invaders passed the barrier they too were Christians, eager to revere rather than destroy the churches of the Britons), and preserving, moreover, to no small extent the continuity of its population. Once Christians, the English no longer simply massacred and enslaved; they recognised their vanquished foes as fellow-Christians, and merely held them in subjection, settling amongst them, intermarrying with them, and ultimately assimilating them. How much Celtic blood was still to be found in the district is shown by Asser giving the Welsh as well as the English name for almost every place he mentions thereabout.

$ 16. Hither then Alfred fled with a few faithful friends, making for the Isle of Athelney, a low, scant plot of firm ground, near the waters-meet of the Tone and the Parret, 'girded in with fen on every side, and not to be come at save by boat. Thereon is all dense alder-brake, full of stags and goats and such creatures, and in the midst one bit of open ground, scarce two acres." This fastness he made his chief place of refuge, whence he and his would sally out by twos and threes in quest of food, and to spy upon the enemy. Nay, sometimes in these wanderings the King found himself absolutely alone, as in the oft-told episode of the cakes in the cowherd's hut, and the equally oft-told occasion when he sought the Danish camp under the guise of a minstrel and thus learnt their proposed movements.

§ 17. Athelney, moreover, is the scene of the less-known tale which connects this last exploit with the name of St. Cuthbert, the renowned evangelizer of Northumbria :

'There had the King no sustenance save what he caught by fowling, hunting, or fishing. And at length it came to pass while his men were away fishing, and he was solacing his distress by meditating on the Scriptures, suddenly there stood beside him a pilgrim, begging alms in the name of God. Then did the kind-hearted monarch lift up his hands to heaven and said, "I thank my God that me, His beggar, He visiteth to-day

1 For the story, see Asser, § 53.

in beggar's guise; that to-day He asketh back what He hath given, and requireth from me His own with usury." And quickly doth the King in his pity call his servant, who had naught but a little wine and one loaf, and . . . bids him give the half unto that beggar. The beggar thanks him, and in a moment, leaving no foot-print in the mire, vanisheth away. And, lo, the things bestowed on him were found untouched, as well the bread as the wine; and they who had gone a-fishing brought back an innumerable multitude of fishes.

'And when the King slept there appeared unto him one clad in pontifical robes, who warned him of his duties and added: "O Alfred, Christ who hath beheld the uprightness of thine heart endeth even now thy troubles. For to-morrow shall there come to thee strong helpers, by whose aid shalt thou overthrow thine enemies." Then said the King, "Who art thou?" And he said, "I am Cuthbert. I am that pilgrim who was yesterday here, to whom thou gavest bread. Thee and thine take I beneath my care. Remember this when it shall be well with thee."

'Thus, by the encouragement and monition of St. Cuthbert did the Most Christian King quit his lurking den, and by a device of rare wit, in the garb of a minstrel did he enter the Danish tents; and having spied out all he desired to see, turned him again to Athelney.”1

§ 18. Special interest thus attaches to the fact that at Athelney should have been found the only personal relic of Alfred, his famous 'jewel,' now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. This is a sort of gold locket, some two inches long, the front being of crystal, through which is seen the figure of a man, rudely designed in gold and various coloured enamel. Though the design is rude, the workmanship is exquisite, and is a striking testimony to the much-praised skill of the English goldsmiths at this period. Round the edge of the locket (which is about half an inch thick) runs the inscription, in letters of pierced gold, AELFREDMECHEHTGEWYRCAN (Alfred

1 'Book of Hyde.'

D

had me worked). The figure has been variously thought to be intended either for our Lord, or the Pope, or St. Peter, or St. Cuthbert, or St. Neot, but is much more probably Alfred himself. A careful inspection will convince any artist that it is a portrait, and just such a portrait as we might expect Alfred's to be a singularly set and resolute cast of countenance, bearing marks of severe suffering undergone and overcome. The face indeed is clean-shaven; but the idea that Alfred, as an ancient Saxon, must have worn a full beard is wholly modern and unsupported, and it is a pity that it should have been stereotyped on his monuments at Winchester and Woking. His coins show no beard. The full beard, indeed, has been throughout history never a long-lived fashion; the shave, clean or partial, being much longer in vogue. It is scarcely likely that the jewel dates from the time when he was in hiding at Athelney. It more probably formed part of the treasure belonging to the monastery which he there founded as a thank-offering after the tempest which drove him to shelter passed away.1 On the site of this monastery now stand the buildings of Athelney Farm.

Athelney is to-day a small inconspicuous ridge of green meadow, some half mile in length by a furlong in breadth, raised but a few feet above the dead level of the surrounding flat. Till not so very long ago that flat was impassible swamp, even as in Alfred's day, for it lies well below the high water mark of the Bristol Channel, only a few miles away.

Express trains now fly past the Southern margin of this famous islet, on their way between London and the West, affording just a glimpse of it to the passing traveller. And the high road from Taunton to Glastonbury runs along its Northern marge. But the Pilgrims of Alfred whose devotion leads them to enter the Isle itself are richly repaid. For they find but little difficulty in conjuring up the scene as he saw it a thousand years ago. The view indeed from 'Alfred's

1 The delicacy of the work is quite incompatible with the view that the Jewel was meant to be worn as a crest or borne on a banner-pole. It is most likely the handle of an oestel. See p. 62.

monument,' on the highest point of the Isle, is substantially the same to this day. The dense brake' on the island itself is now only represented by the lines of willows bordering the sluggish waterways around; but the main features of the landscape are quite unaltered.

There, to the North-West, is the long undulating line of the Quantock Hills, bounding the horizon, and matched, on the North-East, by the less picturesque summit of the Mendip range. Between these points can be seen, to the North, if the day is clear, the far blue mountains of Wales; while the near and well-wooded uplands of Somerset form the Southern limit of vision.

Immediately to the West this terra firma appoaches quite startlingly near to the extremity of Athelney, with scarcely a hundred yards of swamp between the island shore and the steep descent from the village of Lyng. In every other direction the level flat is the foreground of our view for miles. But between us and the Mendips rises, five miles away, the petty range of the Poldon Hills, making a show, over that level, quite out of proportion to their real height, which nowhere much exceeds two hundred feet. And between them and us again, the eye is at once caught, as Alfred's eye must constantly have been caught, by the steep mount' near Burrow Bridge, now called 'Alfred's Fort,' shooting up abruptly to a height of more than fifty feet, and crowned with its tiny ancient church of St. Michael, now in ruins. So small is this mound that some think it artificial; it is indeed little larger than many of the great Castle mounds e.g. at Thetford. But it is far more probably a natural jut of rock, such as there are several more of in the immediate neighbourhood. That at Aller, barely a mile away, is but one size larger. The triple rampart which girds 'Burrow Mount' may be Alfred's work; but is more probably prehistoric.

Such was, and is, Athelney, Alfred's Camp of Refuge; akin to the similar islets which, in the fens of Ely,

gained that name, by safe-guarding the last hopes of the English at the Norman Conquest, as of the Britons at the English Conquest. To natives at home in the net-work of water-ways running all-whither through the reeds and brakes around, such islets were indeed a place of security; for no stranger could dare to get himself involved in such a labyrinth.

And as, at Athelney, the eye still sees what Alfred saw, so is the ear greeted, if we converse with one of the neighbouring peasantry, by the sound which must have been so familiar to him in the first syllable of his own name ;that indescribable Old English vowel, between A and E, now lingering on only in the West. Modern writers sometimes endeavour to indicate this vowel by Æ, sometimes by Ae; and our conventional spelling represents it sometimes by A (as in Alfred and Athelney), sometimes by E, as in Ethelbert. But it is, in fact, none of these; only by being heard can it be realised, and, above all when it is heard at Athelney.