by a name of the Christian's God, as in "Beowulf" where we read:--"The
Lord gave him webs to speed in war."[48] In the Heliand the attributes
are less varied, the vaticination is wanting, and _Wurð_ seems almost
the same as Death.

But the old tradition of the three mysterious women lived on in this
island. It is now best known to us through the German Fairy Tales, where
we have the three spinning women. In the Middle Ages there was a
remembrance of these mysterious visitants in a certain ceremony of
spreading a table for three, whether for protection to the house at
night, or to bring good luck to the children born in that house. In the
Penitential of Baldwin, Bishop of Exeter (twelfth century), this
superstition is noted, and the latter motive assigned.

The monks of Evesham kept up a tradition which traced the origin of
their house to a vision of three beautiful maidens, in heavenly
garments, sweetly singing. They were seen by a swineherd in the forest,
when he was in search of a lost swine, and he went to Bishop Ecgwine and
told him. The bishop arrived at the place, was favoured with the same
vision, and founded the monastery there. The device on the abbey seal
represented this vision.

A less pleasing vision of the Three Sisters is narrated by Wulfstan of
Winchester, a poet of the tenth century, who has left us a Latin poem of
the Miracles of St. Swithun. In it he tells how, coming back one evening
towards Winchester, he was met by two hideous females, who commanded him
to stop, but he ran away in terror; he was then met and stopped by a
third, who struck him a blow from which he suffered for the remainder of
his life; but the three women plunged into the river and disappeared.