My Day Out, by Sue Purkiss

A few years ago, I wrote a book about Alfred the Great, called Warrior King. A few days ago, I had the great privilege of reading from it on the Island of Athelney - the secret place in the marshes of Somerset, where in 878 Alfred hid from Guthrum and his Danish army. I had an audience of experts: the Badger class from North Newton Primary School.

And I do mean experts. When I'd gone into their classroom earlier, I'd seen that the walls were covered with information about the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. There were maps, there were pictures of warriors, there was information about what they wore, and there were stories. On the whiteboard was an Anglo-Saxon riddle which the children were trying to solve, and at the back of the room was a welcoming sign saying Waes hael, Sue Purkiss! When the teacher, Simon Day, took the register, he said 'Gode morgen, Jess/Josh/whatever' - and the children answered 'Gode Morgen' right back, without batting an eyelid. They were all thoroughly engaged - immersed even - in the period.

They had been reading Warrior King together, and when they'd realised that I lived quite close, they'd got in touch and asked if I would like to come and talk to them about writing the book, and then go with them to Athelney.

Would I!

Athelney was where the book began. It's a magical landscape, where history touched by myth is almost palpable, and it was such a pleasure to share it with the Badgers, their teacher Simon, and their two teaching assistants, Vicky and Claire. They were all so enthusiastic; there wasn't a great deal I could tell them, because they already knew so much.

Here are the Badgers climbing up towards Alfred's monument, which was erected in Victorian times. The farmer had kindly cleaned the inscription, and moved the cows which would usually have been in possession. In Alfred's time the long green mound would have been higher: the land has settled, partly because of the weight of the monastery which the king caused to be built in celebration of his victory over Guthrum. (If he'd lost, would we all be speaking Danish now? Certainly the course of history would have been different. All the other English kingdoms had been overrun: Alfred was the last man - just about - standing.)

We looked out towards nearby Burrow Mump, one of the conical hills which rear up above the levels: another is Glastonbury Tor, visible in the distance. Simon told the children to write notes about what they were seeing, hearing, smelling; they discussed whether there was anything that would touch them, or that they could taste, and they agreed that they could feel the touch of a cool soft wind, and wondered whether the Mump would have been used as a lookout post; they decided it almost certainly would have been.

Then we moved across to the other end of the mound, where, some years before, the Time Team had uncovered stones which had been burnt at temperatures which would only have been reached in the heat of a blacksmith's forge; this must have been where weapons were forged for the decisive Battle of Edington. They also found a knife there - the Badgers reminded me it was properly called a seax - made of steel, which was an expensive, high status metal made only for extremely high-ranking leaders.

So this was where Alfred's camp had been: and this was where I read from Warrior King. Marvellous!

After this, we went on to climb Burrow Mump (small but quite steep), and had lunch beside the ruined church which was given to the National Trust by the landowner after the Second World War, to serve as a memorial to local people who had been killed.

Then Simon got the children to look round at the countryside spread out for miles below us: vivid green fields intersected by willow-edged rhynes (ditches), leading to low hills on the horizon. He pushed them to describe exactly what they were seeing, and to use alliteration and kennings (descriptive phrases such as peace-giver, for a king, or death-singer, for a sword), just as the Saxons would have done.

Here are Simon, Vicky and Claire - inspirational teachers and teaching assistants. It was a privilege to see them at work; it was education as it should be: vibrant, creative, magical.

Thanks to them for inviting me - and to the Badgers, Waes hael!

And just as a postscript - here's a picture taken not far from Burrow Mump during the floods almost three years ago. Perhaps this was more how it looked in Alfred's time: mysterious, haunting - and very, very wet.

The Alfred Jewel comes home: Sue Purkiss

The Alfred Jewel

There is great excitement in Somerset at the moment (no, it's true; in the hills and on the levels, they speak of little else!) because for just one month, a great treasure has come home. It's the Alfred Jewel, and it must be one of the most exquisite works of art ever to have been found in a field after having been lost for centuries.

It's surprisingly small - a mere 6.4 cm long. It consists of an enamelled picture of a man who holds a flowering plant in each hand. This image is set under a piece of rock crystal, which is encased in the most exquisitely chased gold setting. It's shaped like a tear drop, and the apex of this is 'carved' into an animal's head - maybe a boar or a dragon? - in whose jaws is an empty socket. The gold back plate is engraved  with a stylised plant design, while the reverse of the animal head is patterned with overlapping scales.

And very significantly, there is an inscription, worked into the framework in open letterwork. It says: AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN - 'Alfred ordered me to be made.'

The Alfred in question was almost certainly Alfred the Great - so this jewel is a direct link with him. We know this because it was found on the Somerset Levels in 1693, in a field near North Petherton, only a few miles from Athelney, where Alfred fled in 878 from the Viking leader Guthrum - and from which he emerged to fight a decisive battle at Edington. After this, for the rest of his reign Alfred had the upper hand, and so was able to get on with rebuilding Wessex and making life better for his people. He later founded a monastery at Athelney.

No-one knows for certain what the purpose of the jewel was. But that socket looks as if it was made as an attachment to something. Perhaps it was fixed onto a crown - but the smart money is on the theory that this was an aestel - a pointer: used to follow the writing in a book. It is known that Alfred gave copies of Pope Gregory's 9th century best-seller Pastoral Care to bishoprics throughout his kingdom, and that with each book he sent a precious aestel. Perhaps this was the one he gave to Athelney.

Who was the man in the picture? It has been suggested it's Alfred himself. This doesn't seem likely to me. So far as I know, there wasn't a tradition of portraiture at the time - and if you were going to make a portrait, there would be easier media to use than enamel. Perhaps it's a saint - we don't know. More questions: how and when was it lost? How did it survive, under the surface of a field, without harm, for hundreds of years? If it had been found today, the site would have been minutely investigated for clues - but of course none of that happened in the 17th century.

What did happen was that the jewel was given to the University of Oxford in 1718 by the antiquarian Thomas Palmer, the son of Nathaniel, who had been the owner of the land where the jewel was found. Not long after that, it was given to the Ashmolean Museum, and there it's been ever since.

The Ashmolean, which opened in 1683, was the first university museum in the world, and it was built to house the 'Cabinet of Curiosities' of Elias Ashmole. Philippa Gregory has a very interesting account of its founding in her novel Virgin Earth (which, by the way, along with its predecessor, Earthly Joys, is a really excellent read), which concerns the fortunes pf plant collectors and explorers John Tradescant and his son. She suggests that the core of the collection was that of the Tradescants, which had been tricked out of them by Ashmole. Whatever the truth of that - and the Tradescants' collection was certainly the foundation of Ashmole's - the Ashmolean was and is a treasure trove. I went there to see the Alfred Jewel some years ago, when I was researching my novel about Alfred, Warrior King. It took me ages to find it, and eventually I spotted it tucked a way in a dim corner of a crowded display case.

But since then the Ashmolean has been re-fashioned into a glorious space, and the Alfred Jewel, far from being hidden away, is a striking focal point with a display case that sets it off beautifully.

Only not this month, because we've got it - it's only on loan, but for these few weeks, it's home.

I went to see it the other day, and I marvelled over how tiny it is. How on earth could the maker even see to create such exquisite detail? And just to think, that Alfred (I have to admit, I think of him as 'my Alfred') actually held this in his hand! (Because I'm sure he did. He ordered it to be made, so he would certainly have inspected it when it was done.)

Seeing the Jewel was the purpose of my visit, but I can't finish without a word about the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. Like the Ashmolean, it has been recently remodelled, and it's gorgeous. In fact, it's so gorgeous that it deserves more than a skimpy paragraph. So on second thoughts, I'll give it a post of its own next month. When the Alfred Jewel will have left us again, and we will be bereft...

In Search Of Michael: by Sue Purkiss

Tonight, while a few people might be watching Sweden v England on the television, I'll be watching a history programme: Michael Wood's The Great British Story: a People's History. Well, I'm a History Girl - you'd expect nothing less. It's exactly what the title says it is:  a history of Britain from the point of view not of the kings and nobles and upper classes, but of the ordinary people. There's one particular technique it uses that I think works very well: it has the ordinary people of today reading the testimony of the ordinary people of long ago. It's a simple but brilliant way of breathing life into the words of dusty ancient documents. If you've read other posts of mine, you'll know that I'm always banging on about history being about ordinary people as well as the well-known movers and shakers, so you'll understand why this appeals to me.

Michael and I go back a long way. In 1981 - over thirty years ago: can it really be true? - he made a documentary called In Search of the Dark Ages. In nine programmes, Michael leapt about all over Britain in a very fetching sheepskin jacket, exuding enthusiasm about such luminaries as the Sutton Hoo Man, Alfred the Great, Athelstan and Eric Bloodaxe. I did Anglo-Saxon as part of my English degree, and I've always felt drawn in some way to the Scandinavian strands of our heritage. (Still am: The Killing, anyone? Or The Bridge?) So perhaps I was an easy target.

But I think there was something new and innovative about those documentaries and the way they presented history. Suddenly, figures from the dim and distant past were brought to new and vivid life: Michael's enthusiasm was infectious. The way they were photographed added to the air of Scandinavian moodiness and grimness: you can see that on the cover of the hardback of the series. I think this particular shot is of the ridge above Ethandun (now Eddington) where Guthrum the Viking leader woke up one morning to see Alfred and all his forces ranged up on the skyline, about to descend like an eagle onto its prey. Years later, when I wrote a book about Alfred, Warrior King, I went to see this ridge; it's still just as atmospheric. I wonder if the seed for the book was sown when I watched that programme? I didn't think so at the time, I thought it had other roots; but looking back, I'm not so sure.

Since then, of course, there have been masses of popular history programmes on television - David Starkey, Simon Schama, Mary Beard, Helen Castor and many more. But I think perhaps that In Search of the Dark Ages was the mould-maker, with its charismatic presenter using every means at his disposal to convey his enthusiasm for his subject, with its delight in showing us the context and the settings and the artefacts which help to bring history to life. Isn't that what they all do now, to a greater or lesser degree?

And Michael kept on making programmes. I remember my sons cheering when he went in search of Alexander the Great, plunging into the sea fully clothed, climbing mountains, eating lamb cooked on a spit over the fire and then turning to the camera, his eyes shining, to share his excitement: 'Here I am, doing just what Alexander might have done, in the place where he might have done it!!' 


And now he's taking a fresh approach again, involving people in finding out their own local history, and showing us along the way what life was like for most people in centuries past. The old sheepskin jacket - or a worthy successor - is still occasionally in evidence, often accessorised now with a floaty turquoise scarf. I think he's great. He's certainly far more inspirational than any of my history teachers ever were, bless them!