her election. Being a shining light, therefore, in lineage, in letters,
and in parts, and guiding the people with the most fruitful labours of
thy teaching, thou hast won the deepest love of thy flock, and by thy
boldness in thy famous administration hast conducted the service thou
hast undertaken unto the summit of renown. And lest thou shouldst seem
to acquire ownership on the strength of prescription, thou hast, by
a pious and bountiful will, made over a very rich inheritance to Holy
Church; choosing rather honourably to reject riches (which are covered
with the rust of cares) than to be shackled with the greed of them and
with their burden. Likewise thou hast set about an amazing work upon
the reverend tenets of the faith; and in thy zeal to set the service of
public religion before thy private concerns, hast, by the lesson of thy
wholesome admonitions, driven those men who refused payment of the dues
belonging to religion to do to holy things the homage that they ought;
and by thy pious gift of treasure hast atoned for the ancient neglect of
sacred buildings. Further, those who pursued a wanton life, and yielded
to the stress of incontinence above measure, thou hast redeemed from
nerveless sloth to a more upright state of mind, partly by continuing
instant in wholesome reproof, and partly by the noble example of simple
living; leaving it in doubt whether thou hast edified them more by word
or deed. Thus thou, by mere counsels of wisdom, hast achieved what it
was not granted to any of thy forerunners to obtain.

And I would not have it forgotten that the more ancient of the Danes,
when any notable deeds of mettle had been done, were filled with
emulation of glory, and imitated the Roman style; not only by relating
in a choice kind of composition, which might be called a poetical work,
the roll of their lordly deeds; but also by having graven upon rocks
and cliffs, in the characters of their own language, the works of their
forefathers, which were commonly known in poems in the mother tongue.