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    The Ballad of the White Horse
    The Ballad of the White Horse
    The Ballad of the White Horse
    Ebook152 pages2 hours

    The Ballad of the White Horse

    By G.K Chesterton

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    The Ballad of the White Horse is one of the most important works of English literature. This large epic poem is a highly romanticized account of the adventures of King Alfred the Great, King of Saxon Britain and the battle of Ethandune (Edington ). It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the conflict between Christianity and the forces of paganism. This text continues to be a source of encouragement for Christians facing secular pressures. Its diversity, complexity and profoundness, the timeless themes of power, courage, love and faith, together make this poem one of the most compelling and memorable works of world literature. As in the classical tradition of epic poetry (Homer's Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Ferdowsi’s The Epic of Kings, Beowulf) the poem is concerned with human values and moral choices. This book has entertained generations of readers, and it continues to be fascinating.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlicia Editions
    Release dateJul 7, 2020
    ISBN9782357285194
    Author

    G.K Chesterton

    G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English journalist and author best known for his mystery series featuring the priest-detective Father Brown and for the metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Baptized into the Church of England, Chesterton underwent a crisis of faith as a young man and became fascinated with the occult. He eventually converted to Roman Catholicism and published some of Christianity’s most influential apologetics, including Heretics and Orthodoxy. 

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      Book preview

      The Ballad of the White Horse - G.K Chesterton

      The Ballad of the White Horse

      G.K. Chesterton

      Contents

      Prefatory Note

      DEDICATION

      BOOK I. THE VISION OF THE KING

      BOOK II. THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS

      BOOK III. THE HARP OF ALFRED

      BOOK IV. THE WOMAN IN THE FOREST

      BOOK V. ETHANDUNE: THE FIRST STROKE

      BOOK VI. ETHANDUNE: THE SLAYING OF THE CHIEFS

      BOOK VII. ETHANDUNE: THE LAST CHARGE

      BOOK VIII. THE SCOURING OF THE HORSE

      Prefatory Note

      This ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend; that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. But King Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him.

      The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. I do not know when or where the story started; it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me; for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, as the old balladists did. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp; I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes; I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. It has been disputed by grave historians, who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. The two chief charges against the story are that it was first recorded long after Alfred's death, and that (as Mr. Oman urges) Alfred never really wandered all alone without any thanes or soldiers. Both these objections might possibly be met. It has taken us nearly as long to learn the whole truth about Byron, and perhaps longer to learn the whole truth about Pepys, than elapsed between Alfred and the first writing of such tales. And as for the other objection, do the historians really think that Alfred after Wilton, or Napoleon after Leipsic, never walked about in a wood by himself for the matter of an hour or two? Ten minutes might be made sufficient for the essence of the story. But I am not concerned to prove the truth of these popular traditions. It is enough for me to maintain two things: that they are popular traditions; and that without these popular traditions we should have bothered about Alfred about as much as we bother about Eadwig.

      One other consideration needs a note. Alfred has come down to us in the best way (that is, by national legends) solely for the same reason as Arthur and Roland and the other giants of that darkness, because he fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism. But since this work was really done by generation after generation, by the Romans before they withdrew, and by the Britons while they remained, I have summarised this first crusade in a triple symbol, and given to a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon, a part in the glory of Ethandune. I fancy that in fact Alfred's Wessex was of very mixed bloods; but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.

      G.K.C.

      DEDICATION

      Of great limbs gone to chaos,

      A great face turned to night—

      Why bend above a shapeless shroud

      Seeking in such archaic cloud

      Sight of strong lords and light?

      Where seven sunken Englands

      Lie buried one by one,

      Why should one idle spade, I wonder,

      Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder

      To smoke and choke the sun?

      In cloud of clay so cast to heaven

      What shape shall man discern?

      These lords may light the mystery

      Of mastery or victory,

      And these ride high in history,

      But these shall not return.

      Gored on the Norman gonfalon

      The Golden Dragon died:

      We shall not wake with ballad strings

      The good time of the smaller things,

      We shall not see the holy kings

      Ride down by Severn side.

      Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured

      As the broidery of Bayeux

      The England of that dawn remains,

      And this of Alfred and the Danes

      Seems like the tales a whole tribe

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