trillian said:
you should read bernard cornwell and you will see how not so great alfred really was. he sounds like a major tosser to me.
Well he sounds pretty good. I read a historical fiction based on his story. It did mention a lot of the bad stuff like when people starved because all the men were at war and couldn't grow food. In fact, one of the main characters lost her children to hunger in the story but accepts that it was out of necessity. He saved a large portion of England from becoming Danish territory, established proper fortified towns and separated the population into "fyrds" so that every man knew what he had to do in case of war, fight or continue with the fields.