One day when she came to confess she said to him—"Holy father, I have fallen into grievous sin; I have made the probationary vow of abstraction from the world and of devotion to the sole service of God." "That is well, my daughter," said Aelred; "persevere in that resolution, and God will bless you both now and for ever." "But, father," she continued, "I have suffered a fearful lapse; I have looked back upon the world, and have almost regretted having taken the vows." "Backsliding," said Aelred in reply, "is, as you term it, a grievous sin; but it is remediable by prayer, penitence, and fasting. But tell me more in detail the evil thoughts which have assailed your soul." "I almost fear to tell you," she answered. "Then can I not advise you in the matter excepting in general terms. Confide in me; it is but speaking to God through me, and he will inspire me with words of remedial comfort; otherwise I cannot grant absolution."
Thus urged, she stated that previously to entering the convent she scarcely knew what the passion of love meant, but since then it had sprung up in her heart with a vehemence that it seemed to be impossible to suppress. She had seen one since she came into the valley, a pious and godly man, who had at the first sight animated her breast with the passion in so intense a degree that it glowed and raged within her like a furnace. The holy man at once concluded that he himself was the person she referred to, and he felt his heart beating wildly with an hitherto unexperienced emotion, and at the same time his brow became bedewed with perspiration, caused by an apprehensive terror of the dangerous position in which he found himself placed. He stood silent and almost paralysed, looking down upon her with fearful forebodings as to what she would confess further, when she, wondering at his silence, cast a furtive glance upward from her hitherto downcast eyes. Everyone knows that there is wondrous eloquence in the glance of a female eye, and as her's met his, he felt at once that it meant impassioned love—lawless love, and it stirred up within his disordered mind all the narrow bigotry of his sentiments in respect to sexual love. He still stood silently gazing upon her, when all at once a fearful idea flashed across his mind, which caused him to pass at once from a person of slightly distempered intellect into a perfect madman. The idea was that the girl before him was none other than Satan himself, who, not having been able to tempt him to sin by means of his imps in their repulsive demoniac forms, had assumed the semblance of a lovely virgin to allure him to carnal sin. Rising up to his full height, with eyeballs glaring and features distorted with indignant rage, he cried, "Satan, I know thee, and I defy thee; but no more shalt thou tempt man in that shape at least," and with that he dealt her a violent blow, and she fell senseless on the floor. "Ah!" cried he, "thou hast found thy match in me, but my work is not yet completed; thy head shall be placed aloft as a warning to others," and with that he procured a knife and severed her head from her body, which he then took out and fixed on the trunk of a yew tree, just where it begins to ramify, and when that was completed he rushed up the mountain with wild shouts of triumph and maniacal gesticulations.
The young novice not returning to the convent, search was made for her, and her headless body was discovered in the chapel, lying in a pool of blood, but it was not until the following day that the head was found fixed in the yew tree. On attempting to remove it, it was found that the long hair had taken root in the tree trunk, and was spreading downwards in thin filaments, and as this was looked on as a miracle, it was left there. Suspicion of the murder attached itself to the hermit-priest, and as he had been seen going up the mountain in a distraught state of mind, search was made for him in that direction, and his body was found at the foot of a precipice down which he had fallen, but whether through accident or for the purpose of suicide could never be known.
Camden says—"Her head was hung upon an ew-tree, where it was reputed holy by the vulgar, till quite rotten, and was visited in pilgrimage by them, every one picking off a branch of the tree as a holy relique. By this means the tree became at last a mere trunk, but still retained its reputation of sanctity among the people, who believed that those little veins, which are spread out like hair in the rind between the bark and the body of the tree, were indeed the very hair of the virgin. This occasioned such resort of pilgrims to it that Horton, from a little village grew up to a large town, assuming the name of Halig-fax, or Halifax, which signifies holy hair."
[The Dead Arm of St. Oswald the King.]
The Anglian kingdom of Northumbria, of which York was the capital, presented in the seventh century one almost continuous series of battles and murders, massacres of the people, and desolation of the land. Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, founder of the kingdom of Bernicia, and Eadwine, son of Ælla, founder of that of Deira, succeeded their fathers in their respective kingdoms about the same time; but the former, who had married Acca, Eadwine's sister, usurped his brother-in-law's throne and drove him into exile, who afterwards, by the assistance of Redwald, King of the East Angles, in the year 617, defeated and slew Ethelfrid in battle, and became King of Northumbria and eighth Bretwalda, or paramount monarch of Britain. He was converted to Christianity, and Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, in order to extirpate the heretical religion, invaded Northumbria, and defeated Eadwine at Hethfield, who was slain in the fight. This happened in 633, and Penda then went into East Anglia on the same mission, leaving Cadwalla, a Welsh Prince, his ally, although a Christian, as Governor of Northumbria, who made York his headquarters, and ruled the people, especially those who had embraced Christianity and were the most devoted adherents of the family of Eadwine, with the most ruthless barbarity. On the death of Ethelfrid, his sons, Eanfrid and Oswald, fled into Scotland along with Osric, son of Ælfrid, King Eadwine's uncle, where they had been converted to Christianity under the teaching of the monks of Iona, or, as Speed puts it, "had bin secured in Scotland all his (Eadwine's) reigne, and among the Red-shanks liued as banished men, where they learned the true Religion of Christ, and had receiued the lauer of Baptisme." On hearing of the death of Eadwine, they returned to Northumbria, were welcomed by the people, and assumed the crowns—Osric of Deira, and Eanfrid of Bernicia. Cadwalla was still, however, potent in Northumbria, holding York and tyrannising over the people, and they were scarcely seated on their thrones when he slew Osric in battle, and caused Eanfrid to be put to death when he came before him to sue for peace. Seeing that Christianity was almost extinct in the land, the people having reverted to the old faith, they both deemed it expedient to renounce Christianity and restore the worship of Woden, respecting which Bede says, "To this day that year (the year during which they reigned) is looked upon as unhappy and hateful to all good men; as well on account of the apostasy of the English Kings, who had renounced the faith, as of the outrageous tyranny of the British King. Hence it has been agreed by all who have written about the reigns of the Kings to abolish the memory of these perfidious Monarchs, and to assign that year to the reign of the following King, Oswald, a man beloved of God."