" I've known women!" Æthelwold shouted at the rain, "and they were bad women! Forgive me!"
Alfred was furious, but he could not stop a man making a fool of himself before God. Perhaps he thought Æthelwold's remorse was genuine?
"I've lost count of the women!" Æthelwold shouted, then beat his fists in the mud. "Oh God, I love tits! God, I love naked women, God, forgive me for that!"
The laughter spread, and every man must have remembered that Alfred, before piety caught him in its clammy grip, had been notorious for the women he had pursued.
"You must help me, God!" Æthelwold cried as we shuffled a few feet farther. "Send me an angel!"
"So you can hump her?" a voice called from the crowd and the laughter became a roar.
Ælswith was hurried away, lest she hear something unseemly. The priests whispered together, but Æthelwold's penitence, though extravagant, seemed real enough. He was weeping. I knew he was really laughing, but he howled as though his soul was in agony.
"No more tits, God!" he called, "no more tits!"
He made a fool of himself, but, as men already thought him a fool, he did not mind.
"Keep me from tits, God! "
― Bernard Cornwell , The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Stories, #2)
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![Bernard Cornwell quote : I've known women!](/image/2280629.jpg)
Alfred was furious, but he could not stop a man making a fool of himself before God. Perhaps he thought Æthelwold's remorse was genuine?
"I've lost count of the women!" Æthelwold shouted, then beat his fists in the mud. "Oh God, I love tits! God, I love naked women, God, forgive me for that!"
The laughter spread, and every man must have remembered that Alfred, before piety caught him in its clammy grip, had been notorious for the women he had pursued.
"You must help me, God!" Æthelwold cried as we shuffled a few feet farther. "Send me an angel!"
"So you can hump her?" a voice called from the crowd and the laughter became a roar.
Ælswith was hurried away, lest she hear something unseemly. The priests whispered together, but Æthelwold's penitence, though extravagant, seemed real enough. He was weeping. I knew he was really laughing, but he howled as though his soul was in agony.
"No more tits, God!" he called, "no more tits!"
He made a fool of himself, but, as men already thought him a fool, he did not mind.
"Keep me from tits, God!" style="width:100%;margin:20px 0;"/>