Early English Hero Tales

ld be safe to say, "With Bede, who wrote the life of St. Cuthbert and the Ecclesiastical History." But that is not why you should say that Bede

he good old man called a

who always took down all of Bede's dictation, "an

swered Bede; "take thy

ay long t

ed out, "There is still one se

g

ckly," answer

shed now,"

came the answer, "a

boy scribe about him, he died. Alas that this En

de's death the home of English prose literature was changed from the north to the south, from Northumbria to Wessex, where th

find it difficult to be good and to win the confidence of grown-up people. But the confidence of others is precisely what the boy Al

ome. The Pope took a great fancy to him and hallowed him as his "bishop's son." Just how old this charming boy was when he began to read we do not know. At that time, of course, all boys read La

et as he telleth me, He was more tha

oy was much loved by his father, King Ethelwulf, and his mother, Queen Osburh. He had many brothers and sisters, and was himse

memorized very early some splendid old English songs, such as "Beowulf." He knew all [Pg 51]about Grendel, and all about the death of the warrior Beowulf after his battle with the dragon. And he had listened to gentler songs, like the one of the cowherd, C?dmon. He listened to the singi

rever it happened to be. Besides home-loving poetry, the gleemen sang many religious poems to which the little Alfred listened. Among them was the story of C?dmon, as I have said. We hear, too, of warrior sai

minstrel or gleeman as Alfred sometimes listened to on many a night when he[Pg 52] was committing to memory some stirring or beautiful Anglo-Saxon poem. This poet-singer loved the sea with all his heart, and his poetry is full of this love. An

he sultry harbour-bar, And reached the ship and c

er on the roaring sea, A devil rises in

se stanzas are worth memorizing. You can see the spirit of a poet so

. Only few of men Watched among the waste where I wonned on the earth. But the brown-backed billow, at each break of day, With

g

? A reed flute-a little flut

and more for Christ. It is difficult to do what Christ told us to do-love one another, and at the same time fight one another. And that we should love one another w

gentle boy and brave man cared most. One day his noble mother, Osb

shall the soonest learn this vo

ning of the volume. An illuminated letter is usually bright with gold as we

"Will you really give that book to one of us, that is to

g

her, smiling, and assur

very long before he had it all by heart. Then one day he brought the book to his mother and reci

is written Old English Poetry. We know something of what

et there was something for which Alfred cared even more. All about them in those days were the Danes, the fiercest of fighting-men. Government, the gentle religion of Christ, peace, had been almost dislodged by

sks. In the fields they had cattle and sheep and chickens. From the sea they took fish. They made butter and cheese, ale and mead, candles, leather from skins, and they wove cloth and silk. They kept bees, too, as you know from wh

stall in which C?dmon saw the vision and learned how to sing was the cradle of English poetry, so was Winchester the cradle of English prose. To accomplish this work the good king brought scholars from all over the world. Asser, his secretary and biographer, has compared Alfred to a most productive bee which flew here and there asking questions as he went. He made it possible for every free-born youth to learn to read and write English perfect