Yet all that was of less
account to him than her fame, her personal worth, since she was reputed
to be the most beautiful woman in the land. It was for her beauty that
he desired her, and being of an exceedingly impatient temper in any case
in which beauty in a woman was concerned, he desired his friend to
proceed at once to Earl Ongar in Devon with an offer of marriage to his
daughter, Elfrida, from the king.
Athelwold laughed at Edgar in this his most solemn and kingly mood, and
with a friend's privilege told him not to be so simple as to buy a pig
in a poke. The lady, he said, had not been to court, consequently she
had not been seen by those best able to judge of her reputed beauty. Her
fame rested wholly on the report of the people of her own country, who
were great as every one knew at blowing their own trumpets. Their red
and green county was England's paradise; their men the bravest and
handsomest and their women the most beautiful in the land. For his part
he believed there were as good men and as fair women in Mercia and East
Anglia as in the West. It would certainly be an awkward business if the
king found himself bound in honour to wed with a person he did not like.
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