Wanda Pedersen’s Reviews > Saxons vs. Vikings: Alfred the Great and England in the Dark Ages > Status Update

Edward had probably nominated Ethelweard to succeed him but it's likely the leading men of Mercia had gotten together and chosen Athelstan instead. We'll never know because not only is history written by the winners, but in this period the losers couldn't even read.

It was this mixture of patriotism, social conscience, and sexual neurosis that makes Alfred such a quintessential Englishman.

Since it wasn't expected that Alfred would ever be king, he was perhaps given a more refined upbringing than the usual regal training, which mainly consisted of learning how to stab someone and guffawing while eating a chicken wing.

Most of what we know of the Dark Ages, and it was hardly a period of rolling news, comes from the Venerable Bede, a monk from Northumbria who spent almost his entire life in a monastery and yet was, without a doubt, the greatest historian of the age (he was also, it has to be said, pretty much the only one).

In fact one gets the impression generally speaking that the Britons disgusted the Romans, as suggested by their term for them, Brittunculi--wretched little Brits.

The Britons were civilized and tried to ignore the invaders like one would ignore a maniac causing a scene on public transport--by giving him money in the hope that he would go away.

[Gildas] also quoted liberally from the Book of Revelations, the Biblical book of choice for all lunatics down the ages.