and is therefore of early date. It may have arisen from some such
incident as is given here.

Details of the death of Bishop Humbert are wanting. We only know
that he was martyred at about the same time as the king, or perhaps
with him, and that his name is remembered in the ancient kalendars
on the same day. For describing his end as at his own chapel, still
standing at South Elmham, the fate of many a devoted priest of
those times might be sufficient warrant.

As to the geography of the East Anglian coast, all has changed
since King Eadmund's days, with the steady gaining of alluvial land
on sea at the mouth of the once great rivers of Yare and Waveney.
Reedham and Borough were in his time the two promontories that
guarded the estuary, and where Yarmouth now stands were sands,
growing indeed slowly, but hardly yet an island even at "low-water
springs". Above Beccles perhaps the course of the Waveney towards
Thetford has altered little in any respect beyond the draining of
the rich marshland along its banks, and the shrinking of such
tributaries as the Hoxne or Elmham streams to half-dry rivulets.

With a few incidental exceptions, the modern spelling of place
names has been adopted in these pages. No useful purpose would be
served by a reproduction of what are now more or less uncouth if
recognizable forms of the well-known titles of town and village and
river.

C. W. W.