Legend of Alfred the Great's Ghost and the Transfer of His Remains to Winchester's New Minster

According to the legend of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, when he died (in the early tenth century), he was buried in Winchester's old cathedral, the Old Minster, but the monks all but lost their wits and began to complain of being troubled by the royal ghost. His son Edward the Elder then ordered the king's remains to be moved to the new cathedral adjoining the old one. It may have been a political ruse to see the New Minster finished, a project conceived by Alfred himself, who had managed only to buy the land for the new cathedral. Be that as it may, once the king's remains had been reburied, the perambulations of the regal apparition ceased. In time the necropolis of Alfred the Great, tied to no ruler who had lived before him, became a place of pilgrimage; the graves of several venerated bishops were added to it, along with so significant a relic as the head of Saint Valentine.