Healing Women: the COVID-19 Crisis and Alfredian Fanfiction

Abstract

This article explores female agency and the healing role of women in medievalist fiction on Alfred the Great. Alfredian fanfiction written during the pandemic mixes neo-medieval elements with current themes and preoccupations, such as illness, pain, solitude, hope, female agency, and border crossings. The fan authors have constructed a 21st century “neo-medieval-based culture” that mirrors events in current society. Their stories often take place against the backdrop of other times of crisis, such as wars against intruders. The authors use the illness of King Alfred as the Romanticised pandemic, thus reviving horrors with playfulness and humour, as the power of the past is to provide for hope in similar circumstances. This fanfiction also explores how non-normative persons are crossing borders and forming new traditions by reiterating as well as changing elements of their heritage.