tells us that many Englishmen went into monasteries in Gaul.

[2] He was buried at St. Peter's, and his tomb still exists
in the remodelled building. Bæda quotes the inscription in
full, and quotes it correctly; a fact which may be taken as
an excellent test of his historical accuracy, and the care
with which he collected his materials.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that while Christianity made
great progress, many marks of heathendom were still left among the
people. Well-worship and stone-worship, devil-craft and sacrifices to
idols, are mentioned in every Anglo-Saxon code of laws, and had to be
provided against even as late as the time of Eadgar. The belief in elves
and other semi-heathen beings, and the reverence for heathen memorials,
was rife, and shows itself in such names as Ælfred, elf-counsel;
Ælfstan, elf-stone; Ælfgifu, elf-given; Æthelstan, noble-stone; and
Wulfstan, wolf-stone. Heathendom was banished from high places, but it
lingered on among the lower classes, and affected the nomenclature even
of the later West Saxon kings themselves. Indeed, it was closely
interwoven with all the life and thought of the people, and entered, in
altered forms, even into the conceptions of Christianity current amongst
them. The Christian poem of Cædmon is tinctured on every page with ideas
derived from the legends of the old heathen mythology. And it will
probably surprise many to learn that even at this late date, tattooing
continued to be practised by the English chieftains.




CHAPTER XII.