her, and asked her hand of Ordgar for himself. Having received his consent, he hurried back to the king and told him that the report was exaggerated, the maiden was only plain, but as she was rich, and the heiress of Ordgar, he asked Edgar to suffer him to take her to be his own wife. The king gave his consent, and Ethelwald married Elfrida, and became by her the father of a boy whom he persuaded the king to stand godfather to, and to whom he gave the name of Edgar. Then Ethelwald was glad, for he knew that according to the laws of the Church, they had become connected by a spiritual relationship, which would prevent the king from ever marrying Elfrida.

Now the report reached the king that Elfrida was the loveliest woman in England, and that Ethelwald had deceived him; and when he was hunting in the West, perhaps on the royal chase of Dartmoor, he sent word to Ethelwald that he would visit him at his castle of Harewood. Ethelwald was in dismay, and he told his wife how he had been sent to seek her hand for the king, and how he had kept her for himself, and dreading the king's displeasure, he implored her to disguise her beauty. But when Elfrida heard the story she waxed wrath, and dressed herself in her most costly dresses, decked herself in all her jewels, and came out to meet the king in all her radiant beauty. Edgar became madly, passionately enamoured. The result was an intrigue and a resolution to destroy Ethelwald. As they were together hunting one day in the woods round Harewood, and when they were alone, the king smote Ethelwald with a javelin.

1 Harewood on the Tamar; not, as Yorkshire antiquaries pretend, Harewood near Leeds. This is clear from Gaimar, for the king, to get rid of Ethelwald, sent him into Yorkshire, where he was killed, and then Elfrida came up from Devon to meet the king, attended by all the nobles of the West. The whole story is delightful in Gaimar, it is told so graphically and with such picturesque details.

that he died;1 and he took Elfrida to be his wife; and to expiate their offence, erected a convent in the Harewood forest.

King Edgar died in 975, and was buried at Glastonbury. He was only thirty-two years old when he died. Why he should have received veneration as a Saint one is at a loss to see; except that he let S. Dunstan and the monks have their own way in ecclesiastical matters, instead of opposing them and supporting the secular clergy against their encroachments like his brother Edwy.

So William of Malmesbury, but according to Gaimar, the king slew him, by the sword of the rebels in Yorkshire, whither he had sent him to be out of the way. The slaying of Ethelwald in the wood is perhaps a reminiscence of a mythological story among the Anglo-Saxons akin to the Nibelungen Lied. Ethelwald is Sigurd, Elfreda is Kriemhild, Edgar is Etzel and Hagen in one.

July 9.

S. ANATHOLIA, V.M., AND AUDAX, M. at Reate, in Italy, circ. A.D. 250

SS. ZENO AND COMP., MM. at Rome, circ. A.D. 298.

S. CYRIL, B.M. in Crete, circ. A.D. 304.

SS. EUSANIUS AND COMP., MM. at Foscone, in Naples, circ. A.D. 305.
SS. PATERMUTH, Copres, and Alexander, MM. in Egypt.

S. EVERILDA, V. in England, 7th cent.

S. AGILULF, B.M. at Cologne, circ. A.D. 770.

S. EREMBERT, B. of Minden, in Westphalia, circ. A.D. 800.

B. JOANNA SCOPELLI, V. at Reggio, A.D. 1491.

SS. MARTYRS OF GORKUM, at Brill, in Holland, A.D. 1572.

S. VERONICA GIULIANI, V. Abss. at Citta di Castello, in Italy, A.D. 1727.

SS. ANATHOLIA, V.M., AND AUDAX, M.

(ABOUT A.D. 250.)

[The so-called S. Jerome's Martyrology. Modern Roman Martyrology. Florus' additions to Bede. Usuardus, Ado, Wandelbert. Authority :The Acts, which are utterly fabulous and untrustworthy. A mere romance.]

N the reign of the Emperor Decius there lived in Rome two Christian damsels, Victoria and Anatholia, who were sought in marriage by two noble heathens, Eugenius and Aurelius Titus, and betrothed to them. But when the young men urged on the marriage, in the night the maiden Anatholia dreamt that she saw an angel bearing a rich crown, and holding it before her eyes, he told her that this was the crown of virginity, and asked if she was disposed to relinquish it. Moved by this vision, Anatholia refused to proceed to marriage, in spite of the entreaties of Aurelius, of his friend Eugenius, and her sister Victoria. To the latter she revealed her vision, and Victoria at once embraced the resolution to shake off her suitor, and dedicate herself to perpetual virginity. The two young men, who had been formally betrothed to

the damsels, were not satisfied, and removed their brides to their country houses; Eugenius took Victoria to Tribulanum, and Aurelius placed Anatholia in Thora. Diodorus, the governor of the district in which Anatholia found herself, had a son named Anianus, who was possessed with a devil. The virgin expelled the demon, and healed Anianus, whereat Diodorus, instead of being grateful, was filled with rage, and sent one named Festianus to make Anatholia either sacrifice or surrender herself to death. Anatholia, proving constant in her faith, was delivered up by Festianus to a jailor, named Audax, with orders that she should be enclosed for a night in a narrow dungeon with a large poisonous serpent.

The door was closed on the virgin, and in the darkness she heard the hissing of the huge reptile, and saw the green flash of its eyes. She prayed to God, and the venemous beast glided away from the cell without hurting her. On seeing which, Audax believed, and confessed Christ boldly before Festianus, who ordered him to be decapitated; Anatholia was run through with a sword.

The body of S. Anatholia is preserved in the church of the village of that name near Pisa, but the lower jaw and two fingers have been removed to the church of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome. The relics of S. Audax at Subiaco.

The relics of the two saints were discovered in the pontificate of Benedict VII., between 975 and 984, in the following manner :-Some hunters observed their dogs bark furiously, and avoid a certain spot in the wood at Thora. They communicated the fact to the abbot of Subiaco, who ordered the place to be examined, and two skeletons were discovered. In a dream he was informed of the names of those who had been exhumed, and that they were saints, and probably the Acts are the fruit of the same revelations.

S. CYRIL, B.M.

(ABOUT A.D. 304.)

[Greek Mensa on this day. Also Roman Martyrology, the ancient Roman one, erroneously attributed to S. Jerome, Usuardus, Ado, Notker. Authorities:-The Greek Acts which seem to be trustworthy,1 and the Latin Acts which differ from them in many partictulars, and which are probably very untrustworthy.]

ACCORDING to the Greek Acts, S. Cyril, an aged bishop in Crete, in the reign of the emperor Maximian, was brought before the governor Agrianus, who ordered him to be burnt alive. He was placed on a cart drawn by bullocks, and brought to the place of execution, and died in the flames.

Such is the account of the Saint's death given in the early Greek panegyric preached on his festival, on the site of his martyrdom. But it was not marvellous enough to satisfy later hagiographers, and Latin Acts of his martyrdom were composed, which relate that the fire burst asunder his cords but did not injure the Saint. Then the governor had him beheaded. It is worthy of note that the earliest Latin Martyrology to mention him, that commonly attributed, but erroneously, to S. Jerome, following the Greek Acts, says that he died by fire. The Latin Acts say that he suffered under Decius, and that the name of the governor was Lucius. Unfortunately Baronius, relying on these late Latin, untrustworthy Acts, has inserted S. Cyril in the modern Roman Martyrology in these words :-"At Gortyna, in Crete, S. Cyril, the bishop, who, in the persecution of Decius was cast into the flames by Lucius the governor, and his bonds having burnt asunder, he came forth

They are, however, long posterior to the events they describe, as they speak of keeping the festival of this martyr, "even to this day." They are written in a pedantic, inflated style, and are no doubt a panegyric on the saint preached on his festival at Gortyna.