"O Winifred, this month agone dreamed I a dream, one that is sooth and no vanity. I dreamed that Sweyn, my lord and my love, stood before me, the rime in his hair, his feet bruised and bleeding, and beckoned me. So I know—ask me not how—that he is no longer on life, and that God in his goodness sendeth death to me also. But lo! another marvel. Each morn, as I awaken, I hear the ring of footsteps that come from a far frozen land. Each morn, I say, are these footsteps louder and nigher; but Sweyn comes not at all any more."
This was at the winter-tide. Early in the next summer, my good friend, she who had been of the household of Gytha, sent to let me wit that an holy priest and pilgrim was lately come from the East, bearing tidings which my lady should hear. To our house-door came he, and I led him within to my lady, where she lay. And this was his tale, told in few words:
"Good wives, as I journeyed hither from the Holy City, I traversed the land of Lycia, where they have a winter more bitter than any winter we English know. And one evening came one to our fellowship, saying that yonder, beneath the roof of an holy hermit, lay a man of the north, they thought of the Island of the Angles, sick unto death. I followed this Lycian, seeking my countryman, and found him, a mighty man aforetime, I ween, but now so wasted with his wanderings that he seemed to have no flesh, but only skin and bone. And when I would shrive and housel him, thus he spake: 'Priest, know that I am Sweyn the Nithing, first-born son of Earl Godwin, and whilom Earl in fair England, from Hereford even unto Oxenford! Woe for the sins of unbridled youth! I have profaned the Holy Church of Christ, and have wrought murder, even upon my kinsman, when the red wrath boiled in my blood—aye, and the guilt of mine own father's death is also upon me, most wretched! Since these things done have I known no peace until this hour, wherein I leave my life.'
"Soon after died he of the cold."
Now about an hour after this pilgrim had given over speaking, Algive Aldred's daughter went forth from the bitterness of the world to the unbounded mercy of God.
As for Haco Sweynson, he fell fighting by King Harold upon Senlac field.
And I, Winifred, daughter of Ebba, yet live on, and pray in each hour to Our Lord Christ and to Mary mild, His Mother, that the souls of these twain, Sweyn and Algive, may be cleansed of every foul stain. For though their sins were many and great, yet scorned they none, nor lied, nor ever betrayed any but themselves, neither ground down the needy when that might was theirs; and verily and indeed they loved much; and I, who have sinned my share, God wot! do faithfully hope to meet them both again ere long in the fair, shining meads of Paradise.
Edith's Well
"Sicut spina rosam genuit Goduinus Edivam."