Ælfric's Lives of Saints/Of Saint Edmund

by Ælfric

XXXII.

NOV. 20. PASSION OF SAINT EDMUND,
KING AND MARTYR.

A certain very learned monk came from the South, over the sea, from Saint Benedict's Stow, in the days of king ^Ethelred, to archbishop Dunstan, three years before he died; and the monk was- called Abbo. Then they were in conversation till Dunstan told him about saint Edmund, even as Edmund's sword-bearer told it to king Æthelstan, when Dunstan was a young man and the sword-bearer a very old man. Then the monk put all this story in a book, and afterwards, when the book had come to us, within a few years, we turned it into English just as it stands hereafter. This monk Abbo within two years went home to his minster, and was almost immediately appointed abbot in that same minster.

Edmund the blessed, king of the East Angles,

was wise and honourable, and ever glorified,

by his excellent conduct, Almighty God.

He was humble and devout, and continued so steadfast

that he would not yield to shameful sins,

nor in any direction did he bend aside his practices,

but was always mindful of the true doctrine.

[If] thou art made a chief man, exalt not thyself,

but be amongst men as one of them.

He was bountiful to the poor and to widows even like a father.

and with benignity guided his people

ever to righteousness, and controlled the violent,

and lived happily in the true faith

Then at last it befell that the Danish people

came with a fleet, harrying and slaying

widely over the land, as their custom is.

In that fleet were their chief men,

Hingwar and Hubba, associated by the devil,

and they landed in Northumbria with their ships,

and wasted the land and slew the people.

Then Hingwar turned eastward with his ships,

and Hubba was left in Northumbria,

having won the victory by means of cruelty.

Then Hingwar came rowing to East Anglia

in the year when Alfred the Ætheling was one and twenty years old,

he who afterward became the renowned king of the West-Saxons.

And the aforesaid Hingwar suddenly, like a wolf,

stalked over the land and slew the people,

men and women, and witless children,

and shamefully tormented the innocent Christians.

Then soon afterward he sent to the king

a threatening message, that he must bow down

to do him homage, if he recked of his life.

So the messenger came to king Edmund,

and speedily announced to him Hingwar's message.

'Hingwar our king, keen and victorious

by sea and by land, hath rule over many peoples,

'and has landed here suddenly even now with an army,

that he may take up his winter-quarters here with his host.

Now he commandeth thee to divide thy secret treasures

and thine ancestors' wealth quickly with him,

and thou shalt be his under-king, if thou desire to live,

because thou hast not the power that thou mayst withstand him.'

So then king Edmund called a bishop

who was handiest to him, and consulted with him

how he should answer the savage Hingwar.

Then the bishop feared for this terrible misfortune,

and for the king's life, and said that it seemed best to him

that he should submit to that which Hingwar bade him.

Then the king kept silence and looked on the ground,

and said to him at last even like a king;

' Behold, thou bishop, the poor people of this land

are brought to shame, and it were now dearer to me

that I should fall in fight against him who would possess

my people's inheritance.' And the bishop said,

' Alas, thou dear king thy people lie slain,

and thou hast not sufficient forces with which thou mayest fight,

and these seamen will come and will bind thee alive,

unless thou save thy life by means of flight,

or thus save thyself by yielding to him.'

Then said Edmund the king, full brave as he was;

' This I desire and wish in my mind,

that I should not be left alone after my dear thanes,

who even in their beds, with their bairns and their wives,

have by these seamen been suddenly slain.

It was never my custom to take to flight,

but I would rather die, if I must,

for my own land; and almighty God knoweth

that I will never turn aside from His worship,

nor from His true love, whether I die or live.

After these words he turned to the messenger

whom Hingwar had sent to him, and said to him undismayed:

'Verily thou wouldest now be worthy of death,

but I will not defile my clean hands

with thy foul blood, because I follow Christ,

who hath so given us an example, and I will blithely

be slain by you, if God hath so ordained.

Depart now very quickly, and say to thy cruel lord;

Edmund the king will never bow in life to Hingwar

the heathen leader, unless he will first bow,

in this land, to Jesus Christ with faith.'

Then went the messenger quickly away,

and met on the way the bloodthirsty Hingwar

with all his army hurrying to Edmund,

and told that wicked man how he was answered.

Hingwar then arrogantly commanded his troops

that they should, all of them, take the king alone,

who had despised his command, and instantly bind him.

Then Edmund the king, when Hingwar came,

stood within his hall mindful of the Saviour,

and threw away his weapons, desiring to imitate

Christ's example, who forbade Peter

to fight with weapons against the bloodthirsty Jews.

Then those wicked men bound Edmund,

and shamefully insulted him, and beat him with clubs,

and afterward they led the faithful king

to an earth-fast tree, and tied him thereto

With hard bonds, and afterwards scourged him

a long while with whips, and ever he called,

between the blows, with true faith,

on Jesus Christ; and then the heathen

because of his faith were madly angry,

because he called upon Christ to help him.

They shot at him with javelins as if for their amusement,

until he was all beset with their shots,

as with a porcupine's bristles, even as Sebastian was.

"When Hingwar, the wicked seaman,

saw that the noble king would not deny Christ,

but with steadfast faith ever called upon Him,

then he commanded men to behead him, and the heathen did so.

For while he was yet calling upon Christ,

the heathen drew away the saint, to slay him,

and with one blow struck off his head;

and his soul departed joyfully to Christ.

There was a certain man at hand, kept by God

hidden from the heathen, who heard all this,

and told it afterward even as we tell it here.

So then the seamen went again to ship,

and hid the head of the holy Edmund

in the thick brambles, that it might not be buried.

Then after a space, after they were gone away,

came the country-folk, who were still left there,

to where their lord's body lay without the head,

and were very sore at heart because of his murder,

and chiefly because they had not the head with the body.

Then said the spectator who previously beheld it

that the seamen had taken the head with them,

and it seemed to him, even as it was quite true,

that they had hidden the head in the wood somewhere about.

Then they all went seeking at last in the wood.

seeking everywhere among the thorns and brambles

if they might anywhere find the head.

There was eke a great wonder, that a wolf was sent,

by God's direction, to guard the head

against the other animals by day and night.

They went on seeking and always crying out,

as is often the wont of those who go through woods;

'Where art thou now, comrade? ' (And the head answered them,

'Here, here, here.' And so it cried out continually,

answering them all, as oft as any of them cried,

until they all came to it by means of those cries.

There lay the gray wolf who guarded the head,

and with his two feet had embraced the head,

greedy and hungry, and for God's care durst not

taste the head, but kept it against (other) animals.

Then they were astonished at the wolf's guardianship,

and carried the holy head home with them,

thanking the Almighty for all His wonders;

but the wolf followed forth with the head

until they came to the town, as if he were tame,

and then turned back again unto the wood.

Then the country-people afterward laid the head

by the holy body, and buried him

as they best might in such haste,

and full soon built a church over him

Then again, after a space, after many years,

when the harrying had ceased, and peace was restored

to the oppressed people, then they came together,

and built a church worthily to the saint,

because that frequently miracles were done at his burial-place,

even at the bede-house where he was buried.

Then desired they to carry the holy body

with popular honour, and to lay it within the church.

Then there was a great wonder, that he was all as whole

as if he were alive, with clean body, '

and his neck was healed which before was cut through,

and there was as it were a silken thread about his neck, all red,

as if to show men how he was slain.

Also the wounds, which the bloodthirsty heathen

had made in his body by their repeated shots,

were healed by the heavenly God;

and so he lieth uncorrupt until this present day,

awaiting the resurrection and the eternal glory.

His body showeth us, which lieth undecayed,

that he lived without fornication here in this world,

and by a pure life passed to Christ.

A certain widow who was called Oswyn

dwelt near the saint's burial-place in prayers

and fastings for many years after.

She would every year cut the hair of the saint,

and cut his nails soberly and lovingly,

and keep them in a shrine as relics on the altar.

So the people of the land faithfully venerated the saint;

and bishop Theodred exceedingly [enriched the church]

with gifts in gold and silver, in the saint's honour.

Then once upon a time came some unblessed thieves,

eight in one night, to the venerable saint,

desiring to steal the treasures which people had brought thither,

and tried how they might get in by craft.

One struck at the hasp violently with a hammer;

one of them filed about it with a file;

one dug under the door with a spade;

one of them by a ladder wished to unlock the window:

but they toiled in vain, and fared miserably,

because the holy man wondrously bound them,

each as he stood, toiling with his implement,

so that none of them could do that evil deed,

nor stir thence; but they stood there till morning.

Then men wondered to see how the wretches hung there,

one on a ladder, one bent down to his digging,

and each was fast bound in his own work.

Then they were all brought to the bishop,

and he commanded men to hang them all on a high gallows;

but he was not mindful how the merciful God

spake through His prophet the words which here stand;

Eos qui ducuntur ad mortem eruere ne cesses

those who are led to death deliver thou alway.

And also the holy canons forbid clerics,

both bishops and priests, to be concerned about thieves,

because it becometh not them that are chosen

to serve God, that they should consent

to any man's death, if they be the Lord's servants.

Then Theodred the bishop, after he had searched his books,

rued with lamentation that he had awarded such a cruel doom

to these unhappy thieves, and ever deplored it

to his life's end; and earnestly prayed the people

to fast with him fully three days,

praying the Almighty that He would have pity upon him.

⁠In that land was a certain man called Leofstan,

rich in worldly things, and ignorant towards God,

who rode with great insolence to the saint's shrine,

and very arrogantly commanded them to show him

the holy saint, (to see) whether he were incorrupt;

but as soon as he saw the saint's body,

then he straightway raved and roared horribly,

and miserably ended by an evil death.

This is like that which the orthodox pope,

Gregory by name, said in his writing

concerning the holy Lawrence who lieth in the city of Rome,

that men were always wishing to see how he lay,

both good and evil, but God checked them,

so that there died in the looking all at once

seven men together; so the others desisted

from looking at the martyr with human error.

We have heard of many wonders in the popular talk

about the holy Edmund which we will not here

set down in writing; but every one knoweth them.

By this saint is it manifest and by others like him,

that Almighty God can raise man

again, in the day of judgement, incorruptible from the earth,

He who preserveth Edmund whole in his body

until the great day, though he was made of earth.

Worthy is the place for the sake of the venerable saint

that men should venerate it, and well provide it

with God's pure servants, to Christ's service,

because the saint is greater than men may imagine.

The English nation is not deprived of the Lord's saints,

since in English land lie such saints

as this holy king, and the blessed Cuthbert,

and saint Æthelthryth in Ely, and also her sister,

incorrupt in body, for the confirmation of the faith.

There are also many other saints among the English,

who work many miracles, as is widely known,

to the praise of the Almighty in whom they believed.

Christ showeth to men, through His illustrious saints,

that He is Almighty God who causeth such wonders,

though the miserable Jews altogether denied Him,

because they are accursed, as they desired for themselves.

There are no wonders wrought at their sepulchres,

because they believe not in the living Christ;

but Christ manifesteth to men where the true faith is,

since He worketh such miracles by His saints

widely throughout the earth, wherefore to Him be glory

ever with His Heavenly Father, and with the Holy Ghost, for

ever and ever. Amen.