e Church's Festival. And he loved the Cross with a great and fervid
love.

The poem of his making tells us how the great army of the Huns and
Goths[E] came against Constantine; how the warriors marched on, having
raised the standard of war with shoutings and the clashing of shields.
Bright shone their darts and their coats of linked mail. The wolf in the
wood howled out the song of war; he kept not the secret of the
slaughter. The dewy-feathered eagle raised a song on the track of the
foe.

[Footnote E: This, of course, is unhistorical.]

The King of the Romans was sorrow-smitten when he saw the countless host
of the foreign men upon the river-bank. In his sleep that night came the
vision of one in the likeness of a man, white and bright of hue. The
messenger named him by his name. The helmet of night glided apart. The
behest was given to look up to Heaven to find help, a token of victory.
The Emperor's heart was opened and he looked up as the angel, the
lovely weaver of peace, had bidden him. Above the roof of clouds he saw
the Tree of Glory with its words of promise. The great battle came, when
the Holy Sign was borne forth. Loud sang the trumpets. The raven was
glad thereof, and the dewy-feathered eagle looked on at the march, and
the wolf lifted up his howling. The terror of war was there, the clash
of shields and the mingling of men, and the heavy sword-swing and the
felling of warriors.

When the standard was raised, the Holy Tree, the foe was scattered far
and wide. From break of day till eventide the flying foe was pursued;
his number was indeed made small. It was but a few of the best of the
Huns that went home again.

How the old fighting spirit delights in the "pomp and circumstance of
glorious war"! How it loves to have the clash of spear and shield strike
upon the ear, and to hear how the voice of the eagle and the raven, and
the howl of the wolf, proclaim the place of slaughter, the reek of
battle!

Cynewulf calls the angel who stood by Constantine in his vision a
"weaver of peace"; but the peace was to be woven after conflict, and the
wearer of the victor's palm had first to wield the fighter's sword.

When Constantine had learned about the Cross from the few Christians he
could find, he believed and was baptized, says the poet. (In reality his
baptism took place just before his death, several years later.)

The thought of the Tree was ever with Constantine, and when he had
returned he sent his