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Updated: June 5, 2025
Alfred went, and thus he had the opportunity of completing his observations in the tent, and in the presence of the Danish king. Alfred found that the Danish camp was in a very unguarded and careless condition. The name of the commander, or king, was Guthrum. Guthrum treated the supposed harper with great kindness.
With Guthrum and Hinguar in their intrenched camp at the confluence of the Thames and Kennet, and fresh bands of marauders sailing up the former river, and constantly swelling the ranks of the pagan army during these summer months, there was neither time nor heart among the wise men of the West Saxons for strict adherence to the letter of the constitution, however venerable.
I do not think that I can do better than tell you the next happening to Alfred, as it is in the Chronicle, only changing those words which you might not understand. And this they fulfilled. And three weeks after came King Guthrum with thirty of the men that in the host were worthiest, at Aller, that is near Athelney. Thus you see how soon King Alfred's good luck came back to him again.
"As a heathen altogether, except that I had no hatred of Christians," I answered, not quite seeing what the king would know. "What turned your mind so far from the old gods that you should be a fit messenger on such a matter to us?" "I have learned from Alfred and Neot," I answered, "and I know that I have found what is true." Then Guthrum turned to Osmund.
A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three princes, Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their countrymen at Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in order to provide for their subsistence. That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to depart his country.
"Go to him at least," said Ingild, "and find what he needs of you. Then will be time to say more." So at his advice I went, and I found Guthrum in Ethelred's great house, where he sat in little state, doing justice in open hall where many citizens were gathered.
The most serious of these attempts occurred near the close of Alfred's life, and will be hereafter described. The generosity and the nobleness of mind which Alfred manifested in his treatment of Guthrum made a great impression upon mankind at the time, and have done a great deal to elevate the character of our hero in every subsequent age.
Now I thought that the faces of the chiefs showed that they thought these terms very light; but they said nothing as yet. Guthrum turned to me. "Well, King Ranald?" "Alfred the king bids me say that he would fain treat with you hereafter as a brother altogether. And that can only be if the great trouble between Dane and Saxon is removed that is, if Guthrum becomes a Christian."
Guthrum, the destroyer, and now the King of East Anglia, the strongest and ablest of all the Northmen who had ever landed in England, is now at last fairly in Alfred's power. At Reading, Wareham, Exeter, he had always held a fortified camp, on a river easily navigable by the Danish war-ships, where he might look for speedy succor or whence at the worst he might hope to escape to the sea.
But, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace: on condition that they should altogether depart from that Western part of England, and settle in the East; and that GUTHRUM should become a Christian, in remembrance of the Divine religion which now taught his conqueror, the noble ALFRED, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured him.
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