The Danes were nearly all tall men; their wandering and adventurous life favored the development of their muscular powers; they did not fear death, for the Walhalla or Paradise of their god Odin, promised to the brave warriors who fell in battle all the pleasure which they esteemed most on earth. The figure of the raven, the confidant of their god, floated on the red flags of the Danes; if its dark wings fluttered on the long folds of silk, victory was certain; if they remained motionless, the Northmen feared defeat. The wings of the raven were fluttering triumphantly before Reading, for the Saxons were defeated and were obliged to retreat.
They had not lost courage, however, and four days later they returned to give battle once more to their enemies; the Danes had already issued forth from their intrenchments, but Ethelred was still in his tent, attending holy mass, and would not hurry to the scene of battle, in spite of urgent messages from Alfred. The latter, therefore, attacked their opponents single-handed, opposite a little tree which the Danes had chosen as a rallying-spot. The Saxons fought with the fury of despair; Ethelred soon came to support his brother, and the Danes, beaten upon the great plain of Assendon, took to flight; but only to return a fortnight afterwards, their number swelled by the reinforcements which were continually arriving by sea. Wessex alone had sustained eight battles in one year; her resources were becoming exhausted in such an unequal struggle; Ethelred, wounded, had just died, and Alfred found himself alone at the age of twenty-two years (871), subject to a peculiar illness which had succeeded to a slow fever of his boyhood, and of which the attacks would frequently bring him to the very verge of the grave. His men and his resources exhausted, a ninth and unfortunate battle completely disabled him; he was compelled to sue for peace. The Danes willingly consented to his proposal; there were other princes to vanquish, other territories to conquer, less valiantly defended than Wessex, on which they proposed to revenge themselves when it should stand alone in its resistance to them. In 875 they had finished their conquest; Wessex alone still preserved its independence, and three Danish kings who had passed the winter at Cambridge embarked secretly, by night, to attack the coast of Dorset. Vainly did Alfred strive to resist his enemies by sea; his ships were beaten, and soon the long line of incendiarism and murder which always marked the progress of the Danes extended as far as Wareham. This was past endurance, and Alfred, stricken down on a sick-bed, asked for and obtained peace at the price of gold. The Danes retired after having sworn friendship upon some relics brought by the Christian king and on their sacred bracelets steeped in the blood of their victims, exchanging hostages, whose fate they troubled themselves very little about. The very night after peace was concluded, the Saxon horsemen were destroyed and cut up piecemeal by the Danes, who took possession of their horses in order to make a raid into the interior of the country. The remonstrances of Alfred were powerless to stop these disastrous expeditions, so easy for an enemy who threatened the country from all sides.
Alfred took to arms once more; and for awhile the issue of the war seemed to incline in his favor; he had been the first to see the necessity for attacking the Danes on the ocean, which was incessantly bringing them inexhaustible reinforcements, and his vessels having met the pirates during a storm had defeated and dispersed them, thus cutting off all hope of succor to the Danes whom Alfred was besieging in Exeter. This glimmering of success did not last however; in 878 the enemy was once more invading Wessex in two formidable troops; one of them was stopped and even defeated by some faithful retainers of Alfred's, but the second army, which had entered the kingdom by land, was advancing without opposition from town to town. The subjects of Alfred were weary and discouraged. The king, on whom they had founded such great hopes, had lost in their eyes his prestige; brave but uncertain, he had not profited by the advantages which his military genius had sometimes given him, and his people complained of his inflexibility, of his pride, of the severity which he manifested towards offenders; of the indifference which he displayed towards the unfortunate. They did not enter with any spirit into the struggle against the invaders, and the Saxon kings held no power but by the free will of their subjects. The clergy, who were especially hated by the pagan enemy, fled to France, carrying with them from their country its relics and the treasures from the churches. The agricultural population submitted to cultivate the land for the Danes. The latter were seeking Alfred; but the king had suddenly abandoned his post, and left by the struggle sick and wounded to the heart by the defection of his subjects, he had disappeared, his place of concealment being unknown and not even suspected.
The fugitive king did not know where to go. Wandering from forest to forest, from cave to cave, he went his way, trying to conceal his deep disgrace, learning in his cruel wanderings, as his historian and friend Asser says, "that there is one Lord alone, Master of all things and all men, before whom every knee bends, who holds in His hand the hearts of kings, and who sometimes makes His happy servants feel the lash of adversity, to teach them, when they suffer, not to despair of the Divine mercy, and to be without pride when they prosper."
Alfred wanted confidence in God, when he arrived in the island of the Nobles (Ethelingaia), now called Athelney, in order to hide himself there in the hovel of a cowherd. He received him at first as a traveller who had lost his way, and ended by learning in confidence from his guest that he was a Saxon noble of the court of King Alfred, flying from the vengeance of the Danes. The worthy Ulfoath was perfectly satisfied with the explanation, and allowed the fugitive to remain at his house.
His wife was not in the secret, and was annoyed, no doubt, to see her work increased by the presence of this unknown guest. She would ask him at times to perform little services, and would leave him in charge of some household duties. One Sunday, while the husband was gone to lead the beasts to the field and the wife was busy with several little matters, she had left some loaves or thin cakes by the fire, which were baking slowly on the red stone of the hearth. Alfred had been commissioned to watch them, but, absorbed in his sad meditations, he had forgotten that the bread was burning; the smell warned the housewife; she sprang at a bound to the fireplace, and quickly turning her cakes, she called out angrily to the king, "Whoever you may be, are you too proud to turn the loaves? You will not take the slightest heed of them, but you will be very glad to eat some of them presently." Alfred did not lose his temper; he laughed, and helped the woman to finish her task. A few days later the cowherd's wife learnt with dismay the name of the guest whom she had thus scolded.
Alfred in the Herdsman's Hut.