Note 239 — Chapter XVIII

"Now, when the Mass was drawing to an end, and the Abbot and his deacon and subdeacon and the taper-bearers had already communicated in the Holy Mysteries, came the Heathen bursting into the church. And upon the very Altar, by the cruel hand of King Oscytel, was the venerable Abbot himself sacrificed, a true martyr and victim of Christ. All they who stood round and ministered with him were beheaded by the savages; and the aged men and children, as they fled from the Choir, were taken and questioned under the bitterest tortures, to make them show the treasures of the church. Dom[239] Asker, the Prior, was slain in the vestry, and Dom Lethwyn, Sub-prior, in the refectory. Behind him there followed close Brother Turgar, a ten year child, shapely, and of a fair countenance; who, when he saw his superior slain, besought earnestly that he too might be slain with him. But Earl Sidroc the Younger, touched with pity for the lad, stripped him of his cowl, and gave him a Danish cloak, bidding him follow everywhere his steps.... And thus, out of all who abode in the Monastery, old and young, he alone was saved; coming and going amongst the Danes throughout all his sojourn amongst them, even as one of themselves, through this Earl's favour and protection.