Greetings! I am Ælfwine, son of Ælfred, the friend of the spirits, since before the beginning of time in the mind of the Drihten. I am an enquiring Saxon with a quarter of Breton blood and a Pelagian outlook on life. The manifold wonders of humankind are too great for me to believe they would be lost without Grace. I prefer to consider the Grace of my Drihten as a free gift to live by and be glad and grateful of.

Though I come from Cantium in Britannia, my family name refers to my distant kinship with the royal family of Denmark. I am still studying the precise relationship. My given name is generally pronounced ALF-wyn-uh, despite the attractive but only visual assonance with "wine". It is Alboin among the Lombards, and, incidentally, Elendil in Quenya. Speaking of which, some of you have wondered about my avatar: it is the image of a worthy warrior who looks very much the way I was as a lad, fighting on the Bloody Beaches of Britannia. Then I left the island, learned to read and cut my hair the Roman way.

You can usually find me at the Red Boar Tavern, drinking and partying. Lately, however, I was seized by the impulse to start travelling again and ended up at Widsith's Meodoheall, where I met again Thidrek Amaligg - whom I had befriended as a lad at the Boar - now a grown man, and seeking vengeance...

My 19th century counterpart is having the time of his death - er, life - at Drakesheath. What is his secret? What hideous mystery will he uncover about himself?