In his early youth, Glastonbury lay, as it lies now, in ruin and decay;
the Danes had ravaged it, and its holy walls were no longer eloquent
with prayer and praise. Yet the old inhabitants still talked with regret
of the departed glories of the fane; the pilgrim and the stranger still
visited the consecrated well, hoping to gain strength from its healing
wave, for the soil had been hallowed by the blood of martyrs and the
holy lives of saints; here kings and nobles, laying aside their
greatness, had retired to prepare for the long and endless home, and in
the calm seclusion of the cloister had found peace.

Here the mind of the young Dunstan was moulded for his future work;
here, weak in body, but precocious in intellect, he drew in, as if with
his vital breath, legend and tradition; here, from a body of Scottish
missionaries, or, as we should now call them, Irish,[xv]
he learned with rapidity all that a boy could acquire of civil or
ecclesiastical lore, and both in Latin and in theology his progress
amazed his tutors.

Up to this time the world had held possession of his heart, and,
balancing the advantages of a religious and a secular life, he chose, as
most young people would choose, the attractions of court, to which his
parents' rank entitled him, and leaving Glastonbury he repaired to the
court of Edmund.

There his extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused of
magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishing
beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouring
of the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled the court,
and took refuge with his uncle, Elphege, the Bishop of Winchester.