Rich in historical associations and reputed sanctity, the abbey of
Glastonbury was the ecclesiastical centre of western England. Here grew
the holy thorn which Joseph of Arimathea had planted when, fatigued with
travel, he had struck his staff into the ground, and lo! a goodly tree;
here was the holy well of which he had drunk, and where he baptized his
converts, so that its waters became possessed of miraculous power to
heal diseases.

Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not
Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the
subject of gleeman's melody and of the minstrel's praise, lie buried
here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.

A Welsh population still existed around the abbey, for it was near the
borders of West Wales, as a large portion of Devon and Cornwall was then
called, and Exeter had not long become an English town. [xiv] The
legends of Glastonbury were nearly all of that distant day when the
Saxons and Angles had not yet discovered Britain, and she reposed safe
under the protection of mighty Rome; hence, it was the object of
pilgrimage and of deep veneration to all those of Celtic blood, while
the English were unwilling to be behind in their veneration.

Here, in the first year of the great English king Athelstane, Dunstan
was born, the son of Herstan and Kynedred, both persons of rank--a man
destined to influence the Anglo-Saxon race first in person and then in
spirit for generations--the greatest man of his time, whether, as his
contemporaries thought, mighty for good, or, as men of narrower minds
have thought, mighty for evil.