he held as a vassal of France. Henceforward he seems to
have observed good faith to Charlemagne, for his name now vanishes from
history, silence in this case being a pledge of honor and peacefulness.

But if history here lays him down, legend takes him up, and yields us a
number of stories concerning him not one of which has any evidence to
sustain it, but which are curious enough to be worth repeating. It gives
us, for instance, a far more romantic account of his conversion than
that above told. This relates that, in the Easter season of 785,--the
year of his conversion,--Wittekind stole into the French camp in the
garb of a minstrel or a mendicant, and, while cautiously traversing it,
bent on spying out its weaknesses, was attracted to a large tent within
which Charlemagne was attending the service of the mass. Led by an
irresistible impulse, the pagan entered the tent, and stood gazing in
spellbound wonder at the ceremony, marvelling what the strange and
impressive performance meant. As the priest elevated the host, the
chief, with astounded eyes, beheld in it the image of a child, of
dazzling and unearthly beauty. He could not conceal his surprise from
those around him, some of whom recognized in the seeming beggar the
great Saxon leader, and took him to the emperor. Wittekind told
Charlemagne of his vision, begged to be made a Christian, and brought
over many of his countrymen to the fold of the true church by the
shining example of his conversion.

Legend goes on to tell us that he became a Christian of such hot zeal
as to exact a bloody atonement from the Frisians for their murder of
Boniface and his fellow-priests a generation before. It further tells us
that he founded a church at Enger, in Westphalia, was murdered by
Gerold, Duke of Swabia, and was buried in the church he had founded, and
in which his tomb was long shown. In truth, the people came to honor him
as a saint, and though there is no record of his canonization, a saint's
day, January 7, is given him, and we are told of miracles performed at
his tomb.

So much for the dealings of Christian legend with this somewhat
unsaintly personage. Secular legend, for it is probably little more, has
contented itself with tracing his posterity, several families of Germany
deriving their descent from him, while he is held to have been the
ancestor of the imperial house of the Othos. Some French genealogists go
so far as to trace the descent of Hugh Capet to this