King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends

by David Horspool

When the BBC ran a poll in 2001 to name the greatest Briton, Alfred, a ninth-century monarch, was the only king to make the top 20. Also the only English sovereign to be called "the Great," Alfred used to be remembered as much through folklore as through his accomplishments.

Horspool sees Alfred as inextricably linked to the legends and stories that surround him, and rather than attempting to separate the myth from the "reality," he explores how both came together to provide a historical figure that was all things to all men. This book offers a vivid picture of Alfred's England, but also of the way that history is written, and how much myth has had to do with that.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval History, British Literature, Biography, Medieval

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2006

About the author

David Horspool is a British historian and journalist. A graduate of Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he writes for the Times Literary Supplement, the Sunday Times, The Guardian, Telegraph, and the New York Times.

Reviews

[Ray Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading English history and have come across reference to Alfred burning cakes... Apparently this 9th century king was tremendously significant for defeating Vikings, unifying several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, establishing many traditions and the early versions of cherished institutions. He was also in hiding briefly and one of his adventures in disguise finds him minding cakes which burn. This book is a historiography, a history of the histories which recount the life of Alfred.

While Horspool does not say this as clearly, his argument is that the story of Alfred humbling himself in disguise, burning cakes and being chastised by a peasant woman, crystallizes the charitable character of a historical figure who has come to represent all that is best in the English character. The peoples of Britain have romanticized the Anglo-Saxon kings in order to teach children moral stories and provide themselves an origin myth. Alfred was great enough to justify being singled out among rulers of the period that he has come to be the hero of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Thus, Alfred holds a place in the heart of the British similar to that of George Washington among Americans. While Washington never won a battle, was not elected by the people, and wasn't even the first president, he is held up as the father of our country. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Washington wasn't even present when the Constitution was being written. However, he did throw coins across rivers a mile wide, chopped down cherry trees and never told a lie. This what Alfred has become.

Again, the biographical aspect of Horspool's book indicates that Alfred was a big deal. Did he burn the cakes? The answer is that it doesn't matter. The myth is a fiction that illustrates an essential truth. The people of Britain cherish their myths because the tell something true about who they are. The true story is interesting. The evolution of the myths is amusing. All in all, a worthy study well worth a look if you have any interest in Anglo-Saxon kings or what Alfred come to represent to the people of Britain.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Alfred Burned the Cakes is, in essence, a history of history, a study of the way the history of King Alfred has been perceived and moulded through the centuries. Horspool also tells the actual history of Alfred, so reading the book you will learn most of what we know - or what we think we know - about Alfred, but the focus lies on how the history has evolved and interacted with tradition over the centuries. As such, it's a valuable study, and Horspool does his job very well, tracking down all sorts of obscure variations on the Alfred legend, from the eleventh century when it got started, through its Victorian heyday, up to the modern debunkers, who prove to be as much prisoners of their zeitgeist as all the others who retold the story to their own ends. The author also makes the point that this eye to the way the story was told begins with Alfred and his circle themselves. Horspool does the job well and he writes clearly, so why only three stars? To be honest, that's purely personal; I just find this sort of historical analysis a little dull. If it's your thing, you'll love it.

[Ian Racey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not so much a biography as an examination of all the folklore that surrounds Alfred the Great, and an attempt to disentangle fact from myth. To be sure, that means you'll find a biography within it, but Horspool isn't just content to separate fact from fiction: he then examines the fiction, traces its history, and sees what it can tell us about the people who create it and who continue to perpetuate it. So it's not so much a work OF historiography as it is ABOUT historiography (or biographiography, if you like).

A few things that really stuck with me:

--So many of the stories and titles the English have loved to attach to Alfred have been about him breaking with the past, of creating something new: the supposed unifier of England, the codifier of laws, originator of juries, inventor of the candle clock (most likely to be false simply because no one, in eleven hundred years since, has been able to make such a thing work), founder of the Royal Navy. But Alfred himself seems to have been at great pains to position himself as a continuator, within the traditions of his predecessors (among whom he counted previous Anglo-Saxon kings and also Biblical kings). His law code, for instance, is more a compilation of previous kings' laws than origination of anything new.
--Alfred as focal point for our propensity to insist on crediting the Anglo-Saxons with inventing everything we like about British society, as when we try to claim that they invented Parliament before the Norman Conquest imposed foreign, European feudalism on us. My favourite of this was Alfred as the inventor of juries, because it appears just to have been made up out of whole cloth in the nineteenth century by an Alfred enthusiast.
--People making it a point of defiantly still believing the myth of the burnt cakes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after historians had thoroughly disproved it. It rang very much to me like the same sentiment that has led to Rush Limbaugh's lucrative series of right-wing American children's histories, which are explicitly for people who are unwilling to let go of a sanitised, mythologised retelling of American history.
--In our more scientific but also more cynical age, we've adopted a scepticism-first attitude toward the sort of historical just-so stories that Alfred seems particularly good at attracting. Horspool likes this, but he bemoans that, as folklore-Alfred has lost credibility in our eyes, he hasn't so much been replaced by historically-accurate-Alfred as he has simply vanished from the public consciousness altogether. (In this regard, I really wish the book could have been published today instead of twelve years ago, as since then, Alfred has been, among other things, a major character both in a series of novels and in the TV series based on them, as well as appearing--albeit as an infant--in another series, Vikings. As it is, Horspool is only able to comment on Alfred's appearance in the first of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon novels, The Last Kingdom--a portrayal he doesn't seem to find very creditable.)

It's a quick read, and it's fascinating.

[Jessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read any other books yet about King Alfred, so I don't have much to compare this to - but I really felt like I didn't learn a whole lot about Alfred himself from this book. The narrative is convoluted and poorly written. So many sentences are packed with explanatory phrases and asides that I could hardly follow the author's train of thought through the sea of commas. The few concrete ideas that are made are repeated over and over again - but with the earlier mentions being cast about without context or explanation. Honestly, the whole book seemed like a rambling stream of consciousness exercise.
I get that this was intended to be more an exploration of the making of myth in regards to a historical figure - and how that mythology changes over time - than anything about the king himself. The author's ideas would make for a decent article on this topic. An article with an elaborate "Further Reading" section [the most worthwhile part of this book]. But attempting to stretch those few concepts out into a book just makes for a poor book.

[Michael Astfalk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one gets bonus points in my book for including a genealogy chart and map at the beginning, however my biggest critique is probably that I would have preferred more maps in certain chapters that described specific movements of Anglo-Saxon and Viking forces. This book provides a well-rounded, all-around view of Alfred, not only relaying the history of King Alfred, but exploring the historiography, popular perception, and legends of the famous king. Each chapter takes a specific legend or notion about Alfred, explores the history behind the story, and then shows how that story has affected Alfred's perception over the years. I had no idea how prominent of a figure Alfred was, maintaining a status as a household name until the around the mid twentieth century, and the book really introduces the reader to the prominence and importance of both the figure and this period in history.

[Martin Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alfred the Great kept the Kingdom of Wessex intact in the face of viking threats, and established the basis for a unified England. For this, he deserves some fame. But Alfred lived in the Dark Ages, and there are few contemporary accounts of his life - and those that exist (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Bishop Asser's biography) may not be fully reliable. In the gaps grew myths. Horspool explores the multitude of myths, but in the end we are left uncertain whether any are reliable. It seems that every story, like the burning cakes, are apocryphal. It is even unclear how he managed to keep Wessex secure. For a reader that was expecting some clarity, this will disappoint.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about half a history of King Alfred the Great and half an examination of why Great Britain remains so enamored of his legend.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read and informative, but I wish it had foot or end notes.