eally
native prose literature were already taking shape in English hands.

The chief monument of this truly Anglo-Saxon literature, begun and
completed by English writers in the English tongue alone, is the
Chronicle. That invaluable document, the oldest history of any Teutonic
race in its own language, was probably first compiled at the court of
AElfred. Its earlier part consists of mere royal genealogies of the
first West Saxon kings, together with a few traditions of the
colonisation, and some excerpts from Baeda. But with the reign of
AEthelwulf, AElfred's father, it becomes comparatively copious, though its
records still remain dry and matter-of-fact, a bare statement of facts,
without comment or emotional display. The following extract, giving the
account of AElfred's death, will show its meagre nature. The passage has
been modernised as little as is consistent with its intelligibility at
the present day:--

An. 901. Here died AElfred AEthulfing [AEthelwulfing--the son
of AEthelwulf], six nights ere All Hallow Mass. He was king
over all English-kin, bar that deal that was under Danish
weald [dominion]; and he held that kingdom three half-years
less than thirty winters. There came Eadward his son to the
rule. And there seized AEthelwold aetheling, his father's
brother's son, the ham [villa] at Winburne [Wimbourne], and
at Tweoxneam [Christchurch], by the king's unthank and his
witan's [without leave from the king]. There rode the king
with his fyrd till he reached Badbury against Winburne. And
AEthelwold sat within the ham, with the men that to him had
bowed, and he had forwrought [obstructed] all the gates in,
and said that he would either there live or there lie.
Thereupon rode the aetheling on night away, and sought the
[Danish] host in Northumbria, and they took him for king and
bowed to him. And the king bade ride after him, but they
could not outride him. Then beset man the woman that he had
erst taken without the king's leave, and against the
bishop's word, for that she was ere that hallowed a nun. And
on this ilk year forth-fared AEthelred (he was ealdorman on
Devon) four weeks ere AElfred king.

During the Augustan age the Chronicle grows less full, but contains
several fine war-songs, of the genuine old English type, full of
savagery in sentiment, and abrupt or broken in manner, but marked by the