“The Winchester monk himself seems to have crowed pretty loudly over it,” observed Mr. Hertford.
Æthelwold had the body of Birinus, which Hedda had buried simply and respectably, taken up and wrapped in sheets of silver and gold. He was also conveniently admonished by a dream to move the body of St. Swithun, and a curious Saxon account of this direction is extant.[64] The saint, in shining light and full canonicals, appeared to an old smith, and told him to send to Æthelwold to remove his bones.
“Oh! sire,” replied the smith, “he will not believe my word.”
“Then,” quoth the saint, “let him go to my burial-place and draw up a ring out of the coffin, and if the ring yields at the first tug then wot he of a truth that I sent thee to him.”
Miracles.
The smith was still afraid, but when the saint had appeared three times to him he went to the tomb and took hold of the ring, which came out of the stone at once. But it was some years after this, before the cures wrought led to Æthelwold’s translating the body. The bishop took it out of the “poor tomb,” where it had rested for 110 years, and had it placed in a sheet of gold. He made this translation the occasion for a great demonstration, by which a vast crowd of people was collected; and the relics which had produced nothing in the days of the secular canons, now, under the care of the monks became the source of countless miracles—not much to the credit of the latter custodians. Within the ten days succeeding its removal, two hundred persons were healed, and afterwards sometimes eighteen a day. The graveyard was so covered with the diseased lying about that it was almost impossible to reach the church.
“I should not have attempted it,” interposed Mr. Hertford.
“Well; it would have been worth seeing,” I replied, “for it was hung round from one end to the other with crutches and cripples’ stools, and even so they could not put half of them up.”
“It is difficult to suppose,” said Mr. Hertford, thoughtfully, “that all the money that was given for pretended miracles was paid for nothing. Persons whose constitutions or disorders were of a nervous character probably received some benefit. Their spirits would be raised by their anticipations and the brilliance of the scene. Some recovered from natural causes, and those who grew worse soon died, or were not inclined to be profane in their sufferings. You remember the remark of Diogenes?”
“I have read some things he said,” I returned, “and some attributed to him which he did not say.”