parts of England. There can
be no doubt that fairies and elves entered largely into the mythology of
the Anglo-Saxons, and the firmness of the beliefs in beings of that nature
can be easily understood when we realise that it required no fewer than
twelve centuries of Christianity to finally destroy them among the people
of Yorkshire. In Chapter XI. we see something of the form the beliefs and
superstitions had assumed at the time of their disappearance.

[Footnote 1: Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation,"
translated by Gidley, Rev. L., 1870, p. 152.]

In the seventh century most of the churches erected in Yorkshire were
probably of wood, but the example of King Edwin at York, who quickly
replaced the timber structure with a larger one of stone, must soon have
made itself felt in the country. Nothing, however, in the form of
buildings or inscribed stones for which we have any evidence for placing
at such an early date remains in the neighbourhood of Pickering, although
there are numerous crosses and traces of the masonry that may be termed
Saxon or Pre-Conquest.

[Illustration:
The early font in the Chapel of Ease at Levisham, that was serving only
recently as a cattle trough in a farmyard.
The BROKEN CROSS by the ruins of WYKEHAM ABBEY. Scarcely any traces of
carving are visible.
A carved cross built into the wall of the tower (interior) of
Middleton Church. The head is hidden in the angle of the wall.
]

The founding of a monastery at Lastingham is described by Bede, and with
the particulars he gives we can place the date between the years 653 and
655. Bishop Cedd was requested by King Oidilward, who held rule in the
parts of Deira, "to accept some possession of land of him to build a
monastery to which the king himself [AEthelwald] also might frequently come
to pray to the Lord, and to hear the Word, and in which he might be buried
when he died." Further on we are told that Cedd "assenting to the king's
wishes, chose for himself a place to build a monastery among lofty and
remote mountains, in which there appeared to have been more lurking places
of robbers and dens of wild beasts than habitations of men." This account
is of extreme interest, being the only contemporary description of this
part of Yorkshire known to us. "Moreover," says Bede, "the man of God,
studying first by prayers and fastings to purge the place he had received
for a monastery from its former filth of crimes,