[25] And þa comon hi ymb vii niht to londe on Cornwalum, and foron þa sona to Ælfrede cyninge. [26] For the Irish illumination above referred to I have relied upon _Facsimiles of Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts_. By J. O. Westwood. London, 1868. Plate XI. [27] ‘The back, or reverse, is a plate of gold lying immediately upon the back of the miniature, and this is beautifully worked in foliage.’ Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., in the _Reliquary_ for October, 1878: vol. xx, p. 66. [28] Here I follow the old copy of this drawing in Hickes’s _Thesaurus_ (1705) facing p. viij. [29] Appendix D. CHAPTER VIII ALFRED IN SOMERSET BEYOND PEDRIDA When we have described the form and symbolism of the Alfred Jewel, and reviewed the various interpretations which it has evoked, and when we have moreover analyzed its design and considered each several feature, we have not as yet exhausted the matter of our theme. An important part of the problem remains to be discussed, and that is the place of its discovery, the how and the why of its deposit there, and the possibility of light to be derived from the historical associations of the locality. It was found near the Isle of Athelney. This looks like a piece of circumstantial evidence tending to identify the Alfred named in the Epigraph, and to associate the Jewel with the chief and central episode in the career of our national hero. The momentous crisis which is thus reflected in the Jewel seems to open a wider view, and to demand some enlargement of this Essay, so as to embrace a glimpse of that eventful story. [Illustration: THE ISLE OF ATHELNEY.] Of all this we now, after the lapse of a thousand years, speak as men who know the sequel, and (because we do know the sequel) it is the harder for us to appreciate the intensity of that crisis. We are helped by the occurrence of an opportune discovery. Just when our nation was beginning to be ripe for historical reflection and capable of entering into the struggles of our remote forefathers, there was ‘dug up’ in the locality where Alfred took refuge in the year 878, a personal ornament bearing his name in impressive characters. It is to us now as if the king himself had but recently passed that way under such stress of circumstances as constrained him to hide his royal insignia, and as if we somehow by this chance were brought nearer to the burden of his lot, and were made sharers not only in the fruits of his triumph, but also in the toil and the joy of his achievement. * * * * *