Note 102 — BOOK I. (continued 2)

Ethelbald had been frequently exhorted by the king to make confession of his transgressions, but had constantly declined it. At last being seized with sickness, he appears to have imagined that he saw two angels approach with a very small volume, in which were written the few good actions he had ever performed; when immediately a large company of demons advancing, display another book of enormous bulk and weight, containing all his evil deeds, which are read to him; after which, asserting their claim to the sinner against the angels, they strike him on the head and feet, as symptoms of his approaching end. Bede, b. v. c. 13.