HeroFamous
The Burnt Cakes
He saved England. He could not save the baking.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Low hill in the Levels with monument
- Legend from
- Life of St Neot, c.10th century
- Tone
- Light-hearted
The king of Wessex, hiding in the marsh, scolded by a farmer's wife for burning the bread.
In 878 the Danes drove King Alfred out of Wessex, and he took refuge in the marshes of the Somerset Levels, at Athelney, then an island among the fens. The famous story says he sheltered with a peasant woman who did not know who he was. She asked him to watch some wheaten cakes baking by the fire, and Alfred, brooding on his lost kingdom, let them burn. She scolded him roundly. The tale first appears in writing about a century later. From Athelney he gathered his army and beat the Danes at Edington.