to fight with weapons against the bloodthirsty Jews.
Then those wicked men bound Edmund,
and shamefully insulted him, and beat him with clubs,
and afterward they led the faithful king
to an earth-fast tree, and tied him thereto
With hard bonds, and afterwards scourged him
a long while with whips, and ever he called,
between the blows, with true faith,
on Jesus Christ; and then the heathen
because of his faith were madly angry,
because he called upon Christ to help him.
They shot at him with javelins as if for their amusement,
until he was all beset with their shots,
as with a porcupine's bristles, even as Sebastian was.
"When Hingwar, the wicked seaman,
saw that the noble king would not deny Christ,
but with steadfast faith ever called upon Him,
then he commanded men to behead him, and the heathen did so.
For while he was yet calling upon Christ,
the heathen drew away the saint, to slay him,
and with one blow struck off his head;
and his soul departed joyfully to Christ.
There was a certain man at hand, kept by God
hidden from the heathen, who heard all this,
and told it afterward even as we tell it here.
So then the seamen went again to ship,
and hid the head of the holy Edmund
