Books with title The dragon and the raven: or, The days of King Alfred

The Dragon and the Raven is one of GA Henty’s signature books and serves as a time machine that takes us back during the days of King Alfred. Set during the ages of the great Viking advances, The Dragon and the Raven tells the story of Edmund, a young boy who flees his home of East Anglia due to the Viking onslaughts and lives to see his father Eldred get killed and lose everything but his will for revenge. Edmund is thrown in a war that has remained as one of the bloodiest in our history. The fierce conflict between the Saxons and the Danes and the eventual ransacking of England. Escaping the clutches of the Vikings, Edmund manages to arrive in the last Saxon kingdom that can withstand the unrelenting wolves - Wessex. Our hero is hardened by loss and bloodshed and becomes a man that vows to stop the oppression and assure English supremacy. Accompanied by a group of soldiers specially trained by Edmund, they set sail on the sturdy ship Dragon in the long and arduous battle for freedom. These endeavors will take the young hero across Europe and even into the dangerous heartland of the bloodthirsty enemy. While the Dragon and the Raven has its fair share of fiction, it also serves as a backdrop for some of the bloodiest historical events of humanity. It depicts the conflict between the English Saxons and the Vikings, with their sheer numbers and barbarous ways. A vivid sight of dread and misery is present in The Dragon and the Raven, made even more captivating because of its historical relevance. Edmund will take you to bloody battles alongside Kind Alfred in a quest to recapture England and set Saxon rule once more as the true rule of the land.

In a time of chaos and Viking onslaught, Alfred the untested Saxon king, must fight to save his ravished land. The tale unfurls through the eyes of a young thane, Edmond, who becomes Alfred's friend and mightiest warrior. When Danes over run the land and the Saxons capitulate, this young knight trains and leads a devoted corps of pike-men to recapture the kingdom.

Living in the present days of peace and tranquillity it is difficult to picture the life of our ancestors in the days of King Alfred, when the whole country was for years overrun by hordes of pagan barbarians, who slaughtered, plundered, and destroyed at will. You may gain, perhaps, a fair conception of the state of things if you imagine that at the time of the great mutiny the English population of India approached that of the natives, and that the mutiny was everywhere triumphant. The wholesale massacres and outrages which would in such a case have been inflicted upon the conquered whites could be no worse than those suffered by the Saxons at the hands of the Danes. From this terrible state of subjection and suffering the Saxons were rescued by the prudence, the patience, the valour and wisdom of King Alfred. In all subsequent ages England has produced no single man who united in himself so many great qualities as did this first of great Englishmen. He was learned, wise, brave, prudent, and pious; devoted to his people, clement to his conquered enemies. He was as great in peace as in war; and yet few English boys know more than a faint outline of the events of Alfred's reign—events which have exercised an influence upon the whole future of the English people. School histories pass briefly over them; and the incident of the burned cake is that which is, of all the actions of a great and glorious reign, the most prominent in boys' minds. In this story I have tried to supply the deficiency.

[Children's Historical Fiction (Ages 8-12)][Read by Jim Hodges] Bring history back to life through Jim Hodges' historically accurate, exciting and edifying audio recordings. The Saxons and Vikings fought many fierce battles in Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. During the struggle, 23-year-old Alfred ascended the throne and temporarily beat back the pagan hordes and concluded a peace treaty. Following another war in 878, peace was again achieved; the Danish King Guthrum accepted Christianity and withdrew to East Anglia, and Alfred the Great fortified cities, built a navy, codified laws, and revived learning among the Saxons until his death in A.D. 900. The hero is a Saxon thane named Edmund who joins the forces of King Alfred, fighting the Danes on land and in their own element, the sea, in his ship The Dragon. Carried by storms to the shores of Norway, he defeats Sweyn the Viking in single combat, takes part in the siege of Paris on behalf of the Franks, and tracks down his nemesis in order to rescue the Danish maiden he will later marry.[The Henty Historical Novel Collection, written by George Henty in the 1800s, covers many time periods in history throughout the world. In this collection, you will learn history, geography, and vocabulary while also discovering hero characters for children to emulate.]

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"In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea wolves. The hero, a young Saxon thane, takes part in all the battles fought by King Alfred. He is driven from his home, takes to the sea, and resists the Danes on their own element, and being pursued by them up the Seine, is present at the long and desperate siege of Paris. "Perhaps the best story of the early days of England which has yet been told."--Court Journal.'...but the rest, with the gold and silver vessels, can remain here till we need them."Gold and silver vessels seem little in accordance with the primitive mode of life prevailing in the ninth century. The Saxon civilization was indeed a mixed one. Their mode of life was primitive, their dwellings, with the exception of the religious houses and the abodes of a few of the great nobles, simple in the extreme; but they possessed vessels of gold and silver, armlets, necklaces, and ornaments of the same metals, rich and brightly coloured dresses, and elaborate bed furniture while their tables and household utensils were of the roughest kind, and their floors strewn with rushes. When they invaded and conquered England they found existing the civilization introduced by the Romans, which was far in advance of their own; much of this they adopted. The introduction of Christianity further advanced them in the scale.The prelates and monks from Rome brought with them a high degree of civilization, and this...'About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writ