These scenes—beginning on the left hand as you face the screen—are as follows:—
1. The nobles swearing to be loyal to Queen Emma, widow of Ethelred the Unready, and mother of the Confessor.
2. Edward’s birth at Islip in Oxfordshire.
3. Edward’s Coronation at Winchester. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are represented standing on either side of the King.
4. The abolition of the Danegelt, or tax which Ethelred had made the people pay in order to bribe the Danes to leave England. The carving represents an old story which says that the Confessor saw a demon dancing on the casks which held the money, and so he at once did away with the tax.
5. This is a very curious story. A scullion, thinking that the King was asleep, came into his room no less than three times to steal money out of the treasure-chest. The third time the King startled him very much by speaking. He did not scold him, however, but told him to make haste and get away before Hugolin the Treasurer came. When Hugolin did come, he was very angry with the King for letting the thief get off, but Edward was very merciful, and perhaps remembered that it is sometimes a great temptation to be very poor.
6. This picture shows the King kneeling in the old church at Thorney, where he is said to have had a vision of our Lord, who appeared to him as a child.
7. This represents a very curious, almost funny, story. One Whitsunday, when the King was at church, his courtiers saw him laugh, just at a very solemn part of the service too. They asked him afterwards why he had behaved in such a strange way. He answered that he had seen the Danes and Norwegians preparing to come and attack England, but as the Danish King was going on board his ship he fell into the sea and was drowned. This was what had made Edward laugh.
8. This represents a quarrel between Harold and Tosti, sons of Earl Godwin, and brothers-in-law of the Confessor.
9. This is a vision, in which the Confessor saw that the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus had all turned over from their right side to their left. This meant that dreadful troubles and disasters were to come upon the world for seventy years.