Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/235

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arms and hands were cut off, and set up as trophies, but were afterwards kept as holy relics, the hands at Bamborough, while one arm was for a time at Peterborough. The head was at Bamborough, and later at Lindisfarne in St. Cuthbert's Cathedral, where the monks placed it in St. Cuthbert's coffin. He had died in 687, and this coffin, when the Danes pillaged the cathedral, was taken away by the monks to Cumberland and carried by them from place to place in their flight, according to St. Cuthbert's dying wish; and from 690 to 998, when it finally rested in the cathedral, it was kept in the coffin which is now in Durham Library. For 100 years, 783 to 893, it rested at Chester, and then passed to Ripon, and so to Durham, where it was enshrined and visited by hundreds of pilgrims. The marks of their feet are plain to see still. In 1104 the coffin was opened, and St. Oswald's head seen in it. In 1542 the shrine being defaced, the body was buried beneath the pavement. In 1826 it was again opened, and some relics then taken out are now in the Cathedral Library—a ring, a cup and patten, the latter about six inches square, of oak with a thin plate of silver over it, and a stole. This was beautifully worked by the nuns at Winchester 1,000 years ago, and intended for Wulfstan, but on his death given by them to King Athelstan, and by him to St. Cuthbert's followers.

The late Dean Kitchin described to me how, in company with a Roman Catholic bishop and a medical man, he had opened what was supposed to be St. Cuthbert's tomb about the beginning of this century. The old chronicler had related how he was slain in battle, how the body was hastily covered with sand and afterwards taken up, and for fear of desecration was carried about by the monks whithersoever they went, until at last it was laid in a tomb, and a shrine built over it in Durham Cathedral. He also said that the saint suffered from a tumour in the breast, the result of the plague in 661, which latterly had got better. It was known where the shrine was and the reputed tomb was close by. The tomb slab was removed; beneath it were bones enough to form the greater part of one skeleton, and there were two skulls. "What do you think of that?" asked the dean; the bishop at once replied "St. Oswald's head." The doctor then said, "This body has never been buried." "How do you make that out?" "Because the skin has not decayed but dried on