Oxfordshire Folktales (24 page)

On the morning of the 8th of January 871, the two sides met on the plain known as ‘Aschendune’, or Ashdown, where a single stunted thorn tree grew. Alfred pondered this tree. It reminded him of the World Ash – Yggdrasil. He took it as a good omen. Whoever took this field of battle would win the war. The King prayed quietly to the old gods for victory.

Then a horn blast split the air. It was beginning.

They drew up their troops in two columns each. The Danish divisions were commanded by their Kings, Bagsecg and Halfdan, and five Earls; the English by Aethelred and Alfred. There they waited, jeering and shouting at one another. Alfred was keen to get to grips with the enemy; but Aethelred decided to spend the ensuing lull in prayer for victory. He left the battlefield for the little church at Aston, and, despite Alfred’s insistence, he would not return until the priest had finished. Ever afterwards he was known as Aethelred the Unready.

So the young Prince had to make a decision: should he wait for his brother or fight the battle without him? He could not keep his troops on edge for long. The Danes had already deployed themselves on the higher ground and to let them charge first would mean certain defeat. So, despite his brother’s orders to the contrary, Alfred rode forth and gave the cry for his own men to attack first and for the battle to begin.

Never had the white hills seen such carnage and – if the God’s were merciful – never would they again. The chalk scars were speckled with blood; the green sward crimson. The bravery of the English warriors overcame all disadvantages and after a long and arduous conflict the invaders were no longer able to withstand the Saxon attacks. They were chased from the field across the meadows to Whistley Marsh – where their previous conflict had ended. Thousands of bodies covered the plain; amongst them was King Bagsecg and the five Danish Earls. The remnants of the Danish army fled the field and returned to Reading.

Victory was Alfred’s. He staggered to the lone, gnarled thorn tree, plunged his crimson-stained sword into the soil, and dropped to his knees, giving thanks of the old gods. Yet in that moment he knew they were cruel and bloodthirsty. There had to be another way. The light glinted off of the hilt of his sword. The Cross, rather than the Hammer… Alfred stood, and turned to greet his cheering men – raising his sword aloft by the blade. These were his. This victory was his. This was his day, his hour. It was one of his greatest victories.

But the wheel turns; the tides of wyrd ebb and flow.

A number of defeats followed that same year, resulting in Aethelred’s death.

Two rivers … one waned, as the other rose.

The tide of war did not give him time to mourn his brother. In
AD
872, after a string of defeats, Alfred made peace with the Danes and within a year Alfred was made King of Wessex.

When the Witan met in the Palace in
AD
995, Alfred drew up the ‘Wantage Code’ of laws and the old and news ways blended.

With unflinching determination, Alfred forged his legend – a great war-chief; but also a devout Christian and a law-maker. Living only fifty years, the young prince from Wantage made his mark on English history, leaving a considerable legacy. Ever afterwards he was known as Alfred the Great – the Saxon exemplar of Englishness; the hero of schoolboys; and, as the champion of the English language, the founder of a nation.

Today was a special day. It was Tom’s tenth birthday and on your birthday a wish would come true – so his father once told him. Well, Tom only had one wish – not for a bicycle, or a cricket bat, or for a book about King Arthur and his knights – yet he did not want to risk losing its magic, by saying it aloud, even to the wind, as he raced along on that sunny morning, swinging his satchel. If he was quick, he could visit his special place before school. He passed the workmen and gave them a wave: they had been working on the war memorial for the last few weeks and it was nearly done.

Tom loved where he lived. Kingston Lisle, a tiny village in the Vale of the White Horse – ‘between horse and smith and stone’, as Lob, the old tramp who lived in the woods, would mutter to himself.

Tom felt he had a whole kingdom to play in: the white track of the Ridgeway; the bright horse upon Uffington Hill, carved in elegant curves; Dragon Hill below it, still scorched from the dragon’s blood spilled there when Saint George slew it; further along, the creepy barrow of Wayland’s Smithy, where he didn’t like to linger too long; but best of all, down Blowingstone Hill, tucked away in Martha’s garden, the Blowing Stone. It had been the centre of his world as long as he could remember – the schoolteacher had called it an ‘omphalos’. He just knew it reassured him to see it there every day – a solid, steady presence. One that didn’t leave.

Yet, according to Lob, it had been ‘stolen from the hill’ by a blacksmith who set it up outside his smithy, which eventually became the village inn. Good for trade, apparently, ‘but not for my roses!’ complained Martha, fed up of drunken visitors traipsing through her flowerbeds to have a peek at it in her garden.

It had thrilled him since first he had been told the legend of the Blowing Stone, which now seemed as much a part of his world as the old trees that lined the lanes; as his baby brother and sister; as his mother. He had measured his growth against it and now, at ten, he was a good foot higher than it. He would come here after school or when he needed to think – Martha was a friend of the family and didn’t mind the young ‘un sitting in the garden. He would run his hands over its uneven surface – riddled with holes, like a ‘Swiss cheese’ apparently, though he had never seen one. Sometimes Tom felt like that stone. The teacher called the grey boulder a ‘sarsen’, the same as those at Avebury, but a smaller cousin to those mighty giants who danced in a ring.

But best of all, it was said that with the right technique a sound could be produced from it – like a horn blowing. According to the legend, King Alfred (a son of Wantage, where sometimes Tom’s Mum would go for market day) used the Blowing Stone to summon his Saxon troops, in readiness for the nearby Battle of Ashdown, against the Vikings who he defeated at Roughthorn Farm (and where his best friend Bert had famously found ‘a horn from a Viking helmet’). This was why Tom’s village was name Kingston, explained Bert, who, after reading a dusty old book, was now an expert on the matter.

If it was done loud enough to be heard from Uffington Hill, six miles yonder, the blower would be the future King of England. Local children believed it would summon the old king under the hill, if done right under the light of a full moon.

Tom had a different wish, a silent one: to bring his father home. Since he went to fight the Hun in the trenches Dad had not come back. More than anything in the world he wanted him back. He’d seemed like a king to Tom when last he saw him – three years ago, dressed in his uniform, about to set off to ‘the Front’. His boots shone nearly as bright as his buttons on that morning, as he wavered on the doorstep in the new sun. He picked Tom up and gave him a final hug, his moustache tickling him as always. Kissing the top of his head, his father set him down and ruffled his hair, smiled sadly at his wife and turned to walk down the path, his kit-bag slung over his shoulder. At the garden gate, he turned a final time and waved.

Then he was gone.

Tom had tried more times than he could remember to produce a sound from that stone and had accomplished nothing more than blowing raspberries. When he shouted into it, it made his voice sound funny, but Martha got fed up of the racket – too many had tried the same thing. But today he felt different – taller and stronger somehow. It was his birthday and now he was ten. He had lived a whole decade! He puffed out his chest, and tested his soft biceps; his body was filling out, but he wasn’t as tough as the stone, yet.

He visited Martha’s garden often to talk to his father, although he was a little embarrassed about it, so he kept the fact to himself. He knew his Dad would want to wish him a happy birthday and hear about all his future plans, now that he was a young man. ‘My, how you’re grown!’ he imagined him saying. ‘You’re a big lad now. The man of the family. Look after Mother, and your brother and sister. Be good. And don’t forget your old Dad.’

Tom brushed the tear from his cheek, stood up, took a deep breath and blew.

For the first time, a long, low note was produced, that carried, carried far up Blowingstone Hill, along the Ridgeway, to the White Horse and the Smithy; an echo, carried on the wind, slowing, fading.

Tom stopped and gasped for breath. His heart raced. His skin prickled. Something had happened. He had done it! Then, in the distance, up the lane, he heard the jangling of a harness, the clip-clop of horse hooves on cobbles and the snort of a powerful war-horse.

The King, the King was coming!

Tom raced out into the lane, trembling with excitement, his eyes fixed on the green tunnel of trees and the sun-dappled shadows. There, a figure moving – catching the light, between horse and smith and stone…

His father was coming home.