"In spite of the unsatisfactory materials for his history, Athelstan is one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings of whose personality a faint impression can be formed. It is known that he was of no more than average height, and that his hair was flaxen, with intermingled golden threads. The record of his movements is hardly needed to show that he possessed the physical energy without which no early king could govern well. More remarkable is the mixture of devotion and intellectual curiosity which made him a collector of relics on a scale approached by no other English king. The devotion appears again in his gifts of books to churches for the recompense of their prayers, and the curiosity found another vent in the entertainment of foreign scholars at his court and in the intercourse which he maintained with foreign monasteries. More unusual, or at least more rarely recorded than any of these qualities, is the touch of humanity shown in the pardon which he granted to criminals willing to make amends, and in his revulsion against the execution of young offenders. In character and cast of mind he is the one West Saxon king who will bear comparison with Alfred."