While Beket was in France, at Pountenay, he had a dream:
I am sure that I shall yet: die in martyrdom.
For to-night as I was asleep: a wondrous dream to me came.
In the Church of Canterbury: methought I stood, I-wis.
And strove for holy church: against the king and his.
Then came there 4 knights: and smote me on the crown.
Each after other, that my brain: was spilt abroad there down.
The following very interesting item of folklore refers to the feast held on the Christmas day before the martyrdom:
Therein on Xmas day: when the cursing was done
He sat and ate right nobly: and many with him also.
St. Thomas cast some of his bread to the hounds: that before him lay
And every hound it forsook: as all that folk saw.
Then handled he other bread: and let mix it at last
With other bread that lay beside: and to the hounds let it be cast
All that he had handled, the hounds neglected
And chose out the other from it: and right cleanly it ate.
The goodness (or the curse) was on him seen: right that same day
When the hounds that bread forsook: that before him lay.
If we adopt the reading "St. Thomas," we are led to ask whether it was the hounds' sense of smell, or some other sense of discrimination that enabled them to make choice of the morsels that he had not touched? Was it a natural feeling of aversion on their part that led them to have nothing to do with him—like the rats leaving a sinking ship?
Of oaths:
We read of swearing upon the book
The king swore great oaths
St. Thomas swore by his day
(The King) swore on the halidom, that through him was it (the murder) not.
