case claiming
a spiritual sanction--another branch of the same Scandinavian stock
succeeded to the Dane, viz. the only one then Christianised, the Norman.
In that seventh century how little could Saxon convert or Irish
missionary have foreseen that the destinies of their respective
countries should be at once so unlike yet so like, so antagonistic yet
so interwoven!

The aim of the 'Legends of Saxon Saints,' as the reader will perhaps
have inferred from the preceding remarks, is to illustrate England, her
different races and predominant characteristics, during the century of
her conversion to Christianity, and in doing this to indicate what
circumstances had proved favourable or unfavourable to the reception of
the Faith. It became desirable thus to revert to the early emigration of
that 'Barbaric' race of which the Anglo-Saxon was a scion, making the
shadow of Odin pass in succession over the background of the several
pictures presented (the Heroic being thus the unconscious precursor of
the Spiritual), and to show how the religion which bore his name was
fitted at once to predispose its nobler votaries to Christianity and to
infuriate against it those who but valued their faith for what it
contained of degenerate. It seemed also expedient to select for
treatment not only those records most abounding in the picturesque and
poetic, but likewise others useful as illustrating the chief
representatives of a many-sided society; the pagan king and the British
warrior, the bard of Odin and the prophetess of Odin, the Gaelic
missionary and the Roman missionary, the poet and the historian of
Anglo-Saxon Christianity. In a few instances, as in the tales of Oswald
and of Oswy, where the early chronicle was copious in detail, it has
been followed somewhat closely; but more often, where the original
record was brief, all except the fundamental facts had to be supplied.
On these occasions I found encouragement in the remark of a writer at
once deep and refined. 'Stories to be versified should not be already
nearly complete, having the beauty in themselves, and gaining from the
poet but a garb. They should be rough, and with but a latent beauty. The
poet should have to supply the features and limbs as well as the
dress.'[22]

Bede has been my guide. His records are, indeed, often 'rough,' as rough
as the crab-tree, but, at the same time, as fresh as its blossom. Their
brief touches reveal all the passions of the Barbaric races;