xample
of so many of their countrymen, and became occupants of the land they
had before ravaged. Thus Alfred, in the seventh year of his reign, had
lost nothing by the war waged under so many difficulties and
disadvantages, enough to have overwhelmed a man of less energy and
genius; he still retained that portion of the kingdom which lies south
of the Thames, the only part ever belonging to him in separate
sovereignty, while the Danes possessed all the country on the northern
side of the river. The rest of the land was thus divided: Halfdane
reigned in Northumberland; his brother in East Anglia; and Guthrum,
Osketel, and Amund, governed with their subordinate king, Ceowulph, in
Mercia.

There now occurs a difficulty in the life of Alfred, unexplained by the
most industrious of his historians from any satisfactory record. We have
just seen him triumphant, and at peace with his defeated enemies.
Suddenly, without the notice of any lost battle, we find him seeking
refuge in the cottage of a herdsman in the _Isle of Ethelingeye_, or
_Island of Nobles_, now called Athelney. This spot, scarcely comprising
two acres of ground, was surrounded on all sides by marshes, so that it
could be approached only in a boat, and in it flourished a considerable
grove of alders, in which were stags, goats, and other animals. Here it
is that the romantic incident of the burnt cake is supposed to have
occurred; a story told by many of the old writers, but nowhere so fully
as in the Latin life of St. Neot. There we read that "Alfred, a
fugitive, and exiled from his people, came by chance and entered the
house of a poor herdsman, and there remained some days in poverty,
concealed and unknown.

"Now it happened that on the Sabbath day, the herdsman, as usual, led
his cattle to their accustomed pastures, and the king remained alone
with the man's wife. She, as necessity required, placed a few loaves,
which some call _loudas_, on a pan, with fire underneath, to be baked
for her husband's repast on his return, as well as for her own.

"While she was of need busied, peasant-like, upon other affairs, she
went anxious to the fire, and found the bread burning on the other side.
She immediately assailed the king with reproaches. 'Why, man, do you sit
thinking there, and are too proud to turn the bread? Whatever be your
family, with such manners and sloth, what trust can be put in you
hereafter? If you were a nobleman, you will be glad to eat the bread