XXXII.
NOV. 20. PASSION OF SAINT EDMUND,
KING AND MARTYR.
A certain very learned monk came from the South, over the sea, from Saint Benedict's Stow, in the days of king ^Ethelred, to archbishop Dunstan, three years before he died; and the monk was- called Abbo. Then they were in conversation till Dunstan told him about saint Edmund, even as Edmund's sword-bearer told it to king Æthelstan, when Dunstan was a young man and the sword-bearer a very old man. Then the monk put all this story in a book, and afterwards, when the book had come to us, within a few years, we turned it into English just as it stands hereafter. This monk Abbo within two years went home to his minster, and was almost immediately appointed abbot in that same minster.
Edmund the blessed, king of the East Angles,
was wise and honourable, and ever glorified,
by his excellent conduct, Almighty God.
He was humble and devout, and continued so steadfast
that he would not yield to shameful sins,
nor in any direction did he bend aside his practices,
but was always mindful of the true doctrine.
[If] thou art made a chief man, exalt not thyself,
but be amongst men as one of them.
He was bountiful to the poor and to widows even like a father.
