Alfred is next!

Checking the news, as I do every morning in the news feed, and most of it has been about them bones of Richard the third, please may he rest in peace now! The funniest line came from the DailyMash,

"THE skeleton of Laurence Olivier is to portray the modern-day Richard III in a new play." and

THE skeleton of Richard III has vowed to re-boot the Wars of the Roses and slaughter his rivals to the throne.

Mike Pitts excellent review   

Such juvenile black humour does tend to make me giggle, but of course there is another king coming up fast behind him and that is Alfred the Great buried in Winchester, maybe St.Bartholomew Church, now he is an interesting person and I look forward to the real bones of this king being found, up to date the skeletons found look to be mostly monks.

And so to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alfred the Great's great battle against the Danish army..

After this at Easter, Alfred with a small band,

 raised a fortress at Athelney, and from it warred on the host,

with the men from that part of Somerset which was nearest to it.

Then in the seventh week after Easter,

He rode to Egbryht's stone on the east of Selwood

And there came to meet him all the men of Somerset

And the men of Wiltshire, and the men of that part of Hampshire

which was on this side of the sea; and they rejoiced on seeing him

And on the following day he went from that camp to Iley.

and one night after that to Ethandune

And there he fought against all the host and put it to flight,

and rode after it as far as the fortress [at Chippenham]

and laid seige to it for fourteeen nights

 

Many years ago in the car park of the Gold Diggers nightclub in Chippenham I with several others excavated to try to find this fortress, I excavated an enormous post hole all day but sadly only a piece of flint came up.  Whether it was this fortress/royal residence heaven knows....

 

things you pick up along the way to add to the magpie miscellany below and of course my favourite dragons, see link below....

 

 

Dragons/wyrms

 

The origin of the word wyvern or wyrm is interesting, being associated with the Latin vipera, Old Germanic wipera, Middle English wyvere, and Nordic orm, all referring to a poisonous serpent. The word dragon derives from the ancient Greek drakon and the Latin draco meaning a large serpent.  Or now I know why Kath has a little red dragon floating across her screen...

taken from