The Ballad of the White Horse

By G. K. Chesterton

The Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last great epic poems in the English language. On the one hand it describes King Alfredಙs battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism. Filled with colorful characters, thrilling battles and mystical visions, it is as lively as it is profound.

Chesterton incorporates brilliant imagination, atmosphere, moral concern, chronological continuity, wisdom and fancy. He makes his stanzas reverberate with sound, and hurries his readers into the heart of the battle.

This deluxe volume is the definitive edition of the poem. It exactly reproduces the 1928 edition with Robert Austinಙs beautiful woodcuts, and includes a thorough introduction and wonderful endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan, from her 60 years researching the poem. Illustrated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781681490489

G. K. Chesterton

English writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) better known as G. K. Chesterton is widely known for his creative writing style which contained many popular saying, proverbs, and allegories whenever possible to prove his points. Among writing, Chesterton was also a dramatist, orator, art critic, and philosopher. His most popular works include his stories about Father Brown, Orthodoxy, and The Everlasting Men.

Book preview

Introduction

The Ballad of the White Horse is the record of a noble vision flung on to the canvas with told strong colours. It is what Matthew Arnold said poetry should always be: A criticism of life. Chesterton tells the story of Alfred, following and rightly following the popular legend. The story of how he played the harp and sang in the Danish camp, of how he burnt the cakes in the herdsman’s hut, and how his ultimate victory came about in the Valley of the White Horse. That is the bones of the story, and this is treated in the true ballad form by a masterly hand, and with driving inspiration. Besides this, there is the philosophic import and significance of the poem, The Criticism of Life which is so large that it almost swamps the ballad element. The point of this is the contrast between Pagan and Christian ideals. Alfred, in the poem, is the incarnation of the Christian tradition. The Danes Chesterton represents as the types of paganism. (Excerpted from Baring 1911,378-79).

The introduction is limited to five topics: an overview of The Ballad of the White Horse, the White Horse in reality and symbol, the BWH on the stocks (1901—1911), the locale of Ethandune, and sidelights on the Ballad.

i

The Ballad of the White Horse presents the struggle between Christianity and heathenism in the heroic days of King Alfred, and at the same time touches contemporary issues of the twentieth century. In form it employs the rhymed romantic poetry so suited to the stirring events unfolded, while in substance it depicts the valorous Wessex king as a conqueror, with no ambition; an author only too glad to be a translator; a concentrated, wary man, watching the fortunes of one thing, which he piloted both boldly and cautiously, and which he saved at last (Chesterton 1917,52). The use of King Alfred’s addition to Boethius for the epigraph emphasizes that people and events are under the influence of a divine purpose that rules. The scope of this narrative includes the story of the Anglo-Saxon people during the late ninth century when the Danes seriously threatened their autonomy. Its subject-matter deals with history, legend, mythology, and religion. Since the supernatural element is quite pronounced and some of the events are under its control, it has the atmosphere appropriate for an epic. Action is on a huge scale. Not only do events center around an ultimate battle, but true to epic requirements, the characters are also heroes or supernatural beings. Alfred is a national hero, Guthrum is a historical national leader, and Mary a celestial being. These characters interest us by the part they play in furthering or hindering the efforts to dominate England.

Symmetry characterizes the development of the plot. Stanzas fourteen to thirty of book I refer to previous Danish incursions. The succeeding three boohs show Alfred recruiting, reconnoitering, and planning for the all-out battle with the entire Danish army. Boohs V and VI tell of the battle at Ethandune, while booh VII relates how the routed West Saxons rallied and with heavenly help win the day. To balance the brief account of Alfred’s encounters with the heathen in the first booh, the last part of the eighth records how the king checked the invaders in 892—96. Chesterton could have focused only on Ethandune. Instead he depicts Alfred continuously at work preparing for the return of the Danes who, in fact, assaulted his kingdom during the last decade of his rule. In this allotment of material, Chesterton puts a bloody stress on Ethandune and gives his poem proper balance and proportion.

While integrating the events and legends related by the chroniclers, Chesterton embellishes the Ballad by the inclusion of preternatural and magical charms. Since it is common knowledge that the Gaels and the Northmen of the ninth century held strange beliefs, Colan’s superstition and Elf’s magic sword abet the genuineness of the narrative even while introducing elements from a fairy world. Supernatural intervention accounts for the victory of the Christians, as well as for the subsequent conversion of Guthrum.

The characters are an intriguing assemblage. They stand out before us alive—deftly drawn by a few strokes of the poet’s pen. In presenting the Saxon Eldred, the Roman Mark, and the Gaelic-Welsh Colan, he suggests the characteristics of their races and sustains these features each time the chieftains appear. Mary’s presence and effectiveness in books I and VII are ineffable. The irascible woman in the forest serves as a foil to Alfred’s humble forbearance (IV:161-279). Among the Danish leaders, King Guthrum, educated in the Latin tongue, possesses a more discerning nature than the three earls: Harold, Ogier, and Elf. While looking at things as they are, he is not impelled by hatred. He is thoughtful, seeks truth, yet is despairing. Chesterton describes Guthrum quite thoroughly, not only because he is the war-chief, but also to prepare us for his embracing Christianity (ASC).

Chesterton achieved unity in this epic by binding together its episodes by a common relationship to Alfred who is responding to a message from Mary.

     "But out of the mouth of the Mother of God

I have seen the truth like fire,

This—that the sky grows darker yet

And the sea rises higher."

(II:153-56)

The king excels in martial pursuits as well as in peacetime achievements. From Alfred’s skirmishes with the enemy in the first booh to his triumphant ride into London in the eighth, readers follow his deeds with interest.

Considered under the Coleridgian concept of organic unity, the poem has atmosphere, continuous moral concern, chronological continuity of the main events and characters, references hack and forward to people and occurrences, and links between tales and legends. In commenting on the satisfactory character of a poem Coleridge suggests it should produce the pleasurable interest which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart ([1817]1907,2:6). It must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement—The reader should be carried forward. . . by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself. . . . Like the motion of a serpent, . . . at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward ([1817] 1907,2:10-11). Chesterton uses this serpentine movement frequently. Observe how it emphasizes and clarifies meaning and feeling. Note how the second stanza looks back at the previous one while moving forward:

But halted in the woodways

Christ’s few were grim and grey,

And each with a small, far, bird-like sight

Saw the high folly of the fight;

And though strange joys had grown in the night,

Despair grew with the day.

And when white dawn crawled through the wood,

Like cold foam of a flood,

Then weakened every warrior’s mood,

In hope, though not in hardihood;

And each man sorrowed as he stood

In the fashion of his blood.

(V:46-57)

Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole ([1817] 1907,2:13).

Chesterton displays all the marks of poetic genius mentioned by Coleridge. Good sense is shown in his choice of Alfred boldly and cautiously defending his kingdom. Wisdom is apparent in his use of the ballad stanza to relate his romantic tale. Fancy is evident in surprising ways. Particularly noteworthy is the appearance of the Mother of God in book VII. Imagination is truly everywhere. Here it has a humorous turn:

A mighty man was Eldred,

A bulk for casks to fill,

His face a dreaming furnace,

His body a walking hill.

(II:42-45)

GK splashes his pages with color (III:108-11), makes his stanzas reverberate with sound (VII:225-234), and hurries his readers on into the heart of the battle (VII:179-94); re-creating at the same time the atmosphere and setting of ninth century England. His use of alliteration, kennings, and words of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English origin effectively flavor and enliven this story of West Saxon times. Critics, commenting on the BWH, cannot believe that verse in which the living spirit of balladry exults more simply in its strength than ever since Scott will wholly disappear (Times Literary Supplement, 7 November 1936). John Raymond asserts, Alfred will be making his last stand at Ethandune long after the sun has gone down on Notting Hill and the Flying Inn (Conlon 1987,161).

ii

Aerial View of the White Horse, Uffington, Berkshire Courtesy of the British Information Services

But he only pointed: bade them heed

Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,

Who plucked the old Horse of the weed

As they pluck it to this hour.

(VIII:180-83)

Towards the west, above Uffington, the hills reach a culminating point of 856 feet in White Horse Hill. In its northern flank, a gigantic figure of a horse is cut, the turf being removed to show the white chalky sub-soil beneath. . . . It is 374 feet long and of the rudest outline, the neck, body and tail varying little in width. Its origin is unknown (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11 ed. s.v. White Horse). In the Prefatory Note to the Ballad, Chesterton asserts that a tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. Thomas Hughes (1822—1896), a native of the locality, recorded this tradition associated with the Vale: Here [there are] legends connecting [the White Horse] with the name of our greatest king, and with his great victory over the Pagans, and a festival which has been held at very short intervals ever since the ninth century (1859, viii-ix). This written evidence confirms the Berkshire White Horse as the one Chesterton selected for his epic of Alfred. It also corrects statements made by distinguished English writers. Patrick Braybrooke recognizes the Wiltshire horse: There have been many white horses, but there is The White Horse, and he lies alone on the side of a hill down Wiltshire way (1922,68). Christopher Hollis also missed Chesterton’s many references to the location of the battle. There are a number of White Horses scattered about. . . but there are two of immemorial antiquity—the Wiltshire White Horse above Westbury and the Berkshire White Horse above Wantage. It is characteristic of Chesterton’s carelessness about detail that he never in his Ballad makes up his mind which of these horses was the scene of the battle and talks indifferently of ‘Berkshire hinds’ and of finding the horse ‘along the road to Frome’  (1970,149). Dudley Barker (1973) as well as Michael Coren (1989) also mistakenly refer to the horse in Wilts. On the contrary, Chesterton in the poem invariably pinpointed White Horse Hill and the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire as the location of Ethandune. In his final proof reading of VIII: 181 he changed Wessex to Berkshire (Chesterton Archives). The Westbury White Horse, Wiltshire, has no place in Chesterton’s epic.

In his Autobiography Chesterton mentions seeing the White Horse while he was electioneering in its vicinity (1936, 127-28). Elsewhere he says that the White Horse may have been picked out of the grass in a previous geological age before the sea burst through the narrow Straits of Dover. . . . That rude but evident white outline that I saw across the valley may have been begun when Britain was not an island (1911,256). On another occasion GKC points out that it is local patriotism that keeps alive the memory of Alfred in that noble Berkshire valley where the White Horse has been picked clean of grass continuously for a thousand years (Illustrated London News, 8 August 1908).

Chesterton personifies the Horse in the opening stanzas of The Ballad of the White Horse. The White Horse looked on, he knew England, he saw the first oar break or bend. Two verses from a rejected stanza, originally placed after 111:372, portray the White Horse as figuratively alive.

The White Horse struggles in the grass

The White Horse whinnyeth

(Chesterton Archives)

From his vantage point on the brow of White Horse Hill, the Horse looks down upon Berkshire’s valley of decision. When Alfred’s men are winning, the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale. In the eighth book

The still-eyed King sat pondering,

As one that watches a live thing,

The scoured chalk;

(VIII:233-35)

Here Alfred speaks directly to the Horse about a vision of the return of the heathen.

King Alfred the Great very probably knew the White Horse. Born at Wantage, a few miles east of the Hill, he must have seen it often while hunting or traveling in the vicinity. One should look up before ascending the Hill, because the White Horse is too large to be seen in its entirety at close range. [This hill-top site is a country park with ample parking within