When we have described the form and symbolism of the Alfred Jewel, and reviewed the various interpretations which it has evoked, and when we have moreover analyzed its design and considered each several feature, we have not as yet exhausted the matter of our theme. An important part of the problem remains to be discussed, and that is the place of its discovery, the how and the why of its deposit there, and the possibility of light to be derived from the historical associations of the locality. It was found near the Isle of Athelney. This looks like a piece of circumstantial evidence tending to identify the Alfred named in the93 Epigraph, and to associate the Jewel with the chief and central episode in the career of our national hero. The momentous crisis which is thus reflected in the Jewel seems to open a wider view, and to demand some enlargement of this Essay, so as to embrace a glimpse of that eventful story.
THE ISLE OF ATHELNEY.
Of all this we now, after the lapse of a thousand years, speak as men who know the sequel, and (because we do know the sequel) it is the harder for us to appreciate the intensity of that crisis. We are helped by the occurrence of an opportune discovery. Just when our nation was beginning to be ripe for historical reflection and capable of entering into the struggles of our remote forefathers, there was ‘dug up’ in the locality where Alfred took refuge in the year 878, a personal ornament bearing his name in impressive characters. It is to us now as if the king himself had but recently passed that way under such stress of circumstances as constrained him to hide his royal insignia, and as if we somehow by this chance were brought nearer to the burden of his lot, and were made sharers not only in the 94 fruits of his triumph, but also in the toil and the joy of his achievement.
By the sudden surprize with which the Danes had broken the peace and come upon him at Chippenham in the dead of winter, they had almost fulfilled their design and taken him captive. But he had fled, and they had Wessex at will, and were proceeding to divide and occupy the land. The king, with a few companions, had escaped into Selwood, and thence by wood and by fen, like hunted creatures, they eluded pursuit, but were never secure until they had passed beyond Pedrida.
What were his reflections on finding himself suddenly an outcast in the winter, a fugitive in the wild? He had experienced hair-breadth escapes, but none like this! He had trusted Guthrum’s oath, had thought him in earnest this time! And even now he was loth to charge this last perfidy upon him. No! this trick was not his, it came from those buccaneers in the Severn Sea. Mad at the defeat of last summer’s combined scheme, which they had come from far north to support, they had forced Guthrum’s95 hand, and compelled him to join them in this winter raid. And they would not stop there! Finding that he had given them the slip, they would certainly be down upon some part of the coast of Somerset or of Devon, and preparations must be made to receive them. Odda will surely be stirring: he is safe to be on the alert! I must find out what he is doing, and we must work on a plan; he in Devon, and I in Somerset!
It was now twelve years since he had come to the front, and had taken his stand by the side of his brother ?thered. The moment when he had begun to share in public affairs had coincided with a great change in the situation. That was the time when the invaders acquired a footing in East Anglia: they made there a centre of operations from which they went out and to which they came in—it had become the head quarters of an invading host which manifested a settled design of conquest. Previously the incursions of the Northmen had been desultory, but from that time they had become methodical. This change had coincided with the death of ?thelbriht in 866, and the accession of ?thered. 96 In the following year had died Alhstan, that vigilant patriot, the old warlike bishop of Sherborne.
?thered and I were the two youngest of the family, and our relations had been peculiarly close. Before we were united by public cares, we had been partners in our private concerns. Our several estates had been kept in one and worked in common, under agreed conditions, so that they had remained undivided. Our names had been coupled together by the common voice of the nation. The style was ever thus:—?tered cyning and ?lfred his brotur.
Oh what a fearful time it was for Angelcynn, that five years of ?thered’s reign! Northumbria, that old imperial kingdom, was crushed; Mercia reduced to make a peace with the heathen, which was the best we could effect by marching in force to Nottingham to support Burgred and ?thelswith! And, worst of all, the East Angles defeated in battle, the good king Edmund slain (he fought like a hero, and died like a martyr); the land conquered, possessed, and turned from an Anglian into a Danish kingdom!
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It was our turn next. All was at length ripe for the subjugation of Wessex, and on this aim they brought all their strength to bear. We made a gallant stand at Ashdown against overwhelming odds; we slew their kings and jarls, and made their practised braves fly before the rustic militia of Ecgberht. Eight pitched battles in that year, besides smaller fights without number. But ?thered died at Easter. Rightly the people revere him as a saint. So I was left to continue the struggle single-handed.
Since then they have established themselves in the possession of London, and they have banished Burgred and set up for king in Mercia a tool of their own; also Halfdan has abolished the kingdom of Northumbria and partitioned the land. And amidst all this, what a destruction of religious houses, seats of piety and learning and education—Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, Jarrow, York, Ripon, Bardney, Ely, Crowland, Medeshamstead, and many others.
They have destroyed the powers of Northumbria and Mercia; but there they had a point in their favour which is against them here. The Welsh at the back of those nations were98 always ready to co-operate with the invader, but that is not so here in the west. The Cornish have never made common cause with the heathen since the battle of Hingston Down, in which that coalition was quashed by Ecgberht. And we have a still better guarantee in the constant policy of Wessex ever since the days of Ina and Aldhelm. The territorial quarrel was then appeased, and the religious difference too. The West Welsh were conquered, but they were never wantonly humiliated, no man was ejected from his own. They appreciated the respect and even honour that was shown to their favourite church of Glastonbury. Therefore I have good hope of the support of the men of Somerset.
True, we have to count upon the hostility of the Welsh on the opposite shore of the Severn Sea, where the Danish fleets find harbour and all friendly countenance. Still, that is not quite the same thing as having an active enemy behind your back upon the same stretch of territory. Here in this west country the people differ only in degrees of allegiance, none are actively hostile. This is the weak point in the position of the invaders. This is the one little99 bit of advantage that still remains to us. I must improve it to the utmost!
But first of all we must provide against a sudden descent on the coast. For the last two years events have succeeded one another at a quickened pace: surprize on surprize! There, under the opposite coast, lies a heathen fleet, ready to be down upon us without notice! The coast-wardens must be kept up to the mark, and I not to be seen in it!
The mobility of these troopers defies calculation! How unexpected and startling was that occupation of Wareham last autumn! How daringly defiant of gods and men that breach of their most sacred oath! When by that perjury they had lulled our mistrust, they made a sudden rush for Exeter! Perfidy is part of their tactics. How wonderful, how divinely providential, that storm off Swanage, which wrecked the perfidious plan! And now, not to be baulked, they pounce upon Chippenham in time of truce and in mid-winter, thinking to capture me! How great in war is the unexpected! Without perfidy, I too must learn to meditate surprize; I must contrive how to100 distract their calculations, and strike where least expected.
With some such a strain of thought as this (if I have followed him aright) now ruminated the undaunted king, in whom thought was the spring of action. Moreover, he reasoned thus with himself: ‘So long as winter lasts, they cannot follow me with the host by the way that I have come, but if they learn my whereabouts, they may easily find adventurers who would undertake to kill me. Wherefore I must not make myself too freely known, but proceed cautiously, and make proof of men before I trust myself to them. To most I must appear like some mounted yeoman hunter who follows the high deer that abound in the forests about these hills. And as for this sacred toy, this personal enigma, this Jewel of ceremony, which many eyes have beheld, I must no longer carry it about me, lest peradventure it make me known unawares. I will bury it in some convenient spot!’
The western boundary of Wessex had for centuries been the Great Wood of which the101 ancient name still survives as a specific element in the historic designation of Frome Selwood.
This great wood was also called Wealwudu, a very natural and appropriate name, because it had long been the barrier between the Saxon and the Welsh populations. Here lies the most fitting scene for the story of Denewulf. In the time when the king was a fugitive, he found this man keeping swine in the forest, and he discovered in him a great natural capacity and aptness for good, and after his return to power he educated Denewulf, and made him bishop of Winchester. This story does not run on all fours, because according to the best authorities Denewulf became bishop of Winchester in 879, and if he was keeping swine in 878, being already of mature age, it smacks rather of hagiology than of history. But it may be that the marvel has been enhanced in transmission; or if we choose the lowest estimate and call it mere fiction, still it is worth while observing what manner of stories were invented about king Alfred.
Behind this barrier the Danes had never been102 able to get a footing. As if aware how greatly this was needed for the success of their designs upon Wessex, they had made several attempts. Two great efforts which imply this aim were made at the end of the reign of Ecgberht. The force of thirty-five ships which that king repelled at Charmouth, on the coast of Dorset, seems to indicate something more than merely a plundering incursion.
In 835, a great naval armament (micel sciphere) came to the Cornish coast and were joined by the West Welsh, and they gathered in force at Hingston Down, where they probably intended to fortify themselves; when Ecgberht appeared with an army, and dispersed them.
The next recorded attempt of the kind was in the year 845, in the reign of ?thelwulf, when the Wicengas entered the mouth of the Parret, and were met by the posse comitatus of the two shires, Somerset and Dorset, under their two ealdormen, and Alhstan the warlike bishop of Sherborne.
Only in the very last year (877) their land-force had, by a perfidious surprize, seized Exeter,103 acting in concert with a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, which were to sail up the Exe and co-operate with them—but they were wrecked in a storm off Swanage [30]. This disaster, combined with the promptitude of the king in assault, had compelled them to capitulate, and had dislodged them from Exeter.
Of the same nature and motive was the attempt of this spring on the coast of Devon at a place which Asser calls Cynwit, with a force of twenty-three ships, which were wintering on the opposite coast of the Severn Sea. The repulse was complete and the blow decisive, but the name of the English leader is not given by the contemporary annalist. A hundred and twenty years later, Ethelwerd calls him Odda the ealdorman of Devonshire. The reticence of the Chronicle suggests that this achievement was conducted by Alfred while he was keeping 104in the background, lest the place of his retreat should become known.
Gradually and by the spontaneous action of natural causes, the western barrier of the Saxon was moved from the line of Selwood to the fenland of Pedrida. This barrier was deeper bedded in the soil, was harder to pass, and has left behind it memories more indelible. The first explicit notice of this virtual transfer of the western boundary meets us seventeen years later than the epoch with which we are now engaged, and it may be worth while to go so far out of our way in order the better to realize the import of Pedrida.
In the last decade of Alfred’s reign, when he was in the agony of that supreme crisis which tested the value of his institutions, a great muster of force was called for, and the extent of the contributing area is sketched by the annalist as matter of amazement. ‘There gathered ?thered aldorman and ?thelm aldorman and ?thelnoth aldorman, and the king’s Thanes who were then at home in the fortifications, from every garrison east of Pedrida105 (whether west of Selwood or east), likewise also north of Thames and west of Severn:—moreover some part of the Welsh nation[31].’
Here we mark the startling novelty that the Welsh in 894 are seen aiding the Saxon against the Dane; and we can hardly forgo a passing cry of wonder and pleasure at this signal token of the imperial success of Alfred’s policy. But our present concern is with the recognition of Pedrida as the westernmost limit of Wessex proper instead of Selwood, and the implication that the change was recent. We see that Selwoodshire (as the intervening district was popularly called) was by 894 quite assimilated and included in the military administration of Wessex, but that beyond Pedrida some other rule was operative at that time. Such a fact reflects back an illustrative light upon the year 878, and helps us to estimate the situation of Alfred when he was in Somerset beyond Pedrida.
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The political division here indicated has left traces which may still be recognized, particularly in the dialect and in folk-lore. Of the dialect we have a remarkable monument in Mr. Elworthy’s works, The Dialect of West Somerset, and his West Somerset Word-Book. Especially to be noted is the ‘u’ of the West Country, which is radically one with the Welsh ‘u’ and with the French ‘u,’ while at the same time it has a very distinct local character of its own. Every Englishman who is conversant with the French language knows how hard it is to acquire the utterance of the French ‘u’ after the age of infancy. A like strangeness is experienced by English people born east of Pedrida, when they attempt to reproduce the western ‘u.’ In fact, this vowel-sound is Keltic; it is a legacy from our British predecessors.
Not that this British ‘u’ is absolutely confined to the western promontory: it may be occasionally heard in other parts of the country by a cultivated and observant ear. Mr. Mayhew once told me that he had heard it in the Corn Market at Oxford. But though not confined to the lands west of Pedrida, it is in a peculiar107 manner concentrated there. It is chiefly in Devonshire that this peculiar vowel has wakened wider attention, but this is simply because that county has been the most frequented as a place of holiday resort.
The so-called Devonian ‘u’ and its contiguous sounds have been described many times from first to last, but it has been mostly in that perfunctory vein which contents the summer tourist. It is rare to catch such a plain and solid illustration as the following, which is quoted from the preface to Mr. Elworthy’s West Somerset Word-Book:—‘I was a passive listener at Brandon’s while a bonnet was being discussed, and when making the payment ventured to remark to the young lady, “You must have been a long time in London.” “Oh yes, ten years; but why do you ask?” “Only for information,” said I. “And did you come straight from Teignmouth?” With much surprise at my supposing she came from Devonshire, she said at length that she was a native of Newton Abbott. I could not pretend to define the precise quality of her two, but it was only in that one word that I recognized her locality.’
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If the vocabulary of this dialect were minutely examined by a competent Welsh scholar, some British words might be detected. Among those which would deserve early attention are plum (soft, as a bed), pilm or pillum (dust), welt (to beat, thrash).
Another local characteristic of the West Welsh promontory is this, that it is the peculiar haunt of a race of whimsical or mischievous sprites called Piskies or Pixies. In South Devon and Cornwall any one whose conduct is strange and unaccountable is said to be pisky-led. This is a branch of the numerous kindred of that versatile Puck, whose memory is kept fresh by the Midsummer Night’s Dream. In an Anglo-Saxon perambulation of land at Weston by Bath, we meet with a Pucan Wyl, Puck’s Well[32]. The English Dialect Dictionary preserves the name of Aw-Puck for Will-o’-the-Wisp or ignis fatuus, a compound which imports that he is the most dangerous of the species. This name was current in Worcestershire, but is now obsolete [33].
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These are the more obvious extant traces of the long isolation of the trans-Pedridan world: others there are which have attracted inquiry, such as peculiar customs, implements, songs and song-tunes, which latter have been investigated by Dr. Bussell and the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
The Somerset to which Alfred retired was widely unlike the Somerset of to-day. In this respect three points may be taken: (1) Differences in the distribution of land and water; (2) differences in the trees and woods and game; (3) differences in the political aspect of the population.
1. West Somerset was separated from East Somerset by wide inland waters: the beds of the Brue and Parret were lakes in the winter, and only passable in summer to those who knew the ground. Pedrida was regarded as a natural limit, like the sea itself, dividing nations; it was spoken of in like phraseology. Thus we read in 658 how Cenwalh warred against the 110 Welsh and drave them even unto Pedrida[34]; and, in 682, how Centwine drave the Bret-Welsh even unto the sea[35].
The cause of that expanse of water and large area of fenland happened far back beyond historical chronology, and we can only date it by using the geological method of reckoning time. Far back in the sub-glacial era a subsidence of the land took place which affected the coast of Somerset and North Devon. Proof of this is found in a submarine forest extending along the south coast of the Severn Sea, which has long been known. ‘That portion of it visible at Porlock was described in 1839 by Sir Henry de la Beche, and more recently by Mr. Godwin Austen in an essay read before the Geological Society in 1865[36].’
Subsequently the Rev. H. H. Winwood and Professor Boyd Dawkins verified the discovery by a thorough examination of the forest-bed. 111 Near Minehead the forest consists of oak, ash, alder, and hazel, which grew on a blue clay. An ancient growth of oak, ash, and yew is found everywhere underneath the peat or alluvium in the Somersetshire levels. Throughout this wide area the trees were destroyed by the growth of peat, or by the deposits of the floods, except at a few isolated spots, which stand at a higher level than usual, in the great flat extending between the Polden Hills and the Quantocks. One of these oases, a little distance to the west of Middlezoy, is termed the Oaks, because those trees form a marked contrast to the prevailing elms and willows of the district. In the neighbouring ditches, that gradually cut into peat, and then into silt, prostrate oaks are very abundant[37].
Subsidence of the land at a remote geological period was the cause of the impassable state of these levels in the time of king Alfred, and the modern system of drainage which was carried out at a later date has been the cause of the improved condition which we see now, and 112 which has made the Vale of Taunton Dean proverbial as the Garden of England.
2. In Alfred’s time the eye was greeted by a variety of trees which are not observable now. The elm predominates all over the plain. I asked the occupier of Athelney Farm about the trees on his land, and he said there was hardly anything but elm. Of other kinds he had only two ash-trees and one beech; ‘but (he added) we find bog-oak in the moors, and it makes good gate-posts.’ The elms have driven out both oak and ash, and whatever other sorts they touched in their ‘wrastling’ progress. These sombre grenadiers dress up their lines so close as to leave little room for other trees. They suck the fruitful soil more than any other tree, and they repay their costly nurture with timber of inferior value. Introduced by the Romans to serve as stakes and props in the culture of the vine, they have overrun the land like the imported rabbits in some of our colonies. In Alfred’s day these hungry aliens had not yet usurped the field, and there was still room for the display of the rich variety of nature—oak, ash, beech, fir, maple, yew, sycamore, hornbeam,113 holly, poplar, aspen, alder, hazel, wych-elm, apple, cherry, juniper, elder, willow, mountain ash, spindle-tree, buckthorn, hawthorn, wild plum, wild pear, service-tree, &c. But now, the fair places of the field are encumbered by the tall cousins of the nettle, and the most diversified of English counties is muffled with a monotonous shroud of outlandish and weedy growth.
In the animal world, likewise, the lapse of a thousand years has brought change. In the pastures the most frequent animal is the cow, and only on rare occasions, as we view the moors from some elevated ‘tump,’ have we the chance to see a little company of antlered deer careering over the open plain, clearing the rhines with an airy bound. In Alfred’s time too, cow-keeping was a stock industry, and we read of the king as entertained incognito by one of his own cowherds (apud quendam suum vaccarium).
But the proportion of wild to domesticated animals was far greater then than it is now. The whole stretch of country from Pedrida to the end of Exmoor, fifty miles long and twenty miles wide, was then almost a continuous forest, abounding with game of all kinds, but 114 especially with red deer, which still continues, though in diminished numbers. This noble creature is thus described by Bewick:—
‘The Stag or Red Deer. This is the most beautiful animal of the deer kind. The elegance of his form, the lightness of his motions, the flexibility of his limbs, his bold, branching horns, which are annually renewed, his grandeur, strength, and swiftness, give him a decided pre-eminence over every other inhabitant of the forest[38].’
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