And thy song sung.”
The Aelfrida motive is first introduced while she is being discussed as the King’s prospective bride:
When Aethelwold is mentioned as the one to get her, we hear his sturdy motive:
which is continued and developed while the knights dwell on his fitness for the task, for was it not true that
“He shunneth a fair maid
As she were a foul marten
And should a wench but breathe upon him in the dark,
He would bury himself till the smell of her were off him!”