Let us first consider how close we can come to an understanding of what made King Alfred tick.

How could we possibly have any real evidence for the personality of a Dark Age king, for his psychology, for his self?

I have often had the fancy that there is some one myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.

For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes — not that you won or lost — but how you played the Game.

Let us consider the sorts of remarks which are found in descriptions of games.

Abstract

Can we find in the Old English translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy an authentic relic of the contours of Alfred’s thoughts about predestination and free will? This chapter offers a close reading of a paragraph comparing life to a race for a golden crown. The first one to reach it wins it. This bears a startling similarity to the game young Alfred played to win his mother’s book. If Alfred is the author of all three fables — this philosophical fable, the fable of the youngest son who wins the book fair and square, and the fable of Alfred’s papal anointing, then we can get much closer to understanding what made Alfred tick than we thought. If not, what then?

Keywords: Malcolm Godden, V. H. Galbraith, psychohistory, The Old English Consolation of Philosophy