Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/325

 Athanasius then  speedily  took

a great  bowl,  filled  with  a  noxious  draught,

and dedicated  all  that  drink  to  the  devils,

and gave  it  him  to  drink,  but  it  hurt  him  not.

Then said  again  the  magician,  'Yet  one  thing  will  I  do,

and if  that  hurt  him  not,  I  will  submit  to  Christ.'

He took  then  a  cup,  with  a  death-bearing  drink,

and cried  aloud  to  the  black  devils,

and to  the  foremost  devils,  and  to  the  most  powerful,

and in  their  names  enchanted  the  fearful  drink,

and gave  it  to  the  Lord's  saint  to  drink;

but the  fiendish  liquor  harmed  him  not  a  whit.

Then the  sorcerer  saw  that  he  could  not  hurt  him,

and fell  at  his  feet,  praying  for  baptism;

and the  holy  George  straightway  baptised  him.

Then Datian  became  fiendishly  angry,

and bade  seize  on  the  sorcerer,  who  had  there  believed  in  God,

and bring  him  out  of  the  city,  and  instantly  behead  him.

Again on  the  second  day  the  wicked  emperor  commanded

George to  be  bound  on  a  broad  wheel,

and two  sharp  swords  to  be  set  against  him,

and so  to  be  drawn  up,  and  shoved  backwards.

Then George  commended  himself  boldly  to  God;

Deus  in   adiutorium  meum  intende;   domine,  ad   adiuuandum me  festina.

'Give  heed,  O    God,  to    deliver  me,    make   haste   now  to   help me,  O  Lord'  [Ps. lxx. i].

and he  was  then  brought  with  this  prayer  to  the  wheel,

Then the  heathen  men  turned  the  wheel  savagely,

but it  instantly  burst  asunder,  and  bent  to  the  earth,

and the  holy  man  remained  uninjured.

Datian then  became  sad  in  his  mind,