While once in hiding, in anonymous disguise, Alfred was over-preoccupied with military strategy. It is during this time that he is alleged to have neglected to keep his eye, as he had undertaken to do, on some cakes being baked in a kitchen. Rebuked for his neglect by the kitchen-maid, King Alfred humbly apologized to her.
Yet all throughout that whole time, he was organizing for victory against the Danes. This is evidenced by another well-known story. He once disguised himself as a blind harpist. As such, he entered the camp of the Vikings — though really in order to reconnoitre it.
In 878, Alfred's armies in Somersetshire and Wiltshire and Hampshire clashed against the Danes. At Edington, the English won a decisive victory. The Danes submitted, and by the Treaty of Wedmore their King Guthrum and about thirty of his Chiefs had to accept
