Tea at Trianon: King Alfred and the Cakes

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, September 29, 2023

King Alfred and the Cakes

Another cake legend. From the Eureka Alert:

King Alfred burned the cakes, right? Wrong. For a start they were loaves – and for another thing, the Vikings reckon their terrifying-sounding hero Ragnar Hairybreeks should take the blame for this ninth century catering disaster. University of Leeds professor Rory McTurk says the tale of Alfred and the cakes is probably the one story we all know about the Anglo-Saxon ruler, a detail as closely woven into popular history as Robert the Bruce being inspired by a spider and King Harold getting an arrow in the eye. But he insists it may be mere propaganda, from a time when much of Britain was under Viking control – the Danelaw – and when both sides used stories to bolster their own position and blacken the names of their enemies.

Prof McTurk, of the University's School of English, says the story was used to mark a watershed in the conflict. "Alfred had suffered a series of defeats by the Viking armies – and was virtually in flight at the time," he said. "The story says he took refuge in Athelney, Somerset, where a swineherd's wife left him to watch the loaves cooking beside the fire. But Alfred was distracted by thinking hard about his fate and about how to fight back – and the loaves burned. The woman reproved him, not realising he was the King." The English used the story to mark a turning point in his life. "Whether or not the legend is true, Athelney was of massive significance to Alfred," explained Prof McTurk. "He built a fort, rallied his troops and from this point onwards did much better against the Vikings."But the Vikings had their own stories, tales passed down by the invaders to justify their reasons for being in England. "The hero of one of their stories, Ragnar Hairybreeks, burned loaves too," he said, adding that the change from "loaves" to "cakes" in the story is a much more recent development. "The English stories portray the Vikings as devils," said Prof McTurk. "The slaying of King Aella of Northumbria in York in 867 is an example – the Vikings carving an eagle into Aella's back, and ripping out his lungs in a horrific sacrifice. But the Viking tradition re-tells the story as a justified act of revenge." Over the 200 years that followed, the Viking settlers gradually assimilated into the population, but even after the Norman conquest they maintained contact with Iceland, the Orkneys and mainland Scandinavia. And the pro-Viking stories of the Danelaw period were re-told in the Icelandic sagas. (Read more.)