If you don't know what my avatar is, I will be required BY LAW to kick you in the cods for the regulation 107 minutes.
Mine's a lego police Chief. I saw one in my boys lego box and thought it would make a good avatar, given my moniker. The reason for my moniker is equally as boring so I won't bother you with it.
The Alfred Jewel is about 2½ inches long, 1½ inches wide and ½ an inch thick. It was ploughed-up from a Somerset field in 1693, and is now on display in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A teardrop-shaped rock-crystal protects a cloisonné enamel figure, the whole being encased in a gold frame. There is a decorative socket to allow the jewel to be mounted on a rod of some kind. The openwork lettering on the side of the frame reads: + AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be made). There is little doubt that the Alfred in question is King Alfred the Great (r.871–899). King Alfred personally translated a number of books from Latin into English. In a preface to his translation of ‘Pastoral Care’, by Pope Gregory I (590–604), Alfred writes: “I will send a copy to every bishopric in my kingdom; and in each there will be an æstel worth fifty mancuses. And I command in God's name that no man may take the æstel from the book or the book from the church”. It is not certain what an æstel is, but since the word probably derives form the Latin hastula (a little spear), it is widely supposed that it was a rod used as a pointer or placemarker. Certainly those being presented by Alfred were very expensive items. Putting two and two together, it is popularly suggested that the Alfred jewel is the terminal from such an æstel. Stretching the conjecture a little further, is the proposal that it would be appropriate to interpret the enamel figure as a personification of ‘Sight’. ^ ^ ^ Did not read
The wife and daughter weren't too impressed. Went to watch the Spongebob movie last weekend; it wasn't too bad.
