Historical Setting: The Great Skellig, 924 C.E.
Abbot Mactyre tells of a King Alfred of England though he makes it his practice to tell his monks to leave their past behind and become new in Christ here. But the irony is, he is telling me this. It is tales of royal power. Maybe it is one thing to tell the history of the world to a lost time traveler, and another to maintain personal memories. What have distant battles to do with hearing the still small voice of God?
So, I ask him, “You are the abbot and the priest in an isolated wilderness like a desert father, and yet you hold in your heart the grief for the death of a distant and earthly king?”
“Alfred’s death came in the year the century was turning. He fell as a saint, beloved by the people for sharing with them in their own fears and fasts and he shared in the Christian sacraments with commoners. He led his army against the Danes, and each time he had his sword at the throat of an enemy king and it was his place to make the peace, he chose to make a treaty rather than slay the enemy king. He wrote a fair law with land divisions allotting a good portion of the Anglo-Saxon lands to be under the Dane-law, but with a Christian King. So, Alfred oversaw the baptism of his enemy, the Danish King Gunthrum. Then, the Norsemen did as they always do. When they could gather an army again, they broke the treaty. Alfred had to flee for his life. He went into hiding in his own land— but where can a King hide?”
“I’d think a king in hiding would have to abandon the throne and his people.”
“Not so with Alfred. Stealth as a shadow he slipped into the life of a commoner. The stories spread throughout all the isles in every inn and alehouse tales were told of sightings of the king as a commoner. This was the stuff of stories and songs. Common people celebrated that the King was one like them, and also, that he lived and continued to reign. He humbled himself to save his people.”
The abbot’s stories through his own youthful witness are of a new world awakening. This king of budding legend used his power to write laws and treaties for peaceful abidance shared by Danes and English on the same island. Then the king left a written will, it was a peaceful tool for replacing warfare with the rule of law.
(Continues, Tuesday, October 27)
#king for the people, #Alfred the Great,
