"Alfred the Great" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... early as the ninth century, it formed an essential part of the education of a young nobleman. Alfred the Great was an expert and successful hunter before he was twelve years of age. Among the tributes imposed by Athelstan, upon a victory over Constantine, King of Wales, were "hawks and sharp-scented dogs, fit for hunting of wild beasts." Edward the Confessor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... conjugation or a declension which eludes you. It is much better for the merchant and politician to have a good memory for names and faces than to be able to repeat the succession of English monarchs from Alfred the Great to Edward VII and not be able to tell John Smith from Tom Brown. It is much more desirable for the lawyer to be able to remember the necessary details of his case than to be able to recall all the various athletic records of the year; and ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... I discovered another Alfred who wrote verses—Alfred the Great, as we called him—one Alfred Tennyson, who had written a certain poem, among others, called "In Memoriam"—which I carried off to Barty's and read out aloud one wet Sunday evening, and the Sunday evening after, and other Sunday evenings; and other poems by the same ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... OTHERE, from Halogaland or Helgeland, that part of the Norwegian coast which lies between 65 deg. and 66 deg. N.L. Othere, who appears to have travelled far and wide, came in one of his excursions to the court of the famous English king, Alfred the Great. In presence of this king he gave, in a simple, graphic style, a sketch of a voyage which he had undertaken from his home in Norway towards the north and east. The narrative has been preserved by its having been incorporated, along with an account of the travels of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... of this last statement, I may mention that Samuel Ireland, writing in 1792, ("Picturesque Views on the River Thames,") speaks of a farmer named Wapshote, near Chertsey, whose ancestors had resided on the place ever since the time of Alfred the Great; and amid all the chances and changes of centuries, not one of the descendants had either bettered or marred his fortunes. The truthfulness of the story is confirmed in a number of the "Monthly Review" for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... afterwards, Sitric, grandson of that Prince Guthred who was once a slave at Whittingham, married a sister of King Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. When Sitric died, Athelstan came northward to claim Northumbria for himself. He captured Bamburgh—the first time that stronghold of the Bernician kings had ever been taken—and arranged for two earls to govern ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... ballad-maker—for in old times the two went together, or rather were blent in one, like the words and music—had suffered sad declension. There was no longer question of royal harpers or troubadours, as Alfred the Great and as Richard the Lion Heart had been in their hour of need; or even of bards and musicians held in high favour and honour by king and court, like Taillefer or Blondel. 'King's Minstrels' there were on both sides of Tweed, as is found from Exchequer and other records. ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... remained desolate for 100 years. During that period the lands were constantly being seized by different intruders. It was not till the time of Alfred the Great, who came to the throne in 871, that the invasions of the Danes were finally checked, and tranquillity restored to the kingdom. Security being assured, the people began again to improve their public buildings and the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... codex than those mentioned by Bishop, and from it, it is argued that the feast is of Irish origin. In a metrical calendar, which is reasonably referred to the time of Alfred the Great (871-901), there is the line "Concipitur Virgo maria cognomine senio"; and this calendar exhibits, says Father Thurston, S.J., "most unmistakable signs of the influence of an Irish character." It was written, Dr. Whitely Stokes believed, by an ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... were of the same Construction with those of the Gauls, which Caesar says were built of Oak so strong that they were impenetrable to the Beaks of the Roman Ships, and so high that they could not be annoyed by the Darts of the Roman Soldiers. To the 9th Century, Alfred the great had a very ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... American President. Washington was, in truth, the uncrowned king of the new nation—'first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.' What more and what less than this is there in the history of Alfred the Great? ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... trouble him. Other masters were content if they went through the regular daily stint of reading, writing, spelling, and ciphering, but he told them about men who made the most of themselves, and who had done great things,—Caesar, Augustus, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Alfred the Great a law was passed with relation to holidays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were set apart for the celebration of the Christmas festival. Some writers are of opinion that, but for Alfred's strict observance ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... College is said to have been founded in the year 872, by Alfred the Great. It was restored by William of Durham, said to have been Archdeacon of Durham; but respecting whom little authentic information has been preserved, except that he was Rector of Wearmouth in that county, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... consequences, was not the first of English naval victories. Alfred the Great maintained in the latter part of his reign a fleet of small ships to guard the coasts against the Norse and Danish pirates, and this won him the name of founder of the British Navy. But for centuries after there was no attempt ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... their excellent qualities for hunting; and Caesar tells us that venison constituted a great portion of the food of the Britons, who did not eat hares. Hunting was also in ancient times a Royal and noble sport: Alfred the Great hunted at twelve years of age; Athelstan, Edward the Confessor, Harold, William the Conqueror, William Rufus, and John were all good huntsmen; Edward II. reduced hunting to a science, and established rules for its practice; Henry IV. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... enough—nor the eighteenth century naive enough—to create a legend in sober earnest. But the fact that he throws "Rule, Britannia" eight centuries back to the time of Alfred the Great, before whom this glorious pageant of his country's future is prophetically unrolled, serves to illustrate the retrospective habit ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... 875, i. e., during the reign of Alfred the Great in England, that the Norse earl, Ingolf, led a colony to Iceland. More strenuous and savage than the Christian Celts whom they found there, the latter with their preaching monks soon sailed to the south, and left the Northmen masters of the island. ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... manner their kindred tribes, who had poured into Saxon England to ravage and lay desolate, had no sooner obtained from Alfred the Great permanent homes, than they became perhaps the most powerful, and in a short time not the least patriotic, part of the Anglo-Saxon population [18]. At the time our story opens, these Northmen, under the common name of Danes, were peaceably settled in no less than fifteen [19] counties in England; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lived an outlaw who did not despoil his country?" Where has there reigned a king whose head was less giddy on a throne, or who retained more humility in the midst of riches and glories, unless it were Marcus Aurelius or Alfred the Great? David had an inborn aptitude for government, and a power like Julius Caesar of fascinating every one who came in contact with him. His self-denial and devotion to the interests of the nation were marvellous. We do not read that he took any time for pleasure or recreation; the heavy load of responsibility ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... caught that eye before? Who was he? Why did I connect him, all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield, Alfred the Great, Gil Blas, Charles the Second, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones, the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O'Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great Plague of London? Why, when he bent one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the interests peculiar to men, and those affecting their interests in common with woman, great advance had been made during the past six centuries, but those regarding the exclusive interests of women, had remained in statu quo, since King Alfred the Great and the knights of his Round Table fell asleep. The anti-negro slavery object of my paper seemed to be lost sight of, both by friends and foes of human progress, in the surprise at the innovation of a woman entering the political arena, to argue publicly on great questions of national ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margraf of Brandenburg, and the three Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne; of the independence of the great cities of northern Italy; of Otto the Great, whose first wife was a granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and who was the real founder of the Holy Roman Empire, in the sense that a German prince rules over both Germany and Italy with the approval of the Pope, and in the sense that he, a duke of Saxony, appropriates the western empire (962), goes to Rome, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... fought and got Magnum Charter and disrespected the King and cheeked the Government and Members of Council. We knew all about Oliver Cromwell, Hampden, Pim, and those crappies, and many a boy who had never heard of Wolsey and Alfred the Great knew all about Felton the jolly fine patriot who stabbed the Member of Council, Buckingham Esquire, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... much depends on the auspices under which the nation was founded and the tradition which it represents. Thus England, and all the English world, has an imperishable tradition in the deeds and character of Alfred the Great; thus Canada has had from the outset of the present stage in her development a great possession in the equal self-sacrifice of Montcalm and Wolfe. On the other hand, the nation is doomed to suffer which bases its traditions of greatness upon such acts as the seizure of Silesia by Frederick ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... rate of rotation of the earth. We are then driven to admit that there is no meaning in temporal congruence except that certain assumptions make the laws of motion true. Such a statement is historically false. King Alfred the Great was ignorant of the laws of motion, but knew very well what he meant by the measurement of time, and achieved his purpose by means of burning candles. Also no one in past ages justified the use of sand in hour-glasses by saying that some centuries later interesting laws of motion would be discovered ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... used in America to describe an outlying province not yet given the privileges of a State. Instead of townships, the three Delaware counties were divided into "hundreds," an old Anglo-Saxon county method of division going back beyond the times of Alfred the Great. Delaware is the only State in the Union that retains this name for county divisions. The Three Lower Counties were allowed to send representatives to the Pennsylvania Assembly; and the Quakers of Delaware have always been part of the Yearly ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... sung about the fame of Brian Boroo. No doubt he was in some ways a great man; and it seemed for a time that he might do for Ireland something like what Alfred the Great had done for England and Kenneth MacAlpine had done for Scotland—might consolidate the country into one kingdom. But the story of his life is a striking commentary on the wretchedness of the period. Forming an alliance with ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... Alfred the Great (the fourth son of Ethelwulf) succeeded his brother Ethelred, whose moral virtues endeared him so far to his subjects, that they honoured him with the appellation of the Father of the English Constitution. He was ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... fact that it is still the ancestral home of an ancient and historic family gives it a far greater interest than either of the others possesses. The castle is mentioned in Domesday Book, and prior to this in the will of Alfred the Great. The earldom was given by the Conqueror to Roger of Montgomery; in addition to the castle and its immediate neighbourhood it comprised wide and rich possessions in the surrounding country. By their treason to the Crown the Montgomerys soon forfeited the estates and the Earldom passed ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... early history of Londinium after the Romans left it, the fact remains that the limits and bounds of the actual city continued for many centuries afterwards. It is known that Alfred the Great caused the walls to be repaired; but the precise significance of this is not great, because he may have been merely carrying out a long-needed work, and from the very solid character of the Roman wall (judging from the fragments ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... fluttering hither and thither a little, in the warmth and light, passes out again into the storm and darkness. Such is man's life, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth we know not." "We ne kunnen," as Alfred the Great, its first translator, ends the passage. Who does not see—notwithstanding the difference of time, place, character, and all stage circumstance—who does not see rise before him the judgment-hall of Socrates, hear the solemn last words to his judges: "I go to death, and you ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... interpretation went steadily on. Typical is the fact that the Venerable Bede contributed to it the doctrine that, in the text mentioning Elkanah and his two wives, Elkanah means Christ and the two wives the Synagogue and the Church. Even such men as Alfred the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas were added to the forces at work in building above the sacred books this prodigious ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the 8th century, and towards the 10th its general use was, with few exceptions, established. It is said to have been occasionally used as early as the 5th century; but I am unable to cite an authentic existing monument. The Psalter of Alfred the Great, written in the 9th century, is in a small Roman cursive hand, which has induced Casley to consider it the ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... my pedigree back to Alfred the Great! Gad, I gave it him, though, and I doubt whether the real Essington could have done as much. I'd rather surprise some of these noblemen if I turned up again in ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... Alfred the Great, in resisting the attacks of the Danes, displayed bravery; in entering their camp as a spy, he ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... highly finished works in gold and silver, were the produce even of our darkest ages. The monks were the best artists. A jewel, now in the museum at Oxford, undoubtedly made by command of, and worn by Alfred the Great, is an existing witness of the height to which the art was carried. Curious reliquaries, finely wrought and set with precious stones, were usually styled throughout Europe, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... very proud of the Navy. It is the largest in the world and all the men in it are very brave, and kind too I expeck. ALFRED THE GREAT invented it hundreds of years ago so it has had a long time to practis in. When a sailer wants to say yes he says Ay, ay, sir, not offen mum because the captain is always a man. Perhaps some day he wont be. I have got an uncle who is a captain in the Navy. He says that in the olden ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... AND WHALING NO FAMOUS CHRONICLER? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... first along the coast of Scotland, and then of England. They made several fruitless attempts to land on the English shores, but were every where repulsed. The time when these events took place was during the reign of Alfred the Great. Through Alfred's wise and efficient measures the whole of his frontier had been put into a perfect state of defense, and Rollo found that there was no hope for him there. He accordingly moved on toward the Straits of Dover; but, before passing them, ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Alfred the Great made a will, wherein he declared, in express terms, that it was just the English should be as free as their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... record of opera-dancers as of other professions, that "the goddesses are departing!" The danse a roulades of Fanny Elssler will be voted vulgar, when attempted by a Buggins. Let Mr Bunn look to himself. He may yet survive his immortality. We foresee a day in which he will be no longer styled Alfred the Great. With the aid of George Robins, and other illustrious persons interested in the destinies of theatrical property, we do not despond of hearing attached to "a bill for the legalization of the Royal and National Academy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... of interest; but the features never make up a face. . . . They will toil wearily off to the tiniest inscription or darkest picture that is mentioned in a guide book as having some reference to Alfred the Great or William the Conqueror; but they care nothing for the sky that Alfred saw or the hills on ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... intelligence, knowledge, and patriotism of his people. From this point of view his early speeches in particular sound jejune or superfluous. What would the Englishman say to a king who began his reign by a series of homilies on Alfred the Great or Elizabeth or Queen Victoria; by using strong language about the Labour party or the Fabian Society; by appeals to throne and altar; by describing to Parliament the chief duties of the monarch; by recommending the London County Council ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... And what a joy it proved to the new convert to find in those pages his old friends King Arthur and Sir Launcelot, together with Galahad, Gareth, Bedivere and all the others! and to make the acquaintance of Alfred the Great, the Pilgrim Fathers, the pioneers, and Mr. Lincoln!—especially Mr. Lincoln, that boy who had traveled from a log cabin ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... ladies, take an excursion into the realms of Literature, and test your insight into human nature. I will ask you, if you please, to compare the respective characters of Alfred the Great and Miss Charlotte Yonge—'Jo March' and Joseph Chamberlain—four great, and, it will be obvious to all, strongly-defined personalities. I shall be ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... far keener than her pride in Judas Maccabaeus was her pride in Nelson and Wellington; she rejoiced to find that her ancestors had always beaten the French from the days of Cressy and Poictiers to the days of Waterloo, that Alfred the Great was the wisest of kings, and that Englishmen dominated the world and had planted colonies in every corner of it, that the English language was the noblest in the world and men speaking it had invented ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of this embroidery is carefully elucidated by Dr. Raine in his "Saint Cuthbert." He says that Frithestan was consecrated bishop in 905, by command of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great. Aelfled was Edward the Second's queen. She ordered and gave an embroidered stole and maniple to Frithestan. After her death, and that of Edward, and of the Bishop of Winchester, Athelstan, then king, made a progress to the north, and visiting the shrine of St. Cuthbert, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... reputation. Heroes have often been harsh and even brutal, especially in the earliest times when humane feeling and a compassionate spirit had not been developed; Siegfried, Jason, Gustavas Adolphus and Von Tromp were often arbitrary and oppressive in their attitude toward men; and, in later times, Alfred the Great, William the Silent and Nelson were not without serious defects of temper and sometimes of character. Men are not great or heroic because they are faultless; they are great and heroic because they dare, suffer, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... famous English translator than the original Latin author. Boethius wrote in the sixth century as a fallen man, as one to whom philosophy came in lieu of the mundane glory which he had once possessed, and had now lost. But Alfred the Great turned the "Consolations" into English at the moment of his greatest power. He translated it in the year 886, when king on a secure throne; in his brightest days, when the Danish clouds had cleared. Sorrow has often produced great books, great ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... without his coat of mail. This grim warrior had fallen in love with the daughter of Charles the Bald, Judith, who had been already twice married, first to the Saxon King Ethelwulf (after the death of his first wife Osberga, mother of Alfred the Great) and secondly to Ethelbald, on whose death she left England and went to live at Senlis. Baldwin persuaded the Princess to run away with him; and they were married without the knowledge of her father, to escape whose vengeance the culprits fled to Rome. Pope Nicholas I. brought about a reconciliation; ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond |
