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    The Ballad of the White Horse
    The Ballad of the White Horse
    The Ballad of the White Horse
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    The Ballad of the White Horse

    By G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

    4.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1908
    The Ballad of the White Horse

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    Reviews for The Ballad of the White Horse

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    • 4/5
      Epic poetry is hard, especially for those of us who don't come from a strong oral storytelling tradition. The opening and closing chapters were strong, but in the middle I kind of struggled to keep going with it. I read this on my kindle at night and was also intermittently listening to the Illiad as an audio book in the car. The Ballad of the White Horse didn't compare well -- the timing was just slightly off, and it didn't have the polish of so many, many centuries of re-telling. Still, it was a good effort, and I might try re-reading it in the future.
    • 4/5
      This poem attempts to mark a great historical event in English history. It does so not by chronicling history but by celebrating the human spirit. King Alfred the Great, against all odds, defeated Danish invaders in the year 878. The Battle of Ethandune went a long way in establishing the constitutional unity of an English people. Chesterton, writing over a millennium later, sought to use his prodigious talents to excite the English people to embrace their Christian history as they faced a coming century of a disorderly world.Although the symbolism is clear, the poem is not overtly religious. The main triumph takes place on the battlefield and in the hearts of English soldiers. Chesterton, while outspoken, clearly possesses class and dignity. The Danish invaders represent a world of dark chaos while the English leader Alfred represents a culture of light, song, and rare class (like a white horse). Yes, Alfred represents all that is good on the English isle. And like all good British subjects, they should rally around their monarchical head of state.This poem was picked up in the Battle of Britain in 1940 when the English were again fighting against all odds against the Nazis. Chesterton was used to remind the Brits not only of their ingenuity but also that their personal strength can overcome all odds. Indeed, Churchill – whatever his racist faults were – was a new King Alfred. Belief, faith, and heart are all evoked in this poem, and the verse sought to inspire an island and an Empire in tumult.That same belief, faith, and heart are still needed in the world today. Chesterton reminds us that when wedded to skill, belief has a power that can overcome demagoguery and hollow show. That is true not only of England but also of the human race. Alfred, Chesterton, and England have plenty of faults, but they have also contributed to saving civilization. The battle for such victories lie within, based on personal courage and integrity. With its detailed crafting and human resonance, Chesterton’s poem simply inspires.

    Book preview

    The Ballad of the White Horse - G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

    Project Gutenberg's The Ballad of the White Horse, by G.K. Chesterton

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Ballad of the White Horse

    Author: G.K. Chesterton

    Release Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1719]

    Last Updated: January 15, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE ***

    Produced by Paul Bonner, Martin Ward, and David Widger

    THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE

    By G.K. Chesterton

    Prefatory Note

    This ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend; that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. But King Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him.

    The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. I do not know when or where the story started; it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me; for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, as the old balladists did. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp; I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes; I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. It has been disputed by grave historians, who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. The two chief charges against the story are that it was first recorded long after Alfred's death, and that (as Mr. Oman urges) Alfred never really wandered all alone without any thanes or soldiers. Both these objections might possibly be met. It has taken us nearly as long to learn the whole truth about Byron, and perhaps longer to learn the whole truth about Pepys, than elapsed between Alfred and the first writing of such tales. And as for the other objection, do the historians really think that Alfred after Wilton, or Napoleon after Leipsic, never walked about in a wood by himself for the matter of an hour or two? Ten minutes might be made sufficient for the essence of the story. But I am not concerned to prove the truth of these popular traditions. It is enough for me to maintain two things: that they are popular traditions; and that without these popular traditions we should have bothered about Alfred about as much as we bother about Eadwig.

    One other consideration needs a note. Alfred has come down to us in the best way (that is, by national legends) solely for the same reason as Arthur and Roland and the other giants of that darkness, because he fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism. But since this work was really done by generation after generation, by the Romans before they withdrew, and by the Britons while they remained, I have summarised this first crusade in a triple symbol, and given to a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon, a part in the glory of Ethandune. I fancy that in fact Alfred's Wessex was of very mixed bloods; but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.

    G.K.C.

    Contents

    DEDICATION

              Of great limbs gone to chaos,

              A great face turned to night—

              Why bend above a shapeless shroud

              Seeking in such archaic cloud

              Sight of strong lords and light?

              Where seven sunken Englands

              Lie buried one by one,

              Why should one idle spade, I wonder,

              Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder

              To smoke and choke the sun?

              In cloud of clay so cast to heaven

              What shape shall man discern?

              These lords may light the mystery

              Of mastery or victory,

              And these ride high in history,

              But these shall not return.

              Gored on the Norman gonfalon

              The Golden Dragon died:

              We shall not wake with ballad strings

              The good time of the smaller things,

              We shall not see the holy kings

              Ride down by Severn side.

              Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured

              As the broidery of Bayeux

              The England of that dawn remains,

              And this of Alfred and the Danes

              Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns

              Too English to be true.

              Of a good king on an island

              That ruled once on a time;

              And as he walked by an apple tree

              There came green devils out of the sea

              With sea-plants trailing heavily

              And tracks of opal slime.

              Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;

              His days as our days ran,

              He also looked forth for an hour

              On peopled plains and skies that lower,

              From those few windows in the tower

              That is the head of a man.

              But who shall look from Alfred's hood

              Or breathe his breath alive?

              His century like a small dark cloud

              Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,

              Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud

              And the dense arrows drive.

              Lady, by one light only

              We look from Alfred's eyes,

              We know he saw athwart the wreck

              The sign that hangs about your neck,

              Where

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