish men
These humbled Wessex hounds— [255]
“Not this pale line of Christian hinds,
This one white string of men,
Shall keep us back from the end of the world,
And the things that happen then.
“It is not Alfred’s dwarfish sword, [260]
Nor Egbert’s pigmy crown,
Shall stay us now that descend in thunder,
Rending the realms and the realms thereunder,
Down through the world and down.”
There was that in the wild men back of him, [265]
There was that in his own wild song,
A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,
That dazed to death all Wessex folk,
And swept their spears along.
Vainly the sword of Colan [270]
And the axe of Alfred plied—
The Danes poured in like a brainless plague,
And knew not when they died.
Prince Colan slew a score of them,
And was stricken to his knee; [275]
King Alfred slew a score and seven
And was borne back on a tree.
Back to the black gate of the woods,
Back up the single way,
Back by the place of the parting ways [280]
Christ’s knights were whirled away.
And when they came to the parting ways
Doom’s heaviest hammer fell,
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,
Down the right lane with his array, [285]
But Colan swept the other way,
Where he smote great strokes and fell.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand sharp and thick as spears,
By night and furze and forest-harms [290]
Far sundered were the friends in arms;
The loud lost blows, the last alarms,
Came not to Alfred’s ears.
The thorn-woods over Ethandune
Stand stiff as spikes in mail; [295]
As to the Haut King came at morn
Dead Roland on a doubtful horn,
Seemed unto Alfred lightly borne
The last cry of the Gael.
BOOK VII
ETHANDUNE: THE LAST CHARGE
WAY in the waste of White Horse Down
An idle child alone
Played some small game through hours that pass,
And patiently would pluck the grass,
Patiently push the stone. [5]
On the lean, green edge for ever,
Where the blank chalk touched the turf,
The child played on, alone, divine,
As a child plays on the last line
That sunders sand and surf. [10]
For he dwelleth in high divisions
Too simple to understand,
Seeing on what morn of mystery
The Uncreated rent the sea
With roarings, from the land. [15]
Through the long infant hours like days
He built one tower in vain—
Piled up small stones to make a town,
And evermore the stones fell down,
And he piled them up again. [20]
And crimson kings on battle-towers,
And saints on Gothic spires,
And hermits on their peaks of snow,
And heroes on their pyres,
And patriots riding royally, [25]
That rush the rocking town,
Stretch hands, and hunger and aspire,
Seeking to mount where high and higher,
The child whom Time can never tire,
Sings over White Horse Down. [30]
And this was the might of Alfred,
At the ending of the way;
That of such smiters, wise or wild,
He was least distant from the child,
Piling the stones all day. [35]
For Eldred fought like a frank hunter
That killeth and goeth home;
And Mark had fought because all arms
Rang like the name of Rome.
And Colan fought with a double mind, [40]
Moody and madly gay;
But Alfred fought as gravely
As a good child at play.
He saw wheels break and work run back
And all things as they were; [45]
And his heart was orbed like victory
And simple like despair.
Therefore is Mark forgotten,
That was wise with his tongue and brave;
And the cairn over Colan crumbled, [50]
And the cross on Eldred’s grave.
Their great souls went on a wind away,
And they have not tale or tomb;
And Alfred born in Wantage
Rules England till the doom. [55]
Because in the forest of all fears
Like a strange fresh gust from sea,
Struck him that ancient innocence
That is more than mastery.
And as a child whose bricks fall down [60]
Re-piles them o’er and o’er,
Came ruin and the rain that burns,
Returning as a wheel returns,
And crouching in the furze and ferns
He began his life once more. [65]
He took his ivory horn unslung
And smiled, but not in scorn:
“Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
On a dark horse at the double way [70]
He saw great Guthrum ride,
Heard roar of brass and ring of steel,
The laughter and the trumpet peal,
The pagan in his pride.
And Ogier’s red and hated head [75]
Moved in some talk or task;
But the men seemed scattered in the brier,
And some of them had lit a fire,
And one had broached a cask.
And waggons one or two stood up, [80]
Like tall ships in sight,
As if an outpost were encamped
At the cloven ways for night.
And joyous of the sudden stay
Of Alfred’s routed few, [85]
Sat one upon a stone to sigh,
And some slipped up the road to fly,
Till Alfred in the fern hard by
Set horn to mouth and blew.
And they all abode like statues— [90]
One sitting on the stone,
One half-way through the thorn hedge tall,
One with a leg across a wall,
And one looked backwards, very small,
Far up the road, alone. [95]
Grey twilight and a yellow star
Hung over thorn and hill;
Two spears and a cloven war-shield lay
Loose on the road as cast away,
The horn died faint in the forests grey, [100]
And the fleeing men stood still.
“Brothers at arms,” said Alfred,
“On this side lies the foe;
Are slavery and starvation flowers,
That you should pluck them so? [105]
“For whether is it better
To be prodded with Danish poles,
Having hewn a chamber in a ditch,
And hounded like a howling witch,
Or smoked to death in holes? [110]
“Or that before the red cock crow
All we, a thousand strong,
Go down the dark road to God’s house,
Singing a Wessex song?
“To sweat a slave to a race of slaves, [115]
To drink up infamy?
No, brothers, by your leave, I think
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by all the stars of Christ that sink,
The Danes shall drink with me. [120]
“To grow old cowed in a conquered land,
With the sun itself discrowned,
To see trees crouch and cattle slink—
Death is a better ale to drink,
And by high Death on the fell brink, [125]
That flagon shall go round.
“Though dead are all the paladins
Whom glory had in ken,
Though all your thunder-sworded thanes
With proud hearts died among the Danes, [130]
While a man remains, great war remains:
Now is a war of men.
“The men that tear the furrows,
The men that fell the trees,
When all their lords be lost and dead [135]
The bondsmen of the earth shall tread
The tyrants of the seas.
“The wheel of the roaring stillness
Of all labours under the sun,
Speed the wild work as well at least [140]
As the whole world’s work is done.
“Let Hildred hack the shield-wall
Clean as he hacks the hedge;
Let Gurth the fowler stand as cool
As he stands on the chasm’s edge; [145]
“Let Gorlias ride the sea-kings
As Gorlias rides the sea,
Then let all hell and Denmark drive,
Yelling to all its fiends alive,
And not a rag care we.” [150]
When Alfred’s word was ended
Stood firm that feeble line,
Each in his place with club or spear,
And fury deeper than deep fear,
And smiles as sour as brine. [155]
And the King held up the horn and said,
“See ye my father’s horn,
That Egbert blew in his empery,
Once, when he rode out commonly,
Twice, when he rode for venery, [160]
And thrice on the battle-morn.
“But heavier fates have fallen
The horn of the Wessex kings,
And I blew once, the riding sign,
To call you to the fighting line [165]
And glory and all good things.
“And now two blasts, the hunting sign,
Because we turn to bay;
But I will not blow the three blasts,
Till we be lost or they. [170]
“And now I blow the hunting sign,
Charge some, by rule and rod;
But when I blow the battle sign,
Charge all, and go to God.”
Wild stared the Danes at the double ways [175]
Where they loitered, all at large,
As that dark line for the last time
Doubled the knee to charge—
And caught their weapons clumsily,
And marvelled how and why— [180]
In such degree, by rule and rod,
The people of the peace of God
Went roaring down to die.
And when the last arrow
Was fitted and was flown, [185]
When the broken shield hung on the breast,
And the hopeless lance was laid in rest,
And the hopeless horn blown,
The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death, [190]
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.
One instant in a still light [195]
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was a queen most womanly—
But she was a queen of men.
Over the iron forest [200]
He saw Our Lady stand,
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart—
But one was in her hand.
Then the last charge went blindly, [205]
And all too lost for fear:
The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,
And twenty clubs rose o’er the King,
Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,
And Ogier of the Stone and Sling [210]
Drove at him with a spear.
But the Danes were wild with laughter,
And the great spear swung wide,
The point stuck to a straggling tree,
And either host cried suddenly, [215]
As Alfred leapt aside.
Short time had shaggy Ogier
To pull his lance in line—
He knew King Alfred’s axe on high,
He heard it rushing through the sky, [220]
He cowered beneath it with a cry—
It split him to the spine:
And Alfred sprang over him dead,
And blew the battle sign.
Then bursting all and blasting [225]
Came Christendom like death,
Kicked of such catapults of will,
The staves shiver, the barrels spill,
The waggons waver and crash and kill
The waggoners beneath. [230]
Barriers go backwards, banners rend,
Great shields groan like a gong
Horses like horns of nightmare
Neigh horribly and long.
Horses ramp high and rock and boil [235]
And break their golden reins,
And slide on carnage clamorously,
Down where the bitter blood doth lie,
Where Ogier went on foot to die,
In the old way of the Danes. [240]
“The high tide!” King Alfred cried.
“The high tide and the turn!
As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,
See how they waver in the trees,
How stray their spears, how knock their knees, [245]
How wild their watchfires burn!
“The Mother of God goes over them,
Walking on wind and flame,
And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,
And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale, [250]
And we all shall yet drink Christian ale
In the village of our name.
“The Mother of God goes over them,
On dreadful cherubs borne;
And the psalm is roaring above the rune, [255]
And the Cross goes over the sun and moon,
Endeth the Battle of Ethandune
With the blowing of a horn.”
For back indeed disorderly
The Danes went clamouring, [260]
Too worn to take anew the tale,
Or dazed with insolence and ale,
Or stunned of heaven, or stricken pale
Before the face of the King.
For dire was Alfred in his hour [265]
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory,
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death. [270]
And Edgar of the Golden Ship
He slew with his own hand,
Took Ludwig from his lady’s bower,
And smote down Harmar in his hour,
And vain and lonely stood the tower— [275]
The tower in Guelderland.
And Torr out of his tiny boat,
Whose eyes beheld the Nile,
Wulf with his war-cry on his lips,
And Hacro born in the eclipse, [280]
Who blocked the Seine with battleships
Round Paris on the Isle.
And Hacon of the Harvesting,
And Dirck from the Elbe he slew,
And Cnut that melted Durham bell, [285]
And Fulk and fiery Oscar fell,
And Goderic and Sigael,
And Uriel of the Yew.
And highest sang the slaughter,
And fastest fell the slain, [290]
When from the wood-road’s blackening throat
A crowning and crashing wonder smote
The rearguard of the Dane.
For the dregs of Colan’s company—
Lost down the other road— [295]
Had gathered and grown and heard the din,
And with wild yells came pouring in,
Naked as their old British kin,
And bright with blood for woad.
And bare and bloody and aloft [300]
They bore before their band
The body of their mighty lord,
Colan of Caerleon and its horde,
That bore King Alfred’s battle-sword
Broken in his left hand. [305]
And a strange music went with him,
Loud and yet strangely far;
The wild pipes of the western land,
Too keen for the ear to understand,
Sang high and deathly on each hand [310]
When the dead man went to war.
Blocked between ghost and buccaneer,
Brave men have dropped and died;
And the wild sea-lords well might quail
As the ghastly war-pipes of the Gael [315]
Called to the horns of White Horse Vale,
And all the horns replied.
And Hildred the poor hedger
Cut down four captains dead,
And Halmer laid three others low, [320]
And the great earls wavered to and fro
For the living and the dead.
And Gorlias grasped the great flag,
The Raven of Odin, torn;
And the eyes of Guthrum altered, [325]
For the first time since morn.
As a turn of the wheel of tempest
Tilts up the whole sky tall,
And cliffs of wan cloud luminous
Lean out like great walls over us, [330]
As if the heavens might fall.
As such a tall and tilted sky
Sends certain snow or light,
So did the eyes of Guthrum change,
And the turn was more certain and more strange [335]
Than a thousand men in flight.
For not till the floor of the skies is split,
And hell-fire shines through the sea,
Or the stars look up through the rent earth’s knees,
Cometh such rending of certainties, [340]
As when one wise man truly sees
What is more wise than he.
He set his horse in the battle-breach
Even Guthrum of the Dane,
And as ever had fallen fell his brand, [345]
A falling tower o’er many a land,
But Gurth the fowler laid one hand
Upon this bridle rein.
King Guthrum was a great lord,
And higher than his gods— [350]
He put the popes to laughter,
He chid the saints with rods,
He took this hollow world of ours
For a cup to hold his wine;
In the parting of the woodways [355]
There came to him a sign.
In Wessex in the forest,
In the breaking of the spears,
We set a sign on Guthrum
To blaze a thousand years. [360]
Where the high saddles jostle
And the horse-tails toss,
There rose to the birds flying
A roar of dead and dying;
In deafness and strong crying [365]
We signed him with the cross.
Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways. [370]
BOOK VIII
THE SCOURING OF THE HORSE
N the years of the peace of Wessex,
When the good King sat at home;
Years following on that bloody boon
When she that stands above the moon
Stood above death at Ethandune [5]
And saw his kingdom come—
When the pagan people of the sea
Fled to their palisades,
Nailed there with javelins to cling
And wonder smote the pirate king, [10]
And brought him to his christening
And the end of all his raids.
(For not till the night’s blue slate is wiped
Of its last star utterly,
And fierce new signs writ there to read, [15]
Shall eyes with such amazement heed,
As when a great man knows indeed
A greater thing than he.)
And there came to his chrism-loosing
Lords of all lands afar, [20]
And a line was drawn north-westerly
That set King Egbert’s empire free,
Giving all lands by the northern sea
To the sons of the northern star.
In the days of the rest of Alfred, [25]
When all these things were done,
And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,
Like a dog in a patch of sun—
The King sat in his orchard,
Among apples green and red, [30]
With the little book in his bosom
And the sunshine on his head.
And he gathered the songs of simple men
That swing with helm and hod,
And the alms he gave as a Christian [35]
Like a river alive with fishes ran;
And he made gifts to a beggar man
As to a wandering god.
And he gat good laws of the ancient kings,
Like treasure out of the tombs; [40]
And many a thief in thorny nook,
Or noble in sea-stained turret shook,
For the opening of his iron book,
And the gathering of the dooms.
Then men would come from the ends of the earth, [45]
Whom the King sat welcoming,
And men would go to the ends of the earth
Because of the word of the King.
For folk came in to Alfred’s face
Whose javelins had been hurled [50]
On monsters that make boil the sea,
Crakens and coils of mystery,
Or thrust in ancient snows that be
The white hair of the world.
And some had knocked at the northern gates [55]
Of the ultimate icy floor,
Where the fish freeze and the foam turns black,
And the wide world narrows to a track,
And the other sea at the world’s back
Cries through a closed door. [60]
And men went forth from Alfred’s face,
Even great gift-bearing lords,
Not to Rome only, but more bold,
Out to the high hot courts of old,
Of negroes clad in cloth of gold, [65]
Silence, and crooked swords,
Scrawled screens and secret gardens
And insect-laden skies—
Where fiery plains stretch on and on
To the purple country of Prester John [70]
And the walls of Paradise.
And he knew the might of the Terre Majeure,
Where kings began to reign;
Where in a night-rout, without name,
Of gloomy Goths and Gauls there came [75]
White, above candles all aflame,
Like a vision, Charlemagne.
And men, seeing such embassies,
Spake with the King and said:
“The steel that sang so sweet a tune [80]
On Ashdown and on Ethandune,
Why hangs it scabbarded so soon,
All heavily like lead?
“Why dwell the Danes in North England,
And up to the river ride? [85]
Three more such marches like thine own
Would end them; and the Pict should own
Our sway; and our feet climb the throne
In the mountains of Strathclyde.”
And Alfred in the orchard, [90]
Among apples green and red,
With the little book in his bosom,
Looked at green leaves and said:
“When all philosophies shall fail,
This word alone shall fit; [95]
That a sage feels too small for life,
And a fool too large for it.
“Asia and all imperial plains
Are too little for a fool;
But for one man whose eyes can see, [100]
The little island of Athelney
Is too large a land to rule.
“Haply it had been better
When I built my fortress there,
Out in the reedy waters wide, [105]
I had stood on my mud wall and cried:
‘Take England all, from tide to tide—
Be Athelney my share.’
“Those madmen of the throne-scramble—
Oppressors and oppressed— [110]
Had lined the banks by Athelney,
And waved and wailed unceasingly,
Where the river turned to the broad sea,
By an island of the blest.
“An island like a little book [115]
Full of a hundred tales,
Like the gilt page the good monks pen,
That is all smaller than a wren,
Yet hath high towns, meteors, and men,
And suns and spouting whales; [120]
“A land having a light on it
In the river dark and fast,
An isle with utter clearness lit,
Because a saint had stood in it;
Where flowers are flowers indeed and fit, [125]
And trees are trees at last,
“So were the island of a saint;
But I am a common king,
And I will make my fences tough
From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff, [130]
Because I am not wise enough
To rule so small a thing.”
And it fell in the days of Alfred,
In the days of his repose,
That as old customs in his sight [135]
Were a straight road and a steady light,
He bade them keep the White Horse white
As the first plume of the snows.
And right to the red torchlight,
From the trouble of morning grey, [140]
They stripped the White Horse of the grass
As they strip it to this day.
And under the red torchlight
He went dreaming as though dull,
Of his old companions slain like kings, [145]
And the rich irrevocable things
Of a heart that hath not openings,
But is shut fast, being full.
And the torchlight touched the pale hair
Were silver clouded gold, [150]
And the frame of his face was made of cords,
And a young lord turned among the lords
And said: “The King is old.”
And even as he said it
A post ran in amain, [155]
Crying: “Arm, Lord King, the hamlets arm,
In the horror and the shade of harm,
They have burnt Brand of Aynger’s farm—
The Danes are come again!
“Danes drive the white East Angles [160]
In six fights on the plains,
Danes waste the world about the Thames,
Danes to the eastward—Danes!”
And as he stumbled on one knee,
The thanes broke out in ire, [165]
Crying: “Ill the watchmen watch, and ill
The sheriffs keep the shire.”
But the young earl said: “Ill the saints,
The saints of England, guard
The land wherein we pledge them gold; [170]
The dykes decay, the King grows old,
And surely this is hard,
“That we be never quit of them;
That when his head is hoar
He cannot say to them he smote, [175]
And spared with a hand hard at the throat,
‘Go, and return no more.’ ”
Then Alfred smiled. And the smile of him
Was like the sun for power.
But he only pointed: bade them heed [180]
Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,
Who plucked the old Horse of the weed
As they pluck it to this hour.
“Will ye part with the weeds for ever?
Or show daisies to the door? [185]
Or will you bid the bold grass
Go, and return no more?
“So ceaseless and so secret
Thrive terror and theft set free;
Treason and shame shall come to pass [190]
While one weed flowers in a morass;
And like the stillness of stiff grass
The stillness of tyranny.
“Over our white souls also
Wild heresies and high [195]
Wave prouder than the plumes of grass,
And sadder than their sigh.
“And I go riding against the raid,
And ye know not where I am;
But ye shall know in a day or year, [200]
When one green star of grass grows here;
Chaos has charged you, charger and spear,
Battle-axe and battering-ram.
“And though skies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still be true: [205]
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
“One time I followed a dancing star
That seemed to sing and nod,
And ring upon earth all evil’s knell; [210]
But now I wot if ye scour not well
Red rust shall grow on God’s great bell
And grass in the streets of God.”
Ceased Alfred; and above his head
The grand green domes, the Downs, [215]
Showed the first legions of the press,
Marching in haste and bitterness
For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.
Beyond the cavern of Colan,
Past Eldred’s by the sea, [220]
Rose men that owned King Alfred’s rod,
From the windy wastes of Exe untrod,
Or where the thorn of the grave of God
Burns over Glastonbury.
Far northward and far westward [225]
The distant tribes drew nigh,
Plains beyond plains, fell beyond fell,
That a man at sunset sees so well,
And the tiny coloured towns that dwell
In the corners of the sky. [230]
But dark and thick as thronged the host,
“With drum and torch and blade,
The still-eyed King sat pondering,
As one that watches a live thing,
The scoured chalk; and he said, [235]
“Though I give this land to Our Lady,
That helped me in Athelney,
Though lordlier trees and lustier sod
And happier hills hath no flesh trod
Than the garden of the Mother of God [240]
Between Thames side and the sea,
“I know that weeds shall grow in it
Faster than men can burn;
And though they scatter now and go,
In some far century, sad and slow, [245]
I have a vision, and I know
The heathen shall return.
“They shall not come with warships,
They shall not waste with brands,
But books be all their eating, [250]
And ink be on their hands.
“Not with the humour of hunters
Or savage skill in war,
But ordering all things with dead words,
Strings shall they make of beasts and birds, [255]
And wheels of wind and star.
“They shall come mild as monkish clerks,
With many a scroll and pen;
And backward shall ye turn and gaze,
Desiring one of Alfred’s days, [260]
When pagans still were men.
“The dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns,
Like fiercer flowers on stalk,
Earth lost and little like a pea
In high heaven’s towering forestry, [265]
—These be the small weeds ye shall see
Crawl, covering the chalk.
“But though they bridge St. Mary’s sea,
Or steal St. Michael’s wing—
Though they rear marvels over us, [270]
Greater than great Vergilius
Wrought for the Roman king,
“By this sign you shall know them,
The breaking of the sword,
And Man no more a free knight, [275]
That loves or hates his lord.
“Yea, this shall be the sign of them,
The sign of the dying fire;
And Man made like a half-wit,
That knows not of his sire. [280]
“What though they come with scroll and pen,
And grave as a shaven clerk,
By this sign you shall know them,
That they ruin and make dark;
“By all men bond to Nothing, [285]
Being slaves without a lord,
By one blind idiot world obeyed,
Too blind to be abhorred;
“By terror and the cruel tales
Of curse in bone and kin, [290]
By weird and weakness winning,
Accursed from the beginning,
By detail of the sinning,
And denial of the sin;
“By thought a crawling ruin, [295]
By life a leaping mire,
By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
And the end of the world’s desire;
“By God and man dishonoured,
By death and life made vain, [300]
Know ye the old barbarian,
The barbarian come again—
“When is great talk of trend and tide,
And wisdom and destiny,
Hail that undying heathen [305]
That is sadder than the sea.
“In what wise men shall smite him,
Or the Cross stand up again,
Or charity or chivalry,
My vision saith not; and I see [310]
No more; but now ride doubtfully
To the battle of the plain.”
And the grass-edge of the great down
Was cut clean as a lawn,
While the levies thronged from near and far, [315]
From the warm woods of the western star,
And the King went out to his last war
On a tall grey horse at dawn.
And news of his far-off fighting
Came slow and brokenly [320]
From the land of the East Saxons,
From the sunrise and the sea.
From the plains of the white sunrise,
And sad St. Edmund’s crown,
Where the pools of Essex pale and gleam [325]
Out beyond London Town—
In mighty and doubtful fragments,
Like faint or fabled wars,
Climbed the old hills of his renown,
Where the bald brow of White Horse Down [330]
Is close to the cold stars.
But away in the eastern places
The wind of death walked high,
And a raid was driven athwart the raid,
The sky reddened and the smoke swayed, [335]
And the tall grey horse went by.
The gates of the great river
Were breached as with a barge,
The walls sank crowded, say the scribes,
And high towers populous with tribes [340]
Seemed leaning from the charge.
Smoke like rebellious heavens rolled
Curled over coloured flames,
Mirrored in monstrous purple dreams
In the mighty pools of Thames. [345]
Loud was the war on London wall,
And loud in London gates,
And loud the sea-kings in the cloud
Broke through their dreaming gods, and loud
Cried on their dreadful Fates. [350]
And all the while on White Horse Hill
The horse lay long and wan,
The turf crawled and the fungus crept,
And the little sorrel, while all men slept,
Unwrought the work of man. [355]
With velvet finger, velvet foot,
The fierce soft mosses then
Crept on the large white commonweal
All folk had striven to strip and peel,
And the grass, like a great green witch’s wheel, [360]
Unwound the toils of men.
And clover and silent thistle throve,
And buds burst silently,
With little care for the Thames Valley
Or what things there might be— [365]
That away on the widening river,
In the eastern plains for crown
Stood up in the pale purple sky
One turret of smoke like ivory;
And the smoke changed and the wind went by, [370]
And the King took London Town.
The Ballad of the White Horse
Documentation and Abbreviations
The notes use the author-date system. Authors names and the publication dates of their books appear in the text, usually in parentheses. For more complete documentation consult the references on pages 225-231.
Abbreviations
GK, GKC, Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton
BWH The Ballad of the White Horse
ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
P Prefatory Note
D Dedication
E III: 109 Endnote Book III: line 109
IV:11 Book IV: line 11
Chesterton at Battersea in 1905
Notes: Prefatory Note
P:1. This ballad needs historical notes, for the simple reason that it is steeped in history. Chesterton’s emphatic disavowal is linked to his need as a poet to place the important battle of Ethandune in Berkshire near White Horse Hill. He knew better. Yet he dared not say, “Although I believe that the battle of Ethandune was probably fought at Edington in the vicinity of Bratton Castle in Wiltshire, I intend, for my own reasons, to locate it in Berkshire. The ancient White Horse is a significant presence in the Ballad.” See Introduction iv.
P:22-25. ultimate victory of Alfred: The battle of Ethandune.
P:25-31. tradition: Chesterton avoids the controversy by claiming to write from hearsay. Wherever it occurred, King Alfred decisively defeated the Danes in 878. This victory made possible “the gradual re-conquest of the Danelaw in the tenth century” and preserved England from losing its language, culture, and religion.
P:31-35. Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp: William of Malmesbury, writing in the early twelfth century, is the first historian to mention this legend (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,22,212).
P:36-59. Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes: The earliest extant version of this legend occurs in an anonymous account of The Life of St. Neot. This manuscript was probably written in the late tenth century after the removal of the relics of St. Neot from Cornwall to a priory at Eyenesbury in Huntingdonshire (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,197-202).
P:66. Eadwig: A youthful king of England whose short reign accomplished little of significance (ASC 955-59).
P:72-86. He fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism: Here is the theme of the Ballad: Life is an ongoing struggle between good and evil forces. Down to the last verse Chesterton spells out this theme on multiple levels of life.
Notes: Dedication
Synopsis: Chesterton speaks to the reader (1-46): These rhymes are about the warfare waged between King Alfred and the Danes in the latter part of the ninth century. Chesterton speaks to his wife (47-94): I am dedicating this poem to you out of love and appreciation for your joyful companionship, and the spiritual inspiration you are and have been in my life.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you,
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.
(D:53-58)
D: 1-16. Chesterton opens his epic of King Alfred the Great by emphasizing that this is an account of the aboriginal struggle of the Christians and the heathens for the control of England. Alfred is the great face turned toward the darkness enveloping his kingdom after the Danish surprise invasion of Wessex in January 878.
Garry Wills (1961,136) pointed out that the first two lines are from Chesterton’s early unpublished poem on Moses. The first stanza is included here through the courtesy of Wills and of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund.
Of great limbs gone to chaos
Of a great face turned to night
From the grey old earth’s first twilight
The soul of a man of might
The man of the shattered tables
The man of the living rod
The man who gave to the nations
The Ten Great Words of God.
D:3-16. Why does a poet look back a thousand years at the England of Alfred’s day? He wants to remind readers that it was Alfred the Great who saved England.
D:6-16. Chesterton refers to previous eras as “sunken Englands.” In “telescoping history” he declares: “The prime function of imagination is to see our whole orderly system of life as a pile of stratified revolutions” (1906,60).
D:9. thanes: Men who held lands of the king or other superior in Anglo-Saxon times. They gave military service and usually had hereditary rank.
D:17. gonfalon: A pennon or flag affixed to the end of a lance. The gonfalon under which the Normans fought at Hastings in 1066 was a white banner sent by the Pope to William of Normandy.
D:17-18. The Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons.
D:18. The Anglo-Saxon flag was a golden dragon mounted on a blood-red held.
D:19-28. We will not touch on the deeds of King Arthur nor on events after the Norman Conquest. Our chief concern is with the last third of the ninth century when a great Christian King withstood the Pagan Danes.
D:21-22. holy kings: King Arthur’s allies against the Saxons.
D:23-24. Bayeux: The town in France which displays the embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Of Saxon workmanship, it pictorially depicts events connected with the Norman Conquest.
D:25. dawn: The early sixth century when Arthur supposedly fought twelve battles against the heathen invaders.
D:26-28. Alfred’s achievements are so remarkable and varied that moderns find them almost incredible.
D:41-44. The recent outpouring of Anglo-Saxon studies enables readers to enter into the life and times of Alfred. James Campbell gives a brief, illustrated, interpretative account of Anglo-Saxon history with notes and a bibliography. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have extensive references listed in Alfred the Great (1983,345-59). Their new translation of Asser’s Life of King Alfred provides excellent background reading for The Ballad of the White Horse. Dorothy Whitelock’s writings about the Anglo-Saxon era are both authoritative and illuminating.
D:47-52. Alfred realized that it was only by relying on help from God that he could defeat the pagans.
D:53-56. Gilbert Chesterton dedicates The Ballad of the White Horse to his wife, Frances.
D:56-58. Guthrum: See E VII:325.
D:59-64. Gilbert and Frances toured the area around Chippenham where the Danes surrendered. Compare his poetic and his prose descriptions of the battleground. [Here is proof that GKC knew before 1911 that Wiltshire had a better claim than Berkshire as the site of Ethandune.] “But the other day under a wild sunset and moonrise I passed the place which is best reputed as Ethandune, a high, grim upland, partly bare and partly shaggy; like that savage and sacred spot in those great imaginative lines about the demon lover and the waning moon. The darkness, the red wreck of sunset, the yellow and lurid moon, the long fantastic shadows, actually created that sense of monstrous incident which is the dramatic side of landscape. The bare grey slopes seemed to rush downhill like routed hosts; the dark clouds drove across like riven banners; and the moon was like a golden dragon, like the Golden Dragon of Wessex” (1911,228-29).
D:65-94. Chesterton here expresses his appreciation for Frances’s loving companionship, giftedness, and her sterling qualities.
Father John O’Connor, a close personal friend of the Chestertons, confirms how well-founded was Chesterton’s love and esteem for Frances. “It is to her that we owe the most and some of the best of Gilbert Chesterton. In all things she was his angel, a small Cockney, a connection of the first editor of Punch. She even converted him from what he calls the Higher Unitarianism to the more loyal and rational kind of Anglicanism—Tractarian more than Ritualistic” (1938,28).
D:77-82. A reference to certain contemporary writers and editors. See VIII: 248-302 and Endnotes.
D:94. Frome. An urban district in Somersetshire, England.
Notes: The Vision of the King
Synopsis: Chesterton introduces the White Horse, and then presents an overview of the chaotic migration of nations after the Fall of Rome (1-80). The heathen Northmen, a sea-folk, caused widespread havoc, and by 878 had subjugated all of Britain except Wessex. After the Danish surprise raid at Chippenham in January 878, Alfred at his wit’s end hid out on the marshy island of Athelney (81-161). At this impasse Mary appears to Alfred (162-277).
Night shall he thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?
(I:258-61)
I:17. The White Horse of the White Horse Vale: Meet the White Horse which Chesterton recognizes as a prehistoric presence (1911,257). Thomas Hughes quotes the description of this gigantic White Horse given by the author of A Tour through England: “Looking south from the Vale, we see a trench cut on the side of a high green hill, in the shape of a horse, and not ill-shaped neither; the trench is about a yard deep, and filled almost up with chalk, so that at a distance you see the exact shape of a White Horse, but so large, as to take up near an acre of ground… . From this figure the hill is called in our maps White Horse Hill, and the low or flat country under it the Vale of the White Horse” (1859,216).
I:18-60. End of the world: The downfall of Rome. Darkness settled over the civilized world. Hordes of barbarians poured from the east and the north into the Roman Empire. “That outer world of universal anarchy which lay beyond Christendom” (Chesterton 1917,50).
I:32. cresset: An iron vessel for holding burning oil or pitch. It may be mounted as a torch, or hung as a lantern.
I:38. Titan flowers: Gigantic flowers.
I:41. Ind’s: India’s.
I:42. inmost one: Mt. Everest.
I:61-80. The death of the Emperor Charlemagne in 814 weakened the defenses which Christendom had in Europe. During the latter part of the ninth century, Alfred with God’s help stayed the pagan tide of invasion.
I:62. The ninth century was a dark period for the Papacy. Lay investiture multiplied evils in the disintegrating Carolingian Empire. The Saracens pillaged southern Italy and threatened the Papal States. Within the city of Rome itself, the Italian nobles frequently fought to secure position and wealth. As unscrupulous politicians, they endeavored to put someone who belonged to their party on the papal throne. By this means they hoped to gain control of the temporal government of the city, and to enrich themselves by graft. Weak and unworthy men were in some cases appointed Popes. In 1059, the revision of the system of electing the Pope freed these elections from irregularities and imperial control (Mann 1925, vols.2,3,4).
I:63-76. Alfred’s kingdom was in the hands of the Danes after their surprise attack at Chippenham in January, 878. While mustering his army for the counter-attack in the spring, Alfred hid on the island of Athelney (ASC). After Easter [23 March] that year, Alfred with the help of the inhabitants of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire fought against the entire Danish army at Ethandune and was victorious (ASC 878).
I:77-80. During the ensuing years King Alfred strengthened the fortifications in his kingdom. This enabled him in 886 to quickly defeat the army which was attacking London and to overcome renewed attacks from 892-96. Meanwhile he initiated programs for the revival of religion and learning. His composite law code showed his judicious concern for maintaining social and political order among his subjects (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,16370).
I:81-111. Chesterton refers to the Northmen as “a horde of heathen raiders out of the northern seas and forests” (1930,114).
These pirates were at first satisfied with booty, devastation, and tribute. Their encroachments brought ruination and the depressing impoverishment of civilization. After 865 they aspired to conquer and settle. By 878 much of Britain was under their sway, and they were making concerted efforts to take over Wessex.
I:89. horned heads: The Northmen are often erroneously pictured with horned helmets. See E V:171.
I:102. The barbarous religious ceremony of shedding the blood of animals as well as that of men was not entirely abolished in Scandinavia until well into the ninth century when they received the light of the Gospel (Mallet 1882,111).
I:108. A great heathen army came to East Anglia in the autumn of 866 and took winter quarters there (ASC). From this time onwards we read of the heathen army being somewhere in Britain.
I:116-22. Alfred’s sires courageously opposed the recurring onslaughts of the Danish warriors.
Egbert (802-39), the paternal grandfather of Alfred, brought about a short-lived, fragile union of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies about the year 829. Ethelwulf, Alfred’s father, reigned from 839 to 858. Alfred’s brothers, who ruled in turn were Ethelbald, 85860; Ethelbert, 860-66; and Ethelred, 866-71. Alfred governed the kingdom from 871-99.
I:125. Lyonesse: In Arthurian legend, a country fabled to have been formerly contiguous to Cornwall but to have long since sunk beneath the sea.
I:125-26. Arthur is “the king that comes no more.” Chesterton compares the vanishing memory of Alfred’s family with the folk tales still afloat about King Arthur and his “lords” who fought against the invading Saxons.
I:127. The Golden Drag on: The flag of the West Saxons.
I:129. King Alfred.
I:138. In 878 Athelney was an island in Somersetshire at the junction of the Parrett and Tone rivers. Today it is a hill on farm land that can be viewed from the layby on the A361 about half a mile northeast of Lyng.
I:141. broken to his knee: After the surprise attack in January 878 Alfred is stunned but not defeated.
I:146-55. Alfred recalls the incident in his childhood when he obtained an illuminated manuscript from his mother (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75).
I:148. Alfred’s mother was Osburh, “a religious woman, noble both by birth and by nature” (Giles 1891,44).
I:162-76. There are no recorded traditions about the appearance of Our Lady to Alfred. The pivotal part Chesterton has Mary take in assembling the soldiers (Book II), winning the battle (Book VII), and watching over England as Protectress (Book VIII), is evidence of the sincere love he had for the Mother of God. See E VII:189-204.
I:177-82. The Alfred Jewel: This jewel of Anglo-S axon workmanship is a gold plaque having the portrait of a man in cloisonné enamel. Round the edge in Anglo-Saxon workmanship are the words “Alfred had me worked” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983, 203-6). The Jewel, found in 1693 at Newton Park some four miles north of Athelney, is the most treasured possession of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University.
I:183-202. Chesterton was vividly conscious of Mary’s nearness to people everywhere. Maisie Ward tells us that he often spoke of “Our Lady returning to his own land, to all lands, and saving the world” (Ward 1945,4). Rather than attribute Alfred’s victory to the legendary miraculous help given either by St. Neot or by St. Cuthbert, Chesterton chose to have Alfred ask Our Lady whether or not he and his Christian warriors would eventually become victorious.
I:205. croft: A small enclosed field adjacent to a house.
I:211. hind: A peasant; a farm laborer.
I:216. the Three Kings: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
I:209-61. At the age of thirty, a thoroughly humbled Alfred realizes that Mary’s visit to him meant that victory would come after a tremendous struggle. “Do you have… faith without a hope?” From now on he goes “gaily in the dark.”
Notes: The Gathering of the Chiefs
Synopsis: “Alfred of the lonely spear” gathers his Christian freedom fighters from western Wessex and Wales for an all-out battle with the pagan Danes. Mary’s message convinces the Roman, Gael, and Saxon to assemble at Egbert’s Stone.
Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.
And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world’s desire:
“No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
(II:74-84)
II:2. shaw: A strip of woodland forming the border of a held; a small wood or grove; a thicket [Dial.].
Chesterton creates the atmosphere of ninth century England by using words taken from the vocabulary of the people of that day.
II:1-8. In “A Romance of the Marshes” Chesterton describes the terrain around Athelney: “Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within call; but those pools and flats of the old Parrett seemed to separate themselves like a central and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up the rock of Athelney as isolate as it was to Alfred… . One stooped to stroke the grass, as if the earth were all one kind beast that could feel” (1911,299-300).
II:9-24. Alfred, buoyed up after meeting Mary, sings as he travels north toward the estuary of the Severn river in search of Eldred the Saxon. Alfred needs the help of all the Christians to drive out the pagan Danes.
II:21. Franklin: A substantial landholder but not a nobleman.
II:23. Sacred Tree: An oak tree. To the druids the oak was an “emblem of the Divinity” (Lingard [1849] 1912,1:16-17).
II:24. Usk: A river in Wales that flows through southwest England into the Severn estuary.
II:25-62. Compare Chesterton’s description of Eldred with the “English virtues” he cites in Cobbett. “The love of loafing and of lonely adventure; the spirit of the genial eccentric; the capacity to be a hermit without being a misanthrope; the love of landscape and of roads astray; and above all, that love of the grotesque that is as brave as a broad grin. Nor… was he without that softer side, only that with him it was generally the inside. I mean that it was in his private and domestic character that we see the English aversion to what is painful and severe. He was a very gentle father” (1926,203-4).
II:46-57. Eldred has lost interest in fighting the Danes because of the unending defeats. Out of nine battles in 871, only Englefield and Ashdown were clearly Saxon victories. Alfred then saved lives and bought time by paying the heathens to leave Wessex. Five years later Guthrum and his entire army returned with the intention of taking possession of Wessex.
II:58. scalds: Bards who sang or recited heroic poems and eulogies.
II:94. butt: Probably a cask of ale near Eldred.
II:96. Egbert’s Stone: This meeting place cannot be identified with certainty. It was in Wiltshire east of Selwood Forest, and within a day’s march of the next camping place, Iley Oak. According to the ASC, men from Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire assembled there.
II:103-12. The marauding Danes ravaged the homesteads of the natives and the dwellings of the hermits. Alfred sees destruction on all sides.
II:105. steading: A farmstead [Dial.].
II:107. combe: A narrow valley or deep hollow, especially one enclosed on all but one side.
II:117-41. After walking all night Alfred arrives at Mark’s farm at daybreak. The organization evident everywhere reflects the character of the owner.
II:147-52. Alfred humbly introduces himself to the Roman as one who is still struggling to defeat the heathen Danes. He acknowledges that he bought peace by paying them to withdraw from his kingdom.
II:151. wold: An upland plain; a region without woods.
II:166. Wiltshire: A county in southern England. White Horse wold: This upland plain takes its name from the prehistoric White Horse located atop White Horse Hill.
II:165-68. Mark shows his military competence by forming a judgment of the situation in Wessex.
II:167. Owsenfold: An unidentified place.
II:191. Or: Before, ere [Archaic].
II:192. Caerleon: Atown on the Usk river in southern Wales.
II:194. broken men: Colan’s ancestors fled into the crags of Wales to evade the Saxons. His forefathers preferred freedom in a mountainous terrain to slavery elsewhere under the Saxons.
II:199. Druid trees: The Druids venerated the oak.
II:201. the fallen kings: Arthur and the legendary allied kings of sixth century Britain. They were the Christian Celtic champions against the pagan Saxon invaders.
II:203. Last of a race in ruin: Colan is a proud Celt whose ancestors retreated into the rocky fastnesses of Wales to preserve their lives and their freedom. They were the Christian resistance forces in the sixth century opposing the onslaught of the pagan Saxons. Now three centuries later a Christianized Saxon is seeking help to conquer invading heathens. Alfred’s meekness and his message from Mary win Colan’s assistance.
II:204-6. The Irish overran Britain both during the Roman occupation and after the legions were withdrawn (Collingwood [1936] 1937,282). They colonized Wales to such an extent that Gaelic became the language of the people (Oman [1904] 1925,158-59). When the Irish settlements lost their independence to the Welsh, Gaelic gradually became extinct in Wales.
II:208-9. Ireland is “the rain-wrapped isle.” Brandan [Brendan] in reality is the sixth century founder of the monastery of Clonfert.
In story books Brendan has fantastic adventures as a navigator sailing westward from Ireland.
II:231-41. Colan’s deeply rooted pagan past influences him.
Catherine Mulroy, an older woman from northwestern Ireland, wrote this account of early Celtic religious beliefs.
Before Christianity came to Ireland the people there worshipped pagan gods, e.g., sun, moon, stars, seas, rivers, trees, fire, stone, iron, etcetera. The Irish have always been a deeply religious people—constantly searching for a greater being to pay homage to.
This worship was inspired more out of fear than love. They believed that their gods governed people according to a pattern of dark, unreasoned fate. This left them an easy prey to chance, luck, sadness and despair. They did their best to appease their gods by their worship, but they lived in fear and dread of how fate would turn for them.
Here and there throughout the land there were mounds, forts, and stone altars set up for worship, and at festivals fires were lighted on high mountains as an outward sign of worship. The great tall boulders along the Atlantic coast, for example, the high cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare are places where the gods were worshipped. These tall cliffs today can be termed “the gods of unbearable beauty” as one walks along the high cliffs on that rugged western coast.
These were the types of gods our ancestors worshipped and when Christianity came with St. Patrick, the country was steeped in pagan worship. The conversion was long and arduous but very real as the Gaels were searching for the One and true Living God which Patrick brought. The sod was ready for conversion and the seed took root and began to grow, spreading through the length and breadth of that land. The worship of pagan gods bed to be abandoned, hut as this was a deep-down thing, it was not easy for the New Christians to relinquish all their old deep-rooted nature worship.
They feared to let go of everything and held on to what they thought was important in the line of small manners and customs—just in case there was anything important in them. These superstitions have been passed down from generation to generation and there are still some slight traces in evidence in certain areas in the West [of Ireland], even in the twentieth century.
Catherine Mulroy, R.S.M. 1988. Manuscript to editor. (London: Bellord House, 7 Gun St.)
II:235-36. The gods could break the hearts of men because the pagan Cert believed that death could come suddenly upon a person who broke his word to the Sun, Moon, etcetera. The people lived in rear of the avenging action of the elements.
Professor Eoin MacNeill made an insightful summation: “The Celt was plying an age-long warfare against the crude primeval forces of the physical world, and was everywhere face to face, not with measure, but with immensity—with vast forest regions, the rigors of the northern… winter, the mystery of the boundless ocean. This experience has shaped and coloured all his thought and all his literature; most ofJ his legends of antiquity” (1910,4-5).
II:268-75. Early Irish literature relates the legendary deeds of Cuchulainn, Deirdre and Naoise, Oisin and Fionn, and many others.
II:277. See E V:201-2 where hills and pikes are described.
Notes: The Harp of Alfred
Synopsis: While Alfred awaits his allies he visits the Danish camp disguised as a harper. This interlude provides a fine opportunity for comparing Pagan and Christian ideals and gives the motive for the whole campaign.
The Harp of Alfred is a “tournament of song, in which the sensual Pagan [Harold], the poetic Pagan [Elf], the savage Pagan [Ogier], and the cultured Pagan [Guthrum] say their say with music, before Alfred says the say of Christian Fact” (O’Connor 1938,65).
For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God’s death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.
(III:373-78)
III:3. mass-book: A book containing the prayers and rites used by persons assisting at the celebration of the Eucharist [Mass]. Asser, Alfred’s biographer, mentions that King Alfred assisted at daily Mass (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,91).
III:20-25. Dr. John Lingard describes the destruction of the monasteries in A.D. 870: “From the ashes of Medeshamstede they proceeded to Huntingdon, and from the destruction of that place to the Isle of Ely. The nuns of this monastery, who were descended from the noblest of the Saxon families, were sacrificed to their lust and cruelty; the treasures of the country, which had been deposited in the island, were divided among the barbarians, and the edifice, with every other building… was devoured by the flames” ([1849] 1912,1:184-85).
III:24. Fires over Glastonbury Thorn: The Danes during their raids in Somerset ravaged and despoiled the monastery established at Glastonbury.
III:24. Glastonbury Thorn: A variety of hawthorn which has the peculiarity of flowering twice in the year, first about Christmas and again in May. According to an ancient legend, the original tree grew from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea (E VIII:223-24), (Chesterton 1911,112-18).
III:2-39. From the foot of White Horse Hill one sees the shape of the White Horse. The whiteness of the gigantic White Horse is indicative of whether the pagans or the Christians are in control. While the heathens are harrying the countryside, the Horse is overrun with weeds, but when the country is at peace, the Christians keep the Horse well cleaned. Today the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest keeps the Horse white.
III:52-74. Guthrum is a Danish king who occupies a notable place in Anglo-Saxon history.
III:79-80. He sang of some old British raid: Asser relates that Alfred listened carefully to Saxon poems which he often heard recited, “and he [Alfred] readily retained them in his memory” (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,75).
III:80. wild west march: The borderland between Mercia and Wales.
III:86-90. Offa, the King of Mercia (757-96), constructed this dyke to prevent Welsh penetration of Mercia. Offa’s Dyke consisted “of a ditch to the west about 6 feet deep and a rampart rising up to 25 feet above it to the east; the whole structure being 60 feet across” (Campbell 1982,120). Asser writing in the 890s mentions its extent. “Offa … had a great rampart built from sea to sea between Britain [Wales] and Mercia” (Giles 1891,47). Eighty of the one hundred fifty miles of this phenomenal structure are extant.
III:99. The marauding Northmen terrified the peoples between Cyprus in the Mediterranean and the island of Skye in the Heb rides off the northwest coast of Scotland.
III:109. Tyre, famous for its purple dyes, was a maritime city in ancient Phoenicia.
III:116. In Norse mythology Loki is the contriver of fraud.
III:122,126. Chesterton introduces kennings, those metaphorical compound words such as “bracelet-giver” (king) and “sword-swinger” (warrior). These give “a slight feeling of antiquity” and place the reader into the ninth century ambience.
III:130. shaven men: Clerics. Before becoming clerics, laymen received the sacred rite of tonsure.
III:151. Allemagne: Germany [Fr.].
III:153. For the May Day festivities in the Rhineland, the people decorate a tree with ribbons, wreaths, cookies, etcetera.
III:158-75. Balder beautiful: Balder, the son of Odin and Frigga, dies because his mother neglected to ask the mistletoe not to hurt her son.
III:164-75. The sentimental Elf is sad because there is no security. His gods are superior beings, yet like himself mortal and subject to mishaps. Even Balder, the noblest and gentlest of the gods, was killed through a sneaky scheme of Loki.
III:180. Stone and Sling: Although “the bow and arrows, the battle-axe, and the sword” were commonly used by the Northmen, some armed themselves with “javelins, slings, clubs stuck round with points, lances and a sort of daggers” (Mallet 1882,165-66).
III:188. yew: The yew tree is symbolic of grief and death.
III:188-230. The pessimistic Ogier, soured by hatred, delighting only in his power to destroy, awaits the final cataclysm. Stern and ruthless, he shares in the wrath of the gods who wait for the final break up of the universe.
III:216-26. the last eclipse: Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, is the destruction of the gods and all things in a final battle with evil powers (Mallet 1882,451-58).
III:221. the high ones in the happy town: All who died in a violent manner were received into Valhalla in the happy town of Asgard.
III:231-34. King Guthrum was an educated Dane who knew how to read and write.
III:235-95. Guthrum, recognizing the certainty of death and the uncertainty of a life to come, is happiest in battle where he can become oblivious of death.
III:258-65. The soul is like a lost bird: This may be a reference to the speech [A.D. 627] of one of King Edwin’s counselors who compared the life of a man to that of a sparrow that flies in one door and disappears out another. “So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before or what is to follow we are utterly ignorant” (Beda 1910,91).
III:303-318. Alfred declares his view of life. He begins with the Fall of Adam in the garden. Man misused his free will. The evil in the world is the result of “the wrong use of the will, and… it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will” (Chesterton 1930,226).
III:329-42. Alfred’s faith in God is his basis for hope. Though “the sky grows darker,” he has an inner conviction that persistent efforts aided by God will somehow bring success.
III:357-66. Alfred tells the Danes their way of life eventually ends in failure. Creators and preservers in the long run will be the survivors.
For our God hath blest creation,
Calling it good… .
(III:373-74), (Gen. 1:12)
Notes: The Woman in the Forest
Synopsis: Alfred scouts the environs of the Danish camp at Ethandune before going to the river-hut at Egbert Stone. There a woman asks him to watch the fire. While he pities her poverty he lets the cakes burn. The woman deals Alfred such a blow in the face that it leaves a scarlet scar. At this juncture Eldred, Colan, and Mark arrive. Note how Chesterton uses this incident to move his epic closer to the decisive battle of Ethandune.
This blow that I return not
Ten times will I return
On kings and earls of all degree,
And armies wide as empires be
Shall slide like landslips to the sea
If the red star burn.
(IV:274-79)
IV:10. paling of the pine: Apalisade made of pointed pine logs.
IV:11. altar-lamp: The sanctuary lamp of a church.
IV:16. The old stones of a Roman way: The Romans paved some of the important roadways in Britain with stones.
IV:22. Doom: Future, outcome.
IV:23-24. The ASC explains how ruin alternated with victory in 871. “And this year there fought against the Host, in the land from Thames southward, nine stricken fields. Yea, and beside these, Alfred the King’s brother and many an Alderman, and many a King’s Thane, ofttimes made, each for himself, raids upon them, which are not counted. And within the year nine Earls were slain, and one King thereto” (Conybeare 1900,123).
IV:25-30. Chesterton knows and uses authentic sources. Asser supplies him with each detail about the battle of Ashdown, even to the hawthorn tree.
But Alfred, with his men, as we have heard from truthful eyewitnesses came the quicker to the field and more readily. Nor wonder was it; for his brother King Ethelred was still in his tent, fixed in prayer, hearing Mass. Needs must he either draw him back from the battle, or charge the enemy ere yet his brother came into the fray. And, at the last, in manly wise, charged he, with the rush of a wild boar, leading his Christian forces against the iceman’s hosts. But here those who know not the place must be told it was no fair field of battle, for the Heathen had seized the higher ground, and the Christian battle-line was charging uphill. There was also in that same place a lone thorn-tree and a low, which we ourselves have beheld. Around this, then, came the lines together, with a mighty shouting, in warrior wise, the one side bent upon all mischief, the other to fight for life and land and dear ones. Most part of their force [Danes] were slain, and with all shame they betook them to flight (Conybeare 1900,93-94).
IV:41-52. under-skies: Chesterton takes us on an imaginary trip to Hades. While descending to the river-hut Alfred notes the foul smelling night-shade plant, the murky atmosphere in which “evil cherubs” [owls] flit about.
IV:59-60. The tilted roof implies that this peasant’s home had been damaged by the Danes. It was probably a thatched timber-built structure shared by the household and the livestock.
[Alfred’s legendary encounter with the Woman and the Cakes took place while he was hiding on the island of Athelney in Somerset; Chesterton moves it to Egbert Stone in Wiltshire.]
IV:70-74. J. A. Giles included a version of the legend of Alfred and the Cakes in his Asser’s Life of Alfred:
But it happened on a certain Jay, that the country woman, wife of the cowherd, was preparing some loaves to bake, and the king, sitting at the hearth, made ready his bow and arrows and other warlike instruments. The unlucky woman espying the cakes burning at the fire, ran up to remove them, and rebuking the brave king, exclaimed:
Ca’sn thee mind the ke-aks, man, an’ doossen zee ’em burn?
I’m boun thee’s eat ’em vast enough, az zoon az ’tis the turn.
The blundering woman little thought that it was King Alfred who had fought so many battl es against the pagans, and gained so many victories over them (1891,60). See E P:36-59.
IV:84. And all the last are first: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31).
IV:85. “Here am I among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
IV:85-155. Alfred explains the ways God serves him every day.
IV:89-91. God is Alfred’s gardener who planted oak trees on the plateaus and placed dense growths of shrubbery in the graveyards.
IV:124-25. Golgotha: “So Jesus went out, carrying his own cross to the place named after a skull; its Hebrew name is Golgotha” (John 19:17).
IV:130-40. Perhaps the best interpretation of the significance of the star that “spins and swirls” is that it refers to the tiny spark of hope in Alfred’s breast that the Christian cause will ultimately triumph after tremendous trials.
Chesterton uses the “wandering star,” the “dancing star,” the “light that leaps and flies” as one of the means of unity in the poem. Watch his references to it throughout the several hooks.
IV:142. A time discrowned of doom and birth: One’s value will not depend upon such accidents as personal status or family origin. Chesterton champions the dignity of the individual and hints that better days are coming after the defeat of the “evil earls.”
IV:143-44. “How happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).
IV:156-60. Alfred’s thoughts are far away. It was rash of him to promise to watch the cakes.
IV:173. Marcus with all his slaves in arms: Dorothy Whitelock explains that the slave class in Wessex consisted of persons of different origins. Some were descendants of the Britons, others were persons captured in wars. The greater number “were the penal slaves, persons enslaved as a punishment for certain specific crimes, or because of their inability to pay the fines and compensations which they had incurred” ([1952] 1968,112).
IV:174-75. Colan and his followers had a mingling of pagan and Christian beliefs. Their “strange spears hung with ancient charms” indicate a superstitious reliance on magic.
IV:179. jars of mead: Mead is a fermented drink made of water and honey with malt, yeast, and sometimes other ingredients.
IV:190-202. The impoverished followers of Colan, clothed in the remnants of former finery, were a far cry from their kin who went to war “in graceful shirts and many-colored enfolding tunics over comfortable long vests” (Green 1925,408).
IV:194. With Druid beards and Druid spears: Chesterton goes along with the popular imagining of the appearance of the Druids.
IV:206. Mark’s disciplined army marching in step together sounded like “great thunder.”
IV:207-8. living walls: The interlocking shields carried hy the soldiers in battle formation formed living walls. Rome hedged mankind by her military outposts throughout the civilized world.
IV:217. From red Arabia to the Tyne: Arabia in Asia marked the southeastern extent of the Roman Empire, and the Tyne river in Britain was the northwestern boundary.
IV:219. Since the cry on the hill Capitoline: The cry on the Capitoline hill occurred about 753 B.C. when Romulus was trying to obtain wives from the Sabines for the Roman youths.
A legend describes how the early Romans resorted to cunning in order to secure wives from the neighboring tribes. During a special entertainment to which the nearby tribes were invited, it had been agreed upon that at a certain outcry the Roman men would seize and carry off the young maiden visitors (Livy 1913,14-15).
IV:220. And the fall of the golden shield: Titus Livius relates the legend how Tatius, a Sabine, bribes Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander of the Roman citadel, to give them access to the city in exchange for the golden rings and bracelets they wore on their left arms. Instead of these ornaments, they threw their shields (which they also carried on their left arms) upon her and crushed her to death (1913,17-18).
IV:227. lintel beams: The horizontal crosspieces over doors or windows which support the weight above the openings.
IV:236-41. The laughter of Christians rings through popular tales in which people poke fun at the foibles of one another.
IV:246-47. The mummers in England are groups of persons, grotesquely dressed, who go round from house to house on the morning of Christmas Day and act a sort of drama founded on the legend of St. George. The verses repeated by the mummers of the different localities have the same origin, but as they are not committed to writing, they vary in a trifling degree, and have in some instances considerable interpolations.
The following version of the drama is given in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 1(1854): 80-81.
The characters are:
1. OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS
2. MINCE PIE
3. A TURKISH (evidently a Saracen) KNIGHT
4. ST. GEORGE
5. AN ITALIAN DOCTOR
6. A character called LITTLE JACK
And the verses they repeat, divested of modern extraneous matter, are as follows:
[Enter OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS, with a long beard.]
Oh! here come I old Father Christmas, welcome, or welcome not,
I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.
Make room! room! I say!
That I may lead Mince Pie this way.
Walk in Mince Pie, and act thy part,
And show the gentles thy valiant heart.
[Enter MINCE PIE.]
Room! room! you gallant souls give me room to rhyme,
I’ll show you some festivity this Christmas time.
[Enter a TURKISH KNIGHT, with a wooden sword.]
I am a valiant Turkish Knight,
And dare with any man to fight;
Bring me the man that bids me stand,
Who says he’ll cut me down with audacious hand,
I’ll cut him and hew him as small as a fly,
And send him to Satan to make mince pie.
[Enter ST. GEORGE with a wooden sword.]
Oh! in come I, St. George, the man of courage bold,
With my sword and buckler I’ve won three crowns of gold;
I fought the fiery dragon and brought him to the slaughter;
I won a beauteous Queen—a King of Egypt’s daughter;
If thy mind is high, my mind is bold,
If thy blood is hot, I will make it cold.
[ST. GEORGE and the TURKISH KNIGHT fight—the latter falls.]
Turkish Knight. Oh! St. George spare my life!
Father Christmas. Is no Doctor to be found
To cure this man who’s bleeding on
the ground?
[Enter the DOCTOR.]
Yes! an Italian Doctor’s to be found
To cure the Knight who’s bleeding on the ground:
I cure the sick of ev’ry pain,
And raise the dead to life again.
Father Christmas. Doctor, what is thy fee?
The Doctor. Ten pounds is my fee,
But fifteen I must take of thee
Before I set this gallant free.
Father Christmas. Work thy will, doctor.
The Doctor. I have a little bottle by my side
The fame of which spreads far and wide,
I drop a drop on this poor man’s nose.
[The DOCTOR touches the TURKISH KNIGHT’S nose, and he instantly springs on his feet quite recovered.]
[Enter LITTLE JACK, a Dwarf, with several dolls strapped at his back.]
Oh! in come I, little saucy Jack,
With all my family at my back.
Christmas comes but once a year,
And when it comes it brings good cheer;
Roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pie,
Who likes that any better than I?
Christmas ale makes us dance and sing;
Money in purse is a very fine thing.
Ladies and gentlemen give us what you please.
IV:256. Pride flings frail palaces at the sky: This is the opening verse of Alfred’s hymn to humility. King Alfred, mindful of his sins, knows he is unworthy to receive help from heaven. He believes that the success of the Danes in overrunning his kingdom is a punishment for his transgressions.
IV:274-79. Alfred is going against the powers of evil by using the spiritual strength he receives from a humiliation rightly borne.
IV:286. Alfred leads his men as brothers to the first attack.
IV:287. Roman roads came in many forms. The more important routeways ran on raised, ditch-flanked banks which resembled walls.
Notes: Ethandune: the First Stroke
Synopsis: With practically all of England under Danish control, Alfred’s war-men sum up their situation. Each one has a sinking feeling that his death is imminent. After repenting of their sins, they put on a bold front. Colan slays the over confident Harold and receives King Alfred’s sword.
To his great gold ear-ring Harold
Tugged back the feathered tail,
And swift had sprung the arrow,
But swifter sprang the Gael.
(V:243-46)
V:1-6. King Guthrum was a dread king: Guthrum collaborated with Healfdene in pillaging, devastating, depopulating, and subjugating much of Northumbria, East Anglia, and the eastern part of Mercia. Healfdene went north to divide the Northumbrians’ lands among his followers, and three Danish kings (Guthrum, Oscetel, and Anwend) went south to Cambridge where they began to concentrate on the conquest of Wessex (Chesterton 1917,51).
V:5. Chester: A city on the Dee river in northwestern England.
V:5. Humber: The confluence of the Trent and Ouse rivers form the Humber estuary in eastern Englsnd.
V:5-6. From the “Chester to the Humber” implies that before the battle of Ethandune the Danes dominated much of the territory between western Mercia and the eastern seaboard.
V:7. Roman villas: A Roman villa in Roman Britain was usually the center of a large farm. Not a single villa has survived (Collingwood 1937,209-21).
V:16. He saw the southern sea: The Southampton Water.
V:17-19. With the exception of the territories south of the Thames and north of the Tyne, all the petty kingdoms were under Danish control in 877. Guthrum’s surprise raid in January 878 was an indication that he meant to make King Alfred and the West Saxons submissive to him. See E I:63-76.
V:20-28. Guthrum’s scouts had most likely informed him that Alfred’s troops were assembling at Egbert’s Stone. Guthrum likewise collected all his warriors and carefully positioned them on the higher land overlooking the left fork of the road.
V:35. Chesterton here relies on Asser for the time when Alfred engaged his foe: “Very early in the morning, he advanced his banners, and came to a place called Ethandune. And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight” (Conybeare [1900] 1914,111-12).
V:46. While still out of sight of the enemy, Alfred’s troops halt. They are losing their courage.
V:58-151. This section is typical of epic poetry. Chesterton gives his characters voices. Note how each chieftain reveals himself “in the fashion of his blood.”
V:62-63. Col an was sad because he did not have the amenities of ordinary living conditions.
V:68-81. Chesterton is following John Lingard’s estimate of King Alfred’s early conduct.
It has been said that the character of Alfred was without a blemish. Such unqualified praise is the language of rhetorical declamation, rather than historical truth. In his early years, indeed, his opening virtues endeared him to the nation; and in a more advanced age he was the guardian and the benefactor of his country. But at the commencement of his reign there was much in his conduct to reprehend. The young monarch seems to have considered his high dignity an emancipation from restraint; and to have found leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes to indulge the impetuosity of his passions. The scandal of Wallingford* may be dismissed with the contempt which it perhaps deserves; and we learn from more ancient authorities that his immorality and despotism provoked the censure of his virtuous kinsman St. Neot; and Asser, his friend and panegyrist, acknowledges, that he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the indigent and oppressed. It was to this ‘indiscretion’ (to borrow the term under which the partiality of the biographer was willing to veil the misconduct of his patron), that Alfred himself attributed the severe and unexpected calamity, which overwhelmed him in the eighth year of his reign ([1849] 1912,19798).
- John of Wallingford’s Chronicle, written about mid-thirteenth century, mentions on p. 535 that “in the beginning of his reign Alfred was given to ‘serve the old man,’ and lived a slave to luxury” Cf. Conybeare (1914,222).
V:79. lost land: Wessex.
V:80. holy horn is blown: A reference to the Last Judgment (Matt. 24:31).
V:118-20. Alice Stopford Green verifies that during prehistoric times Neolithic Stone Age people displayed extraordinary skill in budding cairns, stone circles, megalithic tombs, and fortresses (1925,5-9).
Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, is an outstanding neolithic passage grave built about 5000 years ago.
Richard Muir’s History from the Air enables us to view some of these ancient tombs, temples, and stoneworks located in Ireland, England, and Wales. He comments that these relics provide many insights into prehistoric life: “They shatter the myth of the inept aboriginal savage, for the greater monuments could only be the handiwork of people who were sufficiently numerous and adept… as to be able to set the need for food-raising aside and dispatch sizable labour forces for work on building tombs or temples” (1983,33). [Reproduced by permission of Michael Joseph Ltd.]
V:120. sun-god: Lug is the sun-god whose festival was formerly celebrated in Ireland on August 1.
V:122-27. Lingard attributes to the druidical priests the ryn or mysterious language so often mentioned by the bards: “To every tree and shrub, to their leaves, flowers, and branches, they seem to have affixed a fanciful and symbolical meaning: and these allegorical substitutes for the real names of beings and their properties must have formed, in their numerous combinations, a species of jargon perfectly unintelligible to any but the adepts… . Taliessin boasts with complacency, that he is acquainted with every sprig in the cave of the diviner: that he knows the intent of the trees in the memorial of compact: that he knows both good an devil” ([1849] 1912,1:19-20n).
V:130-33. Lingard relates that the Druids dwelt in huts or caves at a distance from the common people. “There, at the hours of noon or midnight, when the Deity was supposed to honour the sacred spot with his presence, the trembling votary was admitted within a circle of lofty oaks, to prefer his prayer, and listen to the responses of the minister” ([1849] 1912,1:17).
V:146. fell: A rocky or barren hill, a down. (British)
V:147. Wantage: In 848 King Alfred was born in Berkshire at the royal estate called Wantage.
V:164-90. The Saxon kings actually fought on foot in the forefront of the battle.
V:170. ten poles: Apole is a unit of length equal to 16 1/2 feet.
V:171. wide-winged helms: The ninth century Danes wore conical helmets made of iron or leather. Although a helmet with curved horns dating from the Bronze Age has been unearthed in Denmark, it is a misconception to believe that the Danes who fought at Ethandune in the ninth century also wore horned helmets.
V:171. runic blades: Paul Mallet describes the swords of the Scandinavian chieftains: “Their champions or heroes took particular care to procure very keen swords, which they inscribed with mysterious characters, and called by such names as might inspire terror” (1882,165-66).
V:182. With songs and spells that change the blood: When they [Danes] went to meet their enemies, each warrior raised his shield up to a level with his upper lip, so that the round of the shield “formed a sort of sounding-board for their song.” They predicted the outcome of the battle by the impression the song made upon themselves. The runes of victory were supposed to stop weapons from wounding those whom Odin loved (Rydberg 1907,1:160-65).
V:197-204. poor: lingard explains why the Britons became impoverished: “To escape from the exterminating sword of their enemies, the natives, as soon as opposition appeared fruitless, fled with their most valuable effects to the hills and forests. Multitudes found a secure asylum among the mountains which cover the west of the island: where, struggling with poverty, and engaged in constant warfare, they rapidly lost the faint polish of provincial civilization… . The captives were divided, together with the land, among the conquerors: they became the property, the chattels, of the lord” ([1849] 1912,1:84-85).
V:201-4. sling: A leathern sling was used to propel stones, bolts, burning darts, and hot clay pellets. A bill was a shafted weapon having at its head a hooklike cutting blade with a beak at the back. A pike was a shafted weapon having a spiked tip.
Chesterton shows his great love of arms in Book V: “This love of weapons, his revolver, his favorite sword-stick, remained with him all his life… . But they stood also in his mind for freedom, adventure, personal responsibility and much else” (Ward 1943,151-52).
V:211-12. broke Himself for bread: This is a reference to the institution of the Holy Eucharist by Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday night (Matt. 26: 26-28).
V:241. Excalibur: King Arthur’s magic sword.
V:242. In the battle by the sea: Probably King Arthur’s battle at Carrdan where he uses Excalibur for the last time.
V:243. great gold ear-ring: The Northmen with the help of foreign master craftsmen learned the secrets of metalworking and became expert in making bronze and gold jewelry. The women wore ear rings, and since Chesterton has Harold wearing one, it is possible that some men did too.
V:247. The huge double-bladed swords of the Gaels were lifted above the head to strike.
V:257. The small white daisy that grows amid the grass in England is known as the “turfing daisy.” It is a low perennial herb of Asia Minor having white daisylike flowers.
V:265-69. The instant response of each of the Christian earls is to give Colan their most treasured and necessary possession.
V:269. like a cup of chrysolite and pearls: Chrysolite is a transparent olive-green gem.
V:274-75. The only way to get one’s heart’s desire is to put this desire out of one’s thoughts. This is a mystical insight. In order to save his life Colan gave up—let go—the one thing that could save his life (John 12:25).
V:280-89. The “Broken Heart” has a personal love for each soul. Each individual is the target of His love. [In a prepublication holograph of the BWH these verses are a handwritten insertion. G. K. Chesterton Archives.]
Notes: Ethandune: the Slaying
of the Chiefs
Synopsis: The warriors fan out left and right on either side of their leaders. Noting the battle positions given below is a preparation for following the action that ensues. [In the text Alfred’s left wing faces Guthrum’s left wing. Even though this was pointed out to him, GKC kept the original wording (O’Connor 1938,67).]
Guthrum on horseback
Harold Ogier Elf
Colan Mark Eldred
Alfred
After Elf slays Eldred, Mark overcomes Elf. Ogier kills Mark. The Danes push Alfred’s men back to the fork in the road. The King’s men retreat down the road to the right. Colan dies while opposing the enemy down the left branch.
And when they came to the parting ways
Doom’s heaviest hammer fell,
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,
Down the right lane with his array.
But Colan swept the other way,
Where he smote great strokes and fell.
(VI:282-87)
VI:4. Latian paladin: Mark. A paladin is a military kero. Latian is the adjective form of Latium, the name of a country southeast of Rome in ancient Italy.
VI:5-6. On Alfred’s left: Harold’s kin vs. Colan.
VI:7-8. In the midst: Guthrum watching—Ogier vs. Marcus.
VI:10-12. On Alfred’s right: Elf vs. Eldred.
VI:13. swat: To sweat over a task; to grind [Dial.].
VI:17-51. Eldred overwhelms everyone until his sword breaks.
VI:49. brand: A sword [Archaic & Poetical].
VI:56-62. faerie blades: In accounting for Elf’s wizard’s lance Chesterton takes us underwater into the never-never courses of the Rhine where the mermaids bestowed this magical spear on the thrice drowned Dane.
VI:61-63. Lost waters of the Rhine: The Rhine river rises in the eastern part of Switzerland close to the Italian border, moves along the edges of Austria and of the miniature state of Liechtenstein, winds westward and then northward between France and Germany before passing through the Netherlands on its way to the North Sea. Geologists and oceanographers teach that the Thames river was a tributary of the Rhine before England was separated from the Eurasian landmass.
VI:63-68. buried kingdoms: These lost waters have an unearthly fiery glow. While creeping down to the buried kingdoms, they “murmur and rebel,” “roar and weep / O’er the red heavens of hell.”
Duncan Norton-Taylor and the Editors of Time-Life Books in The Emergence of Man: The Celts have identified part of western Europe as the “Celtic heartland, where the earliest identifiable Celtic culture developed during the Seventh and Sixth centuries B.C.” Parts of present day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia approximate the area covered (1974,13).
VI:95-99. Chesterton’s descriptions open up a fairylike world where Elf obtains a magical spear from the water-maids of the Rhine river. The “death-light on the wizard lance— / The star of the evil spear” heighten the eerie and sinister feelings which unnerve the Wessex troops. They believe Elf’s spear is lethal because of its faerie blade.
VI:100-118. Mark encourages his own and Eldred’s men to stiffen their resolve to fight for their farms and homes.
VI:108. ash: Bow. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree was used to make bows for the archers.
VI:119-29. Superstitious fears weaken their trust in God.
VI:124-54. The soldiers’ latent belief in the magical powers of all objects, animate and inanimate, almost paralyzes them until Mark defeats Elf and breaks the evil spear.
VI:127. glamoury: Magic.
VI:127-29. The wizard’s tower and glass: These lines emphasize the superstition which is destroying the soldiers’ morale. In my quest for an explanation of this passage I have read many otherworldly accounts of magic. Merlin is known as the wizard of British folklore. “Glass” is associated with Glastonbury since people of Celtic stock used to call Glastonbury Ineswitrin, the Island of Glass. But what the exact references are to “the gods of the burning tree” and the “wizard’s tower and glass” elude me.
VI:133. faith: “Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove” (Chesterton 1905,162).
VI:138. Mark’s faith was above reason but not contrary to it.
VI:140-50. In the sight of his fearful men, Mark’s sword ends any further action from Elf.
VI:155-72. Mark encourages the men by reminding them that God is working through those who build, cultivate, weave, copy, compose, and create works of art.
VI:170-72. “Gorlias, He [God] has broken the might of the bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle” (Pss. 76:3,46:9).
VI:173-78. Battle-bays and palm branches are symbols of victory. The Wessex men seem to have seized the offensive after Mark has silenced Elf.
VI:198. shield of brass and hide: Paul Mallet describes the shield used by the Scandinavians: “This most commonly was of wood, bark, or leather. The shields belonging to warriors of distinction were of iron or brass… ornamented with painting and sculpture… . Their shape and size varied…: the Scandinavians generally had them of a long oval form, just the height of the bearer, to protect him from arrows, darts, and stones” (1882,166).
VI:216. weald: A wooded or wild open country.
VI:216-64. Ogier rants and brags much as he did in Book III. To find similar contempt and boasting expressed by a Viking, read “The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:376-78).
VI:261. Egbert: See E I:116-22.
VI:290. furze: Alow, spiny, much-branched shrub with yellow flowers, common on wastelands in Europe.
VI:296. Haut King: Charlemagne (768-814). Legend has made him the uncle of Roland.
VI:297. Roland: Roknd, the hero of the French epic poem, The Song of Roland, died at Roncesvalles in A.D. 778 defending the Christian cause against the Moors.
VI:296-99. The final time Roland blew his horn the sound could scarcely be heard by Charlemagne. Chesterton here compares the last cry Alfred heard from the retreating Gael with the feeble note Charlemagne recognized as coming from Roland.
Notes: Ethandune: the Last Charge
Synopsis: Book VII tells how the childlike Alfred, with Mary’s aid, changes a rout into a decisive victory. The opening stanzas refer to Alfred’s way of handling reverses. His appeal to the fleeing soldiers restored their derring-do. In the renewed fighting Alfred strikes down Ogier. As Mary, sword in hand, aids the Wessex warriors, Colan’s followers rejoin the battle. In his defeat Guthrum experiences an inner conversion and becomes a Christian.
The Mother of God goes over them,
Walking on wind and flame,
And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,
And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale,
And ye all shall yet drink Christian ale
In the village of our name.
(VII:247-52)
For dire was Alfred in his hour
The pale scribe witnesseth,
More mighty in defeat was he
Than all men else in victory;
And behind, his men came murderously,
Dry-throated, drinking death.
(VII:265-70)
VII:1-65. Chesterton returns the reader to the White Horse on the crest of the hill above the White Horse Vale. This prehistoric White Horse has an unobstructed view. He “looks on” while the battle of Ethandune is in progress.
VII:14-15. Chesterton adds the sound effects “roarings.” The image “rent the sea / With roarings from the land” helps one to envision the cosmic upheaval taking place while the waters come “together into a single mass” (Gen. l:9-10).
VII:16-20. The description of a child playing on the edge of White Horse Hill provides a quiet reflective interlude which reveals King Alfred’s character and his subsequent mode of action. Note the singleness of purpose and the unhurried calm and patience in tirelessly piling and repiling the stones. Alfred knew what he had to accomplish and he never accepted a reverse as final. He regrouped and started again. He “began to conquer because he did not mind defeat” (Chesterton 1911,9-10).
VII:25-55. Patriots like Eldred, Colan, and Mark “rush,” “strain,” and “aspire” but lack Alfred’s patience, his staying power, his clogged determination to oust the pagan pirates from his kingdom.
VII:54-55. Wantage, Alfred’s birthplace, was a royal estate in Berkshire near the traditional battleground of Ethandune. To celebrate the millennium of Alfred’s birth in 1849, the townspeople erected a statue to his memory. [There has been much discussion about the dates of Alfred’s birth and death.] Charles Plummer’s notes ([1899] 1965,2:79) fixed Alfred’s birth as 848; Dorothy Whitelock verified that his death occurred on 26 October 899 (Plummer [1899] 1965,2:cxlii).
Chesterton has his finger on the pulse of the nation when he claims that Alfred “rules England to the doom.” The following excerpt records GK’s memories of the millennial celebrations of King Alfred’s death in September 1901: “A thousand years of thanks and praise have rightly concentrated upon Alfred a light of unique and universal admiration. From the first words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the last wireless messages to the Anglor Saxon clubs and dinners in Boston or Philadelphia, there has been a chiming unanimity, a chain of polite or popular compliment, in which there is actually no break at all… . He is one of two or three men who have been nearly obliterated by praise” (Ward 1933,5758).
VII:56-69. He began his life once more: Things are as bad as before, but Alfred doesn’t mind. Even though he and his warriors are separated from Colan and his followers, Alfred appeals to his men to consider the alternatives. Then he urges them to spare nothing in striving for victory.
VII:70. double way: Guthrum’s choice of a battlefield facing a single branching road has strategic importance. V:29-33, 159, VII:279-87,291, VII:70,83,175.
VII:70-87. After scattering Alfred’s men, the Danes are relaxing jubilantly.
VII:84-87. sudden stay: “Stay” means a change of direction. “Alfred’s routed few” dispersed in all directions (VII:78-86). Some of the Danes, thinking it’s all over because they have defeated Alfred’s men, have “slipped up the road to fly.” When Alfred blows the horn he gets the attention of several of the foe as well as that of his soldiers.
VII:102-26. Brothers… . Are slavery and starvation flowers: Haakon Shetelig confirms what Alfred has told his troops: “To a large extent, of course, the Vikings reduced the original inhabitants to the state of dependent serfs, appropriating all land to themselves” (1940,1:91). See also ASC 876.
VII:127-55. Alfred’s respect for each individual transforms the men: “Stood firm that feeble line.” Together they “went roaring down to die.”
VII:137. bondsmen: Serfs or slaves.
VII:158. empery: The territory ruled over by King Egbert (802-839).
VII:160. venery: The activity of hunting.
VII:184-258.
And when the last arrow
Was fitted and was flown,
takes us back to The Vision of the King when Alfred asks Our Lady:
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
… … … … … … … . .
Shall we come home at last?”
(I:197-98,202)
In reply, Our Lady intimated Alfred would endure difficulties before victory, but hints at success by asking him,
“Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”
(I:260-61)
Now “the queen of men,” sword in hand, shows kindness to Alfred by reversing the tide of war.
VII:189-91. Instead of referring to the legendary apparition of St. Neot to King Alfred on the night before the battle, Chesterton gives Our Lady the role of obtaining Divine help for King Alfred.
The following account from The Chronicle of St. Neots was in print in 1900 and was probably well known to Chesterton:
On the night before the Battle of Ethandune, while Alfred slumbered, ‘there showed unto him an apparition in the likeness of St. Neot, erst his own dear friend and kinsman, and bade him “Cast away all fear and dreed of the Barbarians, neither be of faint heart because of their multitude. For tomorrow will the Lord visit thee and thy people, seeing that for the arrogance of thy youth hast thou suffered all this trouble.” “Yea, tomorrow,” added he, “will I go on all day long before thy banners, that the more surely thou mayest fight against thy foes, fearing nought; and mayest know that the Lord Almighty fighteth for thee and for thy people.” Thereupon up woke the King, gladdened indeed by the heavenly vision’ (Conybeare 1900,226).
According to another legend St. Cuthbert appeared to Alfred at Athelney and foretold his eventual triumph (Conybeare [1900] 1914,179).
VII:189-204. Chesterton’s use of this fiction about Our Lady’s appearance bears out his love for Mary. Speaking of himself in Chaucer: “I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have ‘passed through’ this fit of devotion; as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered the malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit its victim for a brief ‘period’; it is generally chronic and (in some sad cases I have known) quite incurable” (1932,118).
VII:200-202. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 994 tells about Mary’s compassion on her birthday (8 September) for the citizens of London. She prevented Anlaf, Sweyn, and their host from sacking and setting fire to the city. With Mary’s help the garrison inflicted great harm and loss on the attackers. Stymied, they withdrew from London and continued to plunder elsewhere. Later in the same year, Anlaf received the sacrament of Confirmation, and he made and kept a promise never to attack England again (ASC 994).
Was Chesterton’s choice of Mary as a heavenly helper in 878 inspired by Mary’s action in 994? The ASC chronicler records Mary’s repulse of the assault on London in 994; Chesterton ascribes to Mary’s assistance the decisive victory of Ethandune in 878. King Guthrum becomes King Athelstan of East Anglia; Anlaf becomes King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway. The spiritual conversions in both cases were lasting: “We set a sign on Guthrum / To blaze a thousand years;” King Olsf Tryggvason strove vigorously to establish Christianity in Norway. See the “Saga of Olsf Tryggvason” by Sturluson Snorri.
VII:202. withouten: without [Archaic & Dial.].
VII:203-4. The seven swords symbolize the seven sorrows of Our Lady. “And a sword will pierce your own soul too—so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:35).
VII:241-42. The London Times used these lines during World War I when Winston Churchill spoke of “the end of the beginning.”
VII:250. The White Horse responds to the upswing in events by stamping his hooves.
VII:252. village: Wantage. [Alfred’s birthplace]
VII:255. The psalm is roaring above the rune: The Christians have conquered the heathens.
Runes came into use among the Germans by the third century, A.D., chiefly for magic (Campbell 1982,26). Johannes Brondsted in The Vikings devotes chapter eleven to runic inscriptions (1965). He points out that the inscriptions are the most important direct sources through which the Vikings speak to us with their own voices and in their own language. Charles Mills Gayley explains why the Latin alphabet replaced the runic letters: “The association of the runic letters with heathen mysteries and superstition caused the first Christian teachers to discourage, and, indeed, as far as possible, suppress their use. They were therefore superseded by the Latin alphabet, which in First English was supplemented by the retention of two of the runes named ‘thorn’ and ‘wen’ to represent sounds of the ‘th’ and V for which the Latin alphabet had no letters provided” ([1893] 1911,539).
VII:265-66. Asser tells how “dire was Alfred” at Ethandune:
And there against the whole Heathen host formed he firm his shield-wall, and fought a deadly fight. Stoutly and long kept they at it; and, by God’s help, in the end he got the victory, and laid low the Heathen with a very great slaughter, and followed hard upon their flight, with blow on blow, even unto their stronghold [Chippenham]. And everything without the stronghold, men to wit, and horses, and herds, caught he and took, and the men he slew at once; and before the gates of the Heathen stronghold did he and all his host take camp, like men. And when he had there tarried 14 days, the Heathen, anhungered, and a-cold, and a-dread, and at last, hopeless, became sore afraid, and begged for peace, on this troth that the King should name and take from them such sureties as he would, giving none in return. Never before had they made peace with anyone after this sort (Conybeare 1900,100).
VII:276. Guelderland: Gelderland, a province of the eastern Netherlands.
VII:281-82. An unsuccessful siege of Paris by the Northmen occurred in 885-86 (Hodgkin [1935] 1952,2:654).
VII:285. Durham: A city located in northeastern England on the Wear river.
VII:285. melted Durham bell: Here is another reference to Danish destruction.
VII:299. woad: A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of the Isatis plant.
VII:299. bright with blood for woad: “Woad” is here used in a figurative sense. The red blood stained the naked bodies of the Celts as the blue juice of woad had previously colored the skins of their British kin.
VII:324. The Raven of Odin,
torn: The Danish flag was “a black raven on a blood red held” (Gordon 1924,3). “They say that the three daughters of Lodbrok [the lather of Hubba] wove it, and that in one day. They say, moreover, that in every fight, whensoever that flag went before them, the Raven in the midst thereof, if they were fated to win that day, would seem to flutter as if alive; but were their doom to be worsted, then would it droop, still and lifeless. And oft was this well proven” (Conybeare 1914,37).
VII:324. Odin: The chief god of the Northmen.
VII:325. And the eyes of Guthrum altered: Walter Besant accounts for the remarkable change in the Danish leader: “He perceived—this logical pagan—that King Alfred’s Gods had shown their superiority over his own in a manner so unexpected, so amazing, and so decisive, that he hesitated no longer. He acknowledged that superiority; he was baptized, and he never afterwards relapsed” (Bowker 1899,17).
VII:359-60. In speaking of the baptism of Guthrum and the Treaty of Wedmore, Chesterton emphasizes the importance of the conversion of the Danish King: “In all the tacts that followed, the baptism of Guthrum is really much more important than the Treaty of Wedmore. The treaty itself was a compromise, and even as such did not endure; a century afterwards a Danish king like Canute was really ruling in England. But though the Dane got the crown, he aid not get rid of the cross” (1917,53).
VII:366. Asser and the ASC state that Guthrum was baptized three weeks after the battle of Ethandune: “Then did the Host give him sureties, with many an oath, that they would leave his kingdom. And they plighted unto him their troth that their King should undergo Baptism, and this they fulfilled even so. And, some three weeks after, came unto him King Guthrum, with some thirty more, the worthiest men in the Host, at Aller, near Athelney. And in Baptism the King was his Godfather. And his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore. And twelve nights abode he with the King; and many a worthy gift gave he [Alfred] to him and his” (Conybeare 1900,124-25).
VII:367. Far out to the winding river: The Ock river flows through the Vale of the White Horse and joins the Thames, the winding river, at Abingdon.
Notes: The Scouring of the Horse
Synopsis: While Wessex lies in “a patch of peace” (879-892), Alfred not only strengthens English life and culture on all levels, but he also maintains and expands military preparedness. Alfred’s hospitality and generosity encourage foreign visitors, and his ambassadors represent Wessex’s interests around the world. Informed that the Danish armies were raiding southeastern England again, Alfred discloses his vision which foresees in some far century the arrival of a different type of invader. They will be writers and teachers who poison minds by spreading falsehoods. After four hard years of fighting, the enemy withdraws to the continent. Alfred has not definitively defeated the Danes, hut he has prevented them from occupying his kingdom.
And though shies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still he true:
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew.
(VII:204-7)
VIII:1. The years between the victory of Ethandune in 878 and the return of the Danes in 892 are the “years of the peace of Wessex.” Alfred had many skirmishes with the Danes on sea and land during this interval, but no serious threat to the kingdom. In 892, Haesten, with a fleet of eighty ships, and the Great Army in 250 vessels established themselves in the southeastern section of England. Book VIII relates Alfred’s successful meeting of this crisis.
VIII:3. bloody boon: Mary’s help during the battle of Ethandune (VII:189-258).
VIII:4. An allusion to Mary (Rev. 12:1).
VIII:12. Guthrum withdrew to East Anglia where he distributed land among his followers.
VIII:19-20. The chronicler Aethelweard mentions the presence of ealdorman Aethelnoth of Somerset at the “chrism-loosing” of Guthrum (Conybeare 1900,139). Lingard describes the baptism and the chrism-loosing: “After a few weeks, Guthrum with thirty of his officers was baptized at Aller, near Athelney. He took the surname Athelstan, and Alfred was his sponsor. After the ceremony both princes removed to Wedmore, where on the eighth day Guthrum put off the white robe and the chrysmal fillet, and on the twelfth hade adieu to his adopted father, whose generosity he had learned to admire as much as he had before respected his valour” ([1849] 1912,1:204). In his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church John Lingard gives greater detail: “The priest depressed his head three times below the surface, saying, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He was now anointed on the crown with chrism in the form of the cross, and a white linen cap called a chrismal was fastened over his head… . Still it was expected that he should return to the church on each of the next seven days, to attend to daily instruction and to receive daily the communion. On the last the chrysmal was removed, and the ceremony was concluded” (1845,1:318-319).
VIII:21-24. After withdrawing from Wessex, the Danes retained lands north and east of the following boundaries: “Along the Thames, then up on the Lea unto its source; then on right to Bedford; then up on the Ouse unto Watling Street” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:139). [This territory became known as the Danelaw.] The text of the two treaties containing the terms of peace between Alfred and Guthrum is still in existence. Dorothy Whitelock’s translation of the longer version is in English Historical Documents ([1955] 1979,416-17). J. A. Giles included both treaties in the second volume of The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great ([1858] 1969). See R. H. Hodgkin for an explanation of the clauses of the treaty ([1935] 1952,2:578-81).
VIII:33-34. John Earle stresses the fact that King Alfred’s educational revival installed the mother tongue as the medium of elementary teaching (Bowker 1899,205). In the same collection of essays, Sir Walter Besant explains how King Alfred laid the foundations of English poetry and prose: “He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions and legends brought from the German Forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs; he had them sung in his Court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp” (Bowker 1899,29). Asser speaks of the application of Alfred’s children to learning: “For they have learnt the psalms, and Saxon hooks, and Saxon songs above all, and are for ever reading” (Conybeare 1900,104).
VIII:35. the alms he gave as a Christian: The ASC 883 notes: “Sigehelm and Athelstan bare to Rome the alms that the King had vowed to send thither, and eke to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, when they sat down against [opposed] the Host that was in London” (Conybeare 1900,125). This addition belongs to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 886. It was in 886 that Alfred vowed to send alms if he defeated the Danish army that was occupying London. The ASC also states that Alfred sent alms to Rome in 887, 888, and 890. Simeon of Durham describes Alfred’s generosity to those of his own kingdom: “At the holy solemnities of the Festivals, what boons he bestowed on his bishops and chieftains and knights, none may declare. Then did the poor leap for gladness, then were widows and orphans full of joy; and heartfelt praises they gave him. Full well he knew that saying of the Teacher—‘Then is money of true worth, when it has been handed over to others. Almsgiving is the end of ownership’ ” (Conybeare 1900,158).
VIII:37-38. An examination of the account given by Asser, Alfred’s biographer, shows that the King considered himself only a steward of the wealth entrusted to him:
He bade his officers divide his annual income always into two equal shares, to begin with. When this was done he assigned the first share to secular affairs; and bade it be divided again into three shares… .[This went to his warriors, craftsmen, and foreigners from many lands.] But the second half of all the wealth which yearly came in to him, from whatever source, he vowed freely and fully to God. And he bade his officers heedfully to part the same into four shares, in such wise, that the first of these shares should be paid over to the poor of every race that came unto him. And the second part he gave to the two Abbeys of his own foundation. And the third to the School, wherein he had so carefully gathered many of the high-born of his own race. And the fourth to the Abbeys round about (Conybeare 1900,115-16).
VIII:39. Keynes and Lapidge cite King Alfred’s own testimony that he used the earlier laws of Kings Ine, Offa, and Ethelberht as his sources (1983,164).
VIII:45-46. Asser, as a companion and confidant living at the court, can be relied upon when he says that Alfred set aside one-third of the income which he had designated for secular use to be assigned to foreigners: “And the third share gave he to the strangers of every race who flocked unto him from far and near and asked of him money. Nay, even though they asked not, yet gave he to each according to his several worthiness, full gladly, and with a wondrously open hand, beyond all praise” (Conybeare 1900,116). Asser specifies “the ends of the earth” from which visitors came: “For the time would fail me to tell… how day by day had he embassies from the folk that dwell by the Tyrrhenian [Mediterranean] Sea, and unto the uttermost parts of Ireland” (Conybeare 1900,112).
Among the famous visitors to the court were Ohthere and Wulfstan, who gave detailed reports of their voyages of discovery and exploration to King Alfred. The King inserted an account of these expeditions in his Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius. From this source one learns that Ohthere doubled the North Cape and entered the White Sea on the first trip northward. Wulfstan reported his findings in the Baltic lands. Judging from the space devoted to Wulfstan’s exposition of the curious customs of the Esti, King Alfred must have been captivated by the strange reports he heard (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,2:39-56).
Through his generosity in paying for their services, King Alfred attracted numerous craftsmen to his kingdom. Tradesmen came “together from many a race, and in almost countless numbers, well skilled in every kind of building known on earth.” Their expert work promoted Alfred’s plans for the upbuilding of Wessex.
VIII:45-48. Asser in writing of Alfred’s munificence, states that he gave alms to abbeys outside of his own kingdom: “And in some years, too, he gave, as he might, by turn to the churches in Wales and Cornwall, in Gaul, Brittany, Northumbria, and even, now and then, in Ireland, and to the servants of God who dwelt therein” (Conybeare 1900,116).
VIII:47-48. See E VIII:35.
VIII:52. crakens: Mythical sea-monsters or enormous size, said to have been seen at times off the coast of Norway.
VIII:55-60. Chesterton seems to be referring to Ohthere, the navigator. Dr. Joseph Bosworth says in an explanatory note appended to bis translation of King Alfred’s “Orosius”:
Ohthere was a Norwegian nobleman of great wealth and influence, anxious to state nothing, but that to which he could bear personal testimony. It appears impossible for any one to read this simple narrative, without being convinced, that this daring Northman is giving a detail of his voyage, on the north coast of Norway into the White Sea… . Ohthere had made discoveries, which he communicated to the king, and Alfred thought them of such importance, that he wrote and inserted this detail of them in his Geographical and Historical view of Europe (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969, 2:39).
VIII:61-66. Chesterton may be alluding to Sigehelm and Athelstan as the “great gift-bearing lords” who in 883 [886] went even as far as India. William of Malmesbury mentions that Sigehelm, Bishop of Sherborne, brought back “many a strange and brilliant jewel” (Conybeare 1900,165).
VIII:70. Prester John: This mythical priest-king supposedly ruled a mysterious kingdom in India. Before his palace stood a crystal mirror in which he could watch his entire kingdom. Chesterton treats this myth in “The Modern Magic” (1944,19).
VIII:72. Terre Majeure: The Carolingian Empire. Before 814, Charlemagne had much of western Europe under his control.
VIII:72-77. Alfred recognized the civilizing influence of the empire established by Charlemagne.
VIII:87. Chesterton identifies the Picts as the people “who lay beyond Agricola’s boundary in what is now the Scotch Lowlands” (1917,27).
VIII:88-89. In the ninth century, Strathclyde was the name given to the territory governed by the Northern Welsh. It included the valley of the Clyde river.
VIII:94-114. Alfred replies with a proveth to his advisers who are pressing him to drive out the Danes and to conquer the country above Hadrian’s wall. “A seer feels too small for life, / And a fool too large for it.”
(VIII:96-97). This passage is a rebuke to the ambitious empire-builders of Chesterton’s day. In What’s Wrong with the World he writes: “I have thus explained… why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continual feebleness, a running sore, in my own” (1910,106). King Alfred, unlike his grandfather Egbert, had engaged only in defensive warfare.
VIII:96-97. King Alfred’s actions and writings affirm his humility and wisdom.
VIII:129-30. From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff: At strategic locations Alfred “made his fences tough” by ordering the construction of burhs [forts]. Hodgkin explains Alfred’s well planned system of defense ([1935] 1967,2:585-90).
VIII:135-42. Thomas Hughes wrote a lively account of the 1857 festival that followed the scouring of the White Horse. Thousands of spectators assembled on 17 and 18 September to enjoy the merrymaking, as well as to admire the Horse. Money prizes were awarded winners in backsword play, wrestling, a jingling match, climbing a greased pole; and in foot, hurdle, cart-horse, and donkey races. Whoever captured the pig that was released could claim it as a prize (1859,92-93).
VIII:149-53. At the opening of his last war, Alfred was forty-four years old. He had aged prematurely because of his strenuous labors as king.
VIII:160-63. The Danes from Boulogne invaded Kent in two large companies in 892. Numerous skirmishes occurred during the early months of the war. At the outset Alfred tried diplomacy, but eventually detachments of his army fought successfully in various engagements with the Danes. It appears that Alfred acted as a commander in chief while his son Edward, son-in-law Ethelred, and others led the troops. For greater detail of the 892-96 war see: ASC 892-96; Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:655-69); “Aethelweard’s Chronicle, AD. 893-95,” Keynes and Lapidge (1983,114-19; 189-91).
VIII:170. dykes: These simulate running earthworks in certain districts. Some dykes provided protection; others established boundaries.
VIII:184-213. In Orthodoxy, Chesterton enlarges on the fact that things naturally tend to grow worse. The chapter, “The Eternal Revolution,” explains: “if you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post, if you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post” (1908,212).
VIII:211. wot: First and third person singular present of wit, to know. (Archaic except Scotch and Dialectal English.)
VIII:214-30. Aethelweard’s Chronicle (Keynes and Lapidge 1983,189-91) and the ASC are primary sources for Alfred’s last war. By 893 fighting men from all over England outside the Danelaw were hastening to the aid of Alfred. The “distant tribes” included those from Wales, Cornwall, and English Mercia. Alfred’s allies realized that their survival was bound up with that of Wessex. Hodgkin ([1935] 1952,2:653-69) has an excellent chapter on Alfred’s last war. Alfred’s previous attention to shipbuilding, to the improvement of the fortifications, and to the military reorganization of manpower contributed to his success.
VIII:216-18. Leg ions of drafted men marched by “in haste and bitterness / For Christ’s sake and the crown’s.”
VIII:223-24. According to the “Legend of Glastonbury, A.D. 62,” the pilgrim staff of Joseph of Arimathea “came from a thornbrake that had furnished thorns for a crown [Christ’s]” Catholic World 7 (July 1868):522. This pilgrim staff is supposed to have miraculously taken root in the soil of Glastonbury.
Chesterton refers to St. Joseph of Arimathea as a wealthy missionary who took the body of our Lord down from the Cross and laid it in his own tomb… (Matt. 26: 26-28). Here Chesterton links up the part St. Joseph of Arimathea had in the burial of Jesus with a legendary role attributed to him of introducing Christianity into Britain (1917,35-36).
VIII:233-35,245-47. While the soldiers are thronging past him on their way to drive out the pagan Danes, Alfred has a vision, an inner certitude, that in some far century “the heathen shall return.” For Maurice Evans, Alfred’s vision is the most significant part of the Ballad (1939,114-15).
VIII:236-37. King Alfred gives his kingdom to Our Lady. The king’s reverence for Mary may be assumed from the fact that her name is mentioned after God in one of his charters: “I Alfred king, in honour of God and of the blessed virgin Mary and of all the saints, give and grant, being alive and still thriving, to the church of Scepton a hundred hides of land” (Alfred the Great [1858] 1969,1:388). For details about the ancient devotions, shrines, and pilgrimages in England, consult H. W. R. Lillie, S.J., England, the Dowry of Mary.
VIII:248-56. The modern barbarians will not be warriors but writers and orators who will use “dead words” to eliminate God as the Creator and Designer of the universe. In Orthodoxy Chesterton denounces the evil influence of Herbert Spencer on H. G. Wells (1908,111). Mr. Wells set down the theory of Natural Selection as a fact of modern science. Adherence to this teaching was an attempt to get rid of God. Elsewhere in Orthodoxy Chesterton gives the Christian viewpoint: “And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator… . It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child) was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world. According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it” (1908,142-43).
VIII:249. brands: Probably in this context: torches.
VIII:262-65. Herbert Spencer “popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale?” (Chesterton 1908,110)
VIII:268-69. These are references to the accomplishment of impossible feats.
VIII:270-72. Vergil composed the Aeneid, it is said, at the request of Augustus. In form it followed closely the great Homeric poems, while in substance it magnified Rome and the ruler of Rome.
VIII:273-306. Chesterton fights for “Christian civilization against heathen nihilism.” The modern barbarians come as scholars who know too much to believe in God, and by their teachings they undermine and destroy the faith of others. VIII:293-94 Chesterton points out the reality of sin:
Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can be really proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street (1908,24).
VIII:295-96. Ibsen and Nietzsche are two writers whom Chesterton singles out for attack. “My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout,… a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life… . All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions” (1905a,31-32). Some of the philosophers who are by “thought a crawling ruin” come in for attack in Orthodoxy:
Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot… . By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon (1908,75-77).
VIII:296. By life a leaping mire: Since Oscar Wilde was a notorious decadent, this phrase could refer to him. Chesterton comments: “Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde” (1908,104).
VIII:324. St. Edmund, king of East Anglia, obtained his martyr’s crown when he opposed the Danish invaders in 870.
VIII:332-50. After the East Anglian violation of peace with Alfred, the king used force to recover London in 886 (ASC 886).
VIII:351-71. The thriving “clover and silent thistle” have “unwound the toils of men.” The contest continues. Unchecked nature defaces the White Horse.
VIII:366-71. “Abrupt and absolute as an epic ends, …” (Chesterton 1926a,29). Against the backdrop of a “pale purple sky” and ivory battle smoke, the great Alfred continues the unending defense of his realm.
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