Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/322

 294 Three Lives of Saints :

Their limbs began to grow straight : and whole became anon There was joy and bliss enough : among these men each one.

(6) His step-mother, who had caused the murder, was going to seek forgiveness at the new shrine :

As she would thitherward wend : and with her many a one

They might not make her happy : that it {i.e. her horse) one foot

would go. They shoved it fast forward and dragged : and never the better it

was. The Queen thought on her misdeed : that all therefore it was. She lighted from her palfrey : and wished to go afoot Towards that holy body : but she had power none Backward she might well go : but forward for nothing. She ceased, when there was no other way : in great dole and

mourning.

(7) In the Abbey of Shaftesbury.

In this Abbey St. Edward : lay one and twenty year So that they saw tokening oft : that he would no longer be there For when men came oft to his tomb : as lightly they bore it up And heaved it up and down as they would : as though it of light wood were.

(8) A vision.

St. Edward came also anight : as in a vision To a holy man that there was nigh : in another religion, ^'Go," he said, " to Shaftesbury : to the Abbess of the house Dame Aldred that clean Maid : that is God's spouse And say to her that I will no more : lie where I now do : That I be brought to another place : and that she tell my brother so."

(9) The Bishop, with a procession,

to his tomb they went. A fair Miracle among them all : our Lord for him there sent. For anon as they opened that lid : of his sweet tomb there There came adown through all the church : as though it a mist were