The enthusiasm with which he recited, and spoke of our ancient ballads, during that first tour of his through the forest, inspired me with a determination immediately to begin and imitate them, which I did, and soon grew tolerably good at it. Of course I dedicated The Mountain Bard to him:
Blest be his generous heart for aye; He told me where the relic lay, Pointed my way with ready will, Afar on Ettrick's wildest hill, Watched my first notes with curious eye, And wonder'd at my minstrelsy: He little ween'd a parent's tongue Such strains had o'er my cradle sung.
Robberies and iniquities of all kinds were so uncommon in the reign of Alfred, that it is said, he hung up golden bracelets near the highways, and no man dared to touch them.
Earl Godwin, in order to appease Hardicanute, (whose brother he had been instrumental in murdering,) made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern, rowed by fourscore men, who wore each of them a golden bracelet on his arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were clothed and armed in the most sumptuous manner. Hardicanute pleased with the splendour of the spectacle, quickly forgot his brother's murder, and on Godwin's swearing that he was innocent of the crime, allowed him to be acquitted.
The cities of England appear by _Domesday Book_, to have been at the conquest little better than villages; York itself, though it was always the second, at least the third city in England, contained only 1,418 families; Norwich contained 738 houses; Exeter, 315; Ipswich, 538; Northampton, 60; Hertford, 146; Bath, 64; Canterbury, 262; Southampton, 84; and Warwick, 225.
As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds or writings very rare, the county or hundred courts were the places where the most remarkable civil transactions were finished. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and sometimes for greater security, the most remarkable of these deeds were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish Bible, which thus became a register too sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be guilty of that crime.
The laws of Alfred enjoin, that if any one know that his enemy or agressor, after doing him an injury, resolves to keep within his own house and his own lands, he shall not fight him till he require compensation for the injury. If he be strong enough, he may besiege him in his house for seven days without attacking him, and if the agressor be willing, during that time to surrender himself and his arms, his adversary may detain him thirty days; but is compelled afterwards to restore him safe to his friends, and _be content with the compensation_.