took the king's right hand with much joy,
and cried out with faith, thus saying to him;
'May this blessed right hand never rot in corruption.'
And it happened to him, even as Aldan prayed for him,
that his right hand is sound until this day.
'Then Oswald's kingdom became greatly enlarged,
so that four peoples received him as lord,
Picts, Britons, Scots, and Angles,
even as the Almighty God united them for the purpose,
because of Oswald's merits, who ever honoured Him.
He completed in York the noble minster
which his kinsman Edwin had before begun,
and laboured for the heavenly kingdom with continual prayers,
much more than he cared how he might preserve
the transitory dignities in the world, which he little loved.
He would very often pray after matins,
and stand in the church apart in prayer
from the time of sun-rise with great fervour;
and wheresoever he was he ever worshipped God
with the palms of his hands uplifted heavenward,.
At that same time also a certain bishop
came from the city of Rome, called Birinus,
to the king of the West Saxons, called Cynegils,
who was yet a heathen, as was all the land of the "West Saxons.
Birinus indeed came from Rome
by desire of the Pope, who was then in Rome,
and promised that he would execute God's will
and preach to the heathen the Saviour's name
and the true faith in far lands.
Then he came to Wessex, which was as yet heathen,
and converted to God the king Cynegils
