ose who owned them now would suffer me to
see that the grave where he lay was honoured, rather than as a
matter which at all concerned me in any closer way.

For, since I was but a child, the court had been my home, with Owen
as my father, and Ina the king as the loved guardian for whom I
would gladly give my life in need. All my training and thoughts
were centred here, not as what one calls a courtier at all, but as
one of the household who feared the king and queen no more than
Owen himself, and yet reverenced all three as those to whom all
homage was due since he could remember.

Thus things were with us at the end of the tenth year after we left
Aldhelm at Malmesbury, and now the court was at Glastonbury in fair
Somerset, keeping the Christmastide there in the place that is the
holiest in all England by reason of the coming thither of Joseph of
Arimathea, and the first preaching of the Gospel in our land by
him. It was not by any means the first time I had been in the
place, and here I had some good friends indeed; for Ina loved the
vale of Avalon well, and often came hither with a few of us, or
with the whole court, to the house which he had made that he might
watch the building of the wondrous church which he was raising over
the very spot where the little chapel of the saint had been in the
old days.

Fair is the place indeed, for it lies deep among green hills, and
from the westward slope where the church stands, at their foot
stretch great meres to lesser hills toward the sunset beyond. Very
pleasant are the trees and flowers of the rich meadows of the
island valley, and the wind comes but gently here even at Yuletide,
hardly ruffling the clear waters that have given the place its
name, "Inys Vitryn," and "Avalon" men called the place before we
Saxons came, by reason of those still meres and the wondrous
orchards which fear no frost among the hills that shelter them. The
summer seems to linger here after it has fled from the uplands.

There was a goodly company gathered in Ina's hall for the twelfth
night feasting. Truly, the hall was not so great as that in the
palace at Winchester, but it was all the brighter for that reason.
It was hard to get that great space well lighted and warmed at
times, when the wind blew cold under eaves and through narrow
windows; but here all was well lit and comfortable to look on and
to feel also, as one sat and feasted with the sweet sedges of the
mere banks deep under foo