committing all those horrors which made the Norsemen terrible and
infamous for so many years. Then the monks fled from the monastery,
bearing the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and all their treasures, and
followed by their retainers, men, women, and children, and their
sheep and oxen: and behold! the hour of their flight was that of an
exceedingly high spring tide. The Danes were landing from their
ships in their rear; in their front was some two miles of sea.
Escape seemed hopeless; when, says the legend, the water retreated
before the holy relics as they advanced; and became, as to the
children of Israel of old, a wall on their right hand and on their
left; and so St. Cuthbert came safe to shore, and wandered in the
woods, borne upon his servants' shoulders, and dwelling in tents for
seven years, and found rest at last in Durham, till at the
Reformation his shrine, and that of the Venerable Bede, were robbed
of their gold and jewels; and no trace of them (as far as I know) is
left, save that huge slab, whereon is written the monkish rhyme:--


Hic jacet in fossa
Bedae Venerabilis ossa. {299}



ST. GUTHLAC



Hermits dwelling in the wilderness, as far as I am aware, were to be
seen only in the northern and western parts of the island, where not
only did the forest afford concealment, but the crags and caves