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Why Alfred Burned the Cakes: A King and his eleven-hundred-year afterlife by David Horspool (Hardcover, 2006)

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Title: Why Alfred Burned the Cakes: A King and his eleven-hundred-year Item Condition: used item in a good condition. Publisher: Profile Books ISBN 13: 9781861977861. Author: David Horspool ISBN 10: 1861977867.

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A little over a century ago, the only English king to be called 'the Great' could attract crowds of thousands to commemorate him. Now, even the most famous (and famously false) story about him, the burning of the cakes, is probably just a memory of 1066 and All That. This book shows how the Alfred of myth and the Alfred of history have become inextricably linked. For a long time, the legend of the burnt cakes was one of a dozen stories that were associated with the King and his time, from disguising himself as a minstrel to introducing the jury system. Alfred's historical achievements - saving his kingdom from invasion, attempting to both expand and educate his realm - and the way his story was told from the beginning, combined to make him the founding mythic figure of England. In stripping away the myths, historians have left an Alfred whose place in the popular imagination has all but vanished. This book attempts to recover a popular Alfred, understanding how he came to be 'Great', and how much myth had to do with that.