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Show r -t-t- Its Origin and the Famous Folk Wl YOlir JrirSt INSHIC Have Borne It Hj I BY PRANCES MARSHALL. , Alfred and Klfrcda, with their variations va-riations of Elfridn, Alfrcdn, Klllcda. Aelfwinc, Aclffnva, Elvira. Alvaro and Audrey tlicso tho names that coino directly di-rectly from fairyland. Thoy ro back to tho days when all mankind bolicvcd thnt. tho fairies wcro not myths in story books, but real litllo white spirits, spir-its, who wandered Iho earth unseen. They wcro clever little people, it was thought, and qui to worthy of imitation. imita-tion. Sri men began to use tho olf names Alfred, tho wise olf, or elf in council: Alfrcdn, the threatening elf. and all tho rest. Tho greatest bearer of any of these names in the dnvs of fairies was of course tho Saxou king of England. Aol frod. or Alfred, who lived in the ninth ccnturv. His father, had married the daughter of his cup bearer, a woman of education. And, an tho old stones have it, it was Alfred's mother who first implanted in him the lovo ot learning which made him renowned, and which made his court, as much a center of learning as Charlemagno b had been. , , When Alfred, with his new-formed navv. drove the Vikings from' the shores of England, ho realized that in the ruins of the. monasteries thov had burned were tho ruins of Knglish learning and literature. So he hiiiisoll set to work to translate historic?; he rebuilt, schools and monasteries, and ho invited some of the greatest scholars schol-ars of the ago to live at his court. At Iho end of his life ho could say with justification: "So long as I have hvod have striven to live worthily." Tn England there was another famous fa-mous earlv bearer of tho namo, Elln-da, Elln-da, the wife of Edgar the Peaceable, who died in !75. Edgar had heard stories from far and wide of Iho beauty of Elfrida, whoso father was a nobleman. noble-man. But a long journey over rough roads was not to Uio young king's liking, lik-ing, so he sent. Ethel wold, his Iriend and companion, to find out if I hosieries ho-sieries wore true. Klholwold found Elfrida evon fairer .than report painted her and fell in love with her. bo he returned to tho king with the answer that, she was not. so very fair, certainly not worthy of a king, and then him-solf him-solf married her. . After her marriage Mfrida discovered discov-ered her husband's deceit, and when he commanded her lo dress hersell as plainly as possible to Tceeive- the king as her guest, she arrayed herself in her most costly jewels and silks and velvets md captivated tho monarch. The kine was enraged when ho saw the trick that Ethclwold had played him, and a litllo Inter Ethelwold was found murdered, supposedly by the king's armed nion. Elfrida apparently cared oulv for power, and she gladly married Iho king shortly thereafter, although al-though be it said to the credit, of her husband's subjects, that they rctused to accopi. "in n1"'" The old historians seem divided between be-tween censure for Ulfrida and censure for her husband. Ethclwold. .hut. most of them seem to think the latter most to blame, as did the one who wrote this couplet: "Thus he that did the king decnjyo, Did by desert his death receive.' Two' other queens bore tho name moro worthily in tenth century England. Eng-land. Elfloda was the second wito of Edward tho Elder, and Alfleda was tho wife of Pcada, king of Merc-ia. In Spain, too, fliore was a group of queens who bore (he namo in its Spanish Span-ish form, Elvira. One was .the wife of Don Ordono 111. who ruled in O video and Leon in 92-t. and another was the I wife of Bermudo il, Bin-named ".I he I'Jouty," who ruled some fifty or sixty years later. Still another was the queen of Don Alfonso V. who came to the throne of Loon in llo was loft, an orphan at five years of age. and was given into tho caro ol lus .;. ALFRED. -f T ELFREDA. i f r r The elf namcB were first used -I-r when mankind believed in elves. Alfred the Great of England, v whoso fame did not, snvc the name .--I- from sinking into disuse. How it y v has come to the front again in v I- the last century. The famous Al- v freda of a hundrod yoars. I v viTTvn-r -j. . i guardians, Don Gonzalez and his. wife, and when he camo king ho repaid all I heir kindness to him by marrying their daughter Elvira. Eor some reason, although the fair fnmo of Alfred must, have countor-actod countor-actod the notoriety of Llfnda, -ho nnmo sank into disuse long before the elves were relegated to tho renlni ol fancA-, and it is only within the past century thnt the namo has once more come into popularity. But in tho last hundred years a group of men has borne the uaino Whoso fame makes up for the many years when there wore few famous Alfreds. Two famous bng-lish bng-lish pots and two famous French poets; the Swede who invented dynamite; dyna-mite; the Englishman who ranks with Darwin as one of the great, scientists of the nineteenth century; the Ciorman steel king; tho lender of French fashion of his dav; the foremost English journalist, jour-nalist, and the English pnnco who once refused Hie throne of Greece all these men were Alfreds, and fow names make a better showing in a century. Tho two famous French Alfreds m the world of letters aro Alfred do Mussel Mus-sel and Alfred Victor, county of Vigiiy. The latter was born in 1799. and when ho was iii he entered tho army. But he had many moments of enforced idleness, idle-ness, and in this time lie used to pursue pur-sue tho studies which his military life had eut. short. Thus ho educated himself, him-self, and by the time he was JO ho published his first book of essays. Artor that his place in literature was assured, and ho wroto voluminously until his death in lSG:i. Alfred do Mussot was born in 1810. aud has been called n child all his lifo. and a spoiled child. His father was a man of letters, ay a the boy was brought up in such a lit orary atmosphore thatjic could scarcely fail to write. However, he is almost, as well known because of his friendship for George Sands as he is for his play 8 and novels. , ... , Alfred. Lord Tennyson, and Alfred Austin, both laureates of Great Brit ain, aro tho two English Alfreds whe gained fame as writers. Tennyson, who is often called the most, represcn f alive poet of Queen Victoria's roign, was born in IfiOH; Austin was bora twenty-six years later. As a bov Tennyson did not go to school, but wandered through the woods and over tho hillsides, and gained the knowledge of naturo which marks his poetry. The year ISnO is sometimes callod an epoch-making one in his life, for in that year appeared his volume of "'Poems. Chiefly Lyrical." Lyri-cal." which made England predict Ins greatness. But Tennyson himself called the vear 1850 the greatest year of his life;" for then ho was appointed laureate, lau-reate, and then ho married, after a long wait because of poverty and adversity, the woman whom he had first Iovod in his youth. Austin did not begin his iito as a poet. He studied law. and practiced it, then worked as a critic, as a ,imr-nalist. ,imr-nalist. and as a newspaper correspondent, correspond-ent, for ho was at the headquarters of tho king of Prussia at the time of the Franco-Prussian war. Like Austin, another of the great English Alfreds did' not start out in life in the path that led him to fame. Alfred Russell Wallace, born in 1822. was educated as a land survoyor and architect, hut he was always interested in natural history, and after 181 all his attention to this scicni discovery of tho theory of riati lection is one of the nlrance1 discoveries which are so freai science, for on the same day 1S53 but at different times i different plnces, "Wallace aDj' announced this theory. "Wallad ever, acknowledged Darwin asij proponnder, and it is a Iribntfll men that they woro nlwaji friends. i Another famous English Alfre present, day journalist. Lord llarmsworth. born near Dublin II o founded the London Bail and a short time ago hiaj meats in tho newspaper wor recognized when he was clef tho peerage. Alfred Krupp.'who in 1848 ij his fathor's iron forge at. Esw sia, which, employed throe a who in 1SS7 died the owner ofui steel works employing 20.000 ,i fred Bernard ftobol, who i dynamito in 18G7, and left as' lasting memorial to his own n Nobel prir.e fund; Alfred, Com sav. born in 1801, grandeen ot of" Wurtembcrg, tho Bean Bra his time at Pari3, and a da, the fine arts, and Prince Alff of Edinburgh, the second son" Victoria, who refused the t Greece when it was offered t 1862, aro other men who have fame to their namo in tho p drod years. Elf means white, and catnev( from the samo word which i to the name of tho Alps andi Elbe. - Miss Marshall will be plea , Fiver by mail aTl inquiries to her coaccrning tho origin . tory of first names. In a Miss Marshall in caro of tl i please inclose a slamnod aw I dressed envelope, for the rep ' i |