Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

As soon as King Alfred died, his son Edward was made king; and he had soon a great deal to do, for the Danes thought they could conquer all England, now Alfred was dead, and that there would be nobody to fight them.

But they were mistaken, for King Edward was a brave man and a wise king, although he was not so clever and good as his father, and he kept down the Danes while he was king. He had a sister who helped him in everything. Her husband was dead, and she had no son, so she lived with her brother, and gave him good advice, and took care of one part of the country while he was fighting the Danes in another. You may think how sorry the king was when she died, and how sorry the people were too, for she was very good and kind to everybody; but they were still more sorry when King Edward died soon after, for they were afraid the Danes would get the upper hand again.

The next king was called Athelstane; he was Edward’s eldest son: he was very clever and very brave. He knew that it was good for England to have a great many ships, both to keep away the Danes and to fetch cloth and silk from other countries, for the English did not make any of these things then. So he made a law that every man who built a ship and went to sea three times should be a Thane, which means that he would be in the same rank and be shown the same respect as one of the landed gentry.

Once I was reading a very old book, and I found something in it about this Athelstane that I will tell you. A king of the Danes and three other kings, who all lived in very cold poor countries, agreed that they would come to England, which was a much better country than their own, and take part of it for themselves; and they got a great many soldiers to come with them in their ships; and they watched till King Athelstane’s ships were gone out of sight, and then landed, and began to take a part of the country. But Athelstane soon heard of their coming, and called his soldiers together, and went to meet these kings at a place called Brunanburgh, and fought with them, and conquered them, and took some of them prisoners.

One of the prisoners was called Egill, and he told the man who wrote the old book I mentioned to you, that King Athelstane behaved very kindly to all the people after the battle, and would not let even the enemies that were beaten be killed or vexed in any manner, and that he invited him and some of the other prisoners to supper at a large house which he had near the place where the battle was fought.

When they went to supper, they found that the house was very long and very broad, but not high, for it had no rooms up stairs, and there was no fire anywhere but in the kitchen and the great hall.

In the other rooms they had no carpets, but the floors were strewed over with rushes, and there were only wooden benches and high stools to sit upon.

The supper was in the great hall. I do not know what they had to eat, but after supper the king asked the company to go and sit round the fire, and drink ale and mead. Now they had no fireplace like ours at the side of the hall; but there was a great stone hearth in the very middle of the floor, and a large fire was made on it of logs of wood bigger than one man could lift, and there was no chimney, but the smoke went out at a hole in the roof of the hall.

When the company came to the fire, King Athelstane made King Egill sit on a high stool face to face with him, and King Athelstane had a very long and broad sword, and he laid it across his knees, that if any of the company behaved ill he might punish them. And they all drank a great deal of ale, and while they drank there were several men, called minstrels, singing to them about the great battles they had fought, and the great men who were dead; and the kings sang in their turn, and so they passed the evening very pleasantly.

The next morning, when Egill and his friends expected to be sent to prison, King Athelstane went to them, and told them he liked such brave and clever men as they were, and that if they would promise not to come to England to plague the people any more, they might go home unharmed. They promised they would not come any more, and then Athelstane let them go home, and gave them some handsome presents.