¹ Blessed Oswin was sprung of the most illustrious stock of the ancient kings of the English. After the death of Edwin king of the Northumbrians, when his first successors — namely Osric king of Deira and Eanfrid of Bernicia — had apostatised and been destroyed by the just judgement of God at the hands of Cadwalla king of the Britons, Osric’s son Oswin, lest he be slain by Cadwalla, was for no small time an exile among the West Saxons; and the kingdom of Deira and Bernicia was obtained by Oswald, King Edwin’s nephew begotten of his sister Acca. When he had at last been martyred by the pagans, his brother Oswy succeeded, and reigned laboriously for twenty-eight years. Oswin then in exile — namely Osric’s son — hearing that on Oswald’s death Oswy reigned in his brother’s stead, took counsel with his own men, returned to the kingdom of Deira, was joyfully received by all the people, and, none contradicting, was raised to the throne in the year of the Lord six hundred and forty-two; and he presided over the province of Deira for nine years in the greatest abundance of all things, himself beloved by all. For he was an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, a staff to the trembling, a kind father of orphans and widows and all the needy. He kindly received the poor and especially pilgrims, fed the hungry, clothed the naked: and cheerfully bestowed his benefits on all who asked them.

² While the man of God was thus busied with works of piety, the enemy of man’s salvation stirred up Oswy, king of the Bernicians, more and more against him, and inflamed him until, their armies gathered, they met for battle at the place called Wilfaresdun. But the most pious King Oswin, seeing his men, though far fewer, eager to contend with the enemy and ready to die for their king, said to them: “I rejoice, O princes and faithful soldiers, in your valour and soldiership, and I thank your good will. But far be it from me that you should all incur the hazard of war for my sake alone, who, though by right your lord, yet made me, a poor exile, your king. I prefer therefore to go into exile alone with a few — or rather I choose to die — than that you should in any way be brought into peril for my sake alone. For he is impious and inhuman who, though he can in no way avert the judgement of God, yet tries to destroy many for his own sake. And so, willingly embracing the divine sentence upon me in peace, not by waging war — especially since I recognise through the mouth of St Aidan that I shall pass to the joys of the heavenly kingdom by the palm of martyrdom — I do not refuse to end this temporal life in such order and at such time as Christ shall will.” This said, he sent his army home, and with a single soldier named Tondhere withdrew to Gilling, into the house of Count Hunewald, to whom he had given that vill and many estates.

³ But Hunewald brought him into a chamber as though he would dwell there more fittingly, and setting the fear of God aside, the traitor informed the king of the Bernicians, that he might deliver King Oswin to him to be slaughtered. For King Oswy, hearing this, sent there Ethelwin, the steward of his house, and commanded him to slay King Oswin. When he had arrived and Oswin had been delivered to him by Hunewald, the king said: “Since I have been wickedly betrayed and ordered by you to be slain though innocent, I beg that you suffer this soldier to depart freely, nor make him suffer death for my sake.” But the soldier chose rather to sink beneath death than to survive his dead lord, even had the choice been given him. So King Oswin together with his soldier received the sentence of death, and, his blood poured out, they obtained an everlasting mansion in heaven, on the twentieth day of August, in the ninth year of his reign.

⁴ Now King Oswin was both comely of aspect and lofty of stature, pleasant of speech, courteous in manners, and open-handed to all, noble and ignoble alike. And so for the royal dignity of his spirit and countenance and merits he was loved by all, and from nearly every province even noble men flocked to his service from all sides. Now King Oswin had given his best horse to Bishop Aidan, because the bishop was wont to journey on foot rather than be carried on horseback. Who soon after, having nothing else at hand, gave that horse to a certain poor man asking alms. When the king learned this, greatly indignant he said to Bishop Aidan as he sat with him at table: “What have you done, lord bishop? Had we not meaner horses which would have sufficed for alms?” To whom the bishop: “What do you say, lord king? Shall the son of a mare be dearer to you than the son of Mary?” At once the king, falling prostrate at the bishop’s feet, asked pardon, faithfully promising that he would never again murmur at whatever of his goods he might bestow on the sons of God. While then they sat at table together pacified, the bishop was suddenly dissolved in tears. And when the bystanders asked the reason of this, the prelate said: “This king will not long live: never before have I seen a humble king, nor is this wicked people worthy to have such a king for long.” And so it came to pass that soon after he was slain, as has been said, in the year of the Lord six hundred and fifty-one and the ninth of his reign. And Bishop Aidan himself survived the king’s slaying only twelve days.

⁵ At Gilling, now called Gilling, not far from the city of Richmond, Queen Eanfled, King Oswy’s wife and King Oswin’s kinswoman, in expiation of his murder — leave having been obtained from King Oswy — built a monastery, in which prayers might daily be offered to the Lord without ceasing for the salvation both of the slain king’s soul and of his who had commanded the slaying; and she appointed as abbot a certain devout man named Trumhere, an Englishman by nation, ordained and taught among the Scots, a kinsman of the slain king. He was afterwards made bishop in the province of the Mercians and Middle Angles under Wulfhere king of the Mercians, and converted a multitude of the heathen to the faith.

⁶ Now the holy king’s body was carried by those who had slain him to the mouth of the river Tyne towards the north, and buried in the oratory of St Mary the Virgin, where a multitude of monks gathered together served God continually. And that place grew to so great an eminence of honour that, for reverence of the place and its religion, the bodies of the dead were brought from the whole province to be buried there.

⁷ Many years after this, Ingwar and Ubba, sons of iniquity, princes of the Danes, landing at the mouth of the river Tyne, wasted that monastery and the whole region round with a grievous devastation, burnt the monks in a certain little church dedicated to the honour of all the saints by St Cuthbert, and levelled all the monastery’s buildings to the ground.

⁸ Now in the year of grace one thousand one hundred and ten, when a certain monk named Edmund, the sacrist of the place, had on a certain night after prayers poured out as usual been weighed down with sleep, there appeared to him one hoary with age, comely of countenance, tall of stature, pleasant and kindly of speech. And as he gazed upon him intently and dared not ask who he was, he who appeared to him said: “Edmund, brother Edmund.” And he, made more assured, said: “Who are you, lord?” “I am,” he said, “Oswin the king, who, wickedly betrayed by Count Hunewald and slain by King Oswy with detestable death, lie buried unknown to all in this church. Arise and tell Bishop Egelwin that he should raise my body and not delay to place it in a more fitting spot.” And when he had reported this to the bishop and the bishop had raised the holy body from the earth, there issued so great a fragrance of odour that all kinds of spices seemed to be poured forth, and all who were present were filled with an inestimable sweetness. And so his sacred body was laid up with honour in the northern part of the oratory.

⁹ Judith, the wife of Earl Tostig, with great entreaty obtained a portion of the holy martyr’s relics, and received part of the hair of the saint’s head. And she wished to prove the hairs by the burning of fire — not that she distrusted the saint’s merits in anything, but that she might thereby extol the martyr’s merit on all sides. So a copious fire being kindled and the hairs cast in, after the space of one hour the hair remained wholly untouched and unburnt by the fire.

¹⁰ When a certain vain and slippery priest, Earl Tostig’s counsellor, the lodgings all around being occupied, had ordered his bed to be prepared in the church, he caused a harlot to be secretly brought in to him. And when he wished to perpetrate the iniquity with her, the whole fabric of the church began to be shaken with a sudden motion from top to bottom, as though by blasts of winds driving the church walls here and there, and to threaten its own ruin and the destruction of all. The terrified priest, understanding his guilt, compelled the harlot to go out of the church, and all that commotion ceased.

¹¹ When fifty ships of King William had landed at Tynemouth, they plundered the goods of the place, sparing not the saint, and carried off a certain woman’s web. But the woman, entering the church, begged the saint with tears that he would restore her web and take vengeance on the spoilers. And the sailors as they sailed, suddenly striking upon rocks without any tempest of winds, as though they lacked a rower, began to dash against one another and run foul of each other with mutual encounters: and the raging waves drowned the sailors save a few, and cast the spoils ashore to the church they had violated; and all, running together with the old woman, received back their goods found by the shore.

¹² St Oswin also healed a woman destitute of the use of all her members; he restored unharmed a knight who had fallen with his horse from a most lofty crag. The horse, slipping from rock to rock, was not only saved from the precipice but, many looking on, was wondrously called back. To a certain prisoner appearing, he told him to get up quickly and hasten to Tynemouth: who, seeing his hands and feet loosed, arose, and lightly shaking the prison bolt, fulfilled the martyr’s commands in haste. A waggoner, falling with the oxen yoked to his cart from a hill’s brow, was delivered from peril. A certain man who presumptuously killed a dove beneath the bier, being seized with sickness, when he promised to make satisfaction for his offence was healed: but when he neglected to fulfil his vow, he died of a recurrent sickness. He gave light to two blind women, cured a paralytic, restored hearing to two deaf men, delivered a girl vexed by a demon.

¹³ A certain woman, vexed by demons for a year, when she had been brought to the martyr’s church and healed, related with tears that at the time of her falling asleep countless demons had surrounded her, terrible of aspect and exceeding horrible. Seven of them were greater and more terrible, horned, shaggy and tailed, having most hideous eyes, and standing round her on every side they strove to tear her to pieces. And when she had cried out with a loud voice, there appeared one clad in a surplice, having the whiteness of a lily in his face, who said: “I am,” he said, “King and Martyr Oswin, beneath whose bier you rest.” And with the sleeve of the surplice he put the multitude of demons to flight, and with all gentleness distinctly revealed to her the sins she had committed and never confessed, with the place and time, and the transgression of a certain vow: exhorting her to confess her sins and fulfil her vow, and henceforth not to ply for gain the trade of keeping a victualling-house — for which things, as he declared, she had been delivered to the power of demons.

A Further Story #

¹ [Added in the Tiberius manuscript.] A certain knight in the city of Rome came to the end of his life. Drawn out of the body he lay lifeless, but speedily returning he related the things that had been done with him. For he said that there was a bridge, beneath which a black and murky river flowed, breathing forth intolerable stenches. But beyond the bridge were pleasant meadows and green, adorned with the fragrant flowers of herbs, in which seemed to be gatherings of men clothed in white; and so great an odour of sweetness was in that place that the very fragrance of sweetness would satisfy all. There the several mansions of diverse persons were full of greatness of light. There a certain house of wondrous power was being built, which seemed to be constructed of golden bricks, but whose it was could not be known. And upon the bank of the same river there were many dwelling-places, but some were touched by the rising cloud of stench, others the rising stench from the river touched not at all. Now the trial upon the same bridge was this: that whoever of the unrighteous wished to pass over it slipped into the dark and stinking river, but the righteous, whom no guilt hindered, passed over it with a free and unfettered step to the pleasant places. There also he confessed to have seen Peter, the elder of the church’s household, who had died four years before, placed below in most hideous places, bound and weighed down with a great weight of iron. And when he asked why it was so, it was said: “He suffers this because, whenever he saw occasion for taking vengeance, he served the inflicting of blows more from a desire of cruelty than from obedience.” There also he saw a certain pilgrim who crossed the bridge with as great authority as he had lived in sincerity here. On the same bridge he saw a certain man named Stephen, whose foot had slipped, and who, half his body now cast off the bridge, was being dragged down by the thighs by certain most hideous men rising from the river, while by certain white and comely men he began to be drawn up by the arms. And while this struggle went on, the good drawing him up and the evil down, he who saw this returned to the body. In which matter, concerning the same Stephen’s life, it is given to understand that in him the evils of the flesh contended with the working of alms. For that he was drawn down by the thighs and drawn up by the arms shows that he had loved almsgiving, yet had not perfectly resisted the vices of the flesh, which dragged him down.