Note 372 — Chapter VI · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY

1 Sam. ix. 18, 19. The disintegrating critics have assumed this narrative to be primitive and contemporary because it presents us with a picture of Samuel which seems to degrade him into an obscure local soothsayer, and on the strength of it have disputed the antiquity of such narratives as assign to him national influence. They might just as well maintain that the only primitive and contemporary account of King Alfred that we possess is the story of the burnt cakes at Athelney.