And Alfred came to the door of a woman's cottage and there rested, with the promise that in return he would watch the cakes that they did not burn.
But—
'The good food fell upon the ash,
And blackened instantly.'
The woman was naturally annoyed that this unknown tramp should let her cooking spoil:
'Screaming, the woman caught a cake
Yet burning from the bar,
And struck him suddenly on the face,
Leaving a scarlet scar.'
The scar was on the king's brow, a scar that tens of thousands should follow to victory:
'A terrible harvest, ten by ten,
As the wrath of the last red autumn—then
When Christ reaps down the kings.'
In a preface to this poem, with regard to that part which deals with the battle of Enthandune, Chesterton says: 'I fancy that in fact Alfred's Wessex was of very mixed bloods; I have given a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon a part in the glory of Enthandune.'
The battle of Enthandune is divided into three parts. The poetry is specially noticeable for the great harmony of the words with the subject of the lines; it is one of the great characteristics of Chesterton's poetry that he uses language that intimately expresses what he wants to describe. He can, in a few lines, describe the discipline of an army: