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Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

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799

© Derek Harper, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Setting of Edith’s Star by Goscelin of Canterbury

Edith left behind her a distraught Archbishop Dunstan, but also a legacy of love for the suffering.

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800

By Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

St Edith’s Rebuke by Goscelin of Canterbury

King Canute could not believe that his hard-living predecessor Edgar could father a saint.

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801

© Derek Harper, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

St Edith’s Thumb by Goscelin of Canterbury

The way Edith kept tracing little crosses with her thumb made a great impression on Archbishop Dunstan.

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802

© Peter I. Vardy, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

The Character of St Edith of Wilton by Goscelin of Canterbury

Edith of Wilton may have been the daughter of King, but she did not behave like one in the Abbey or the town.

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803

By Sergei Gribkov (1822-1893), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Apparel Oft Proclaims the Man by William of Malmesbury

An austere Bishop of Winchester scolded St Edith for her comely nun’s habit, but the young woman’s eyes saw further than his.

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804

By William Blake (1757-1827), via the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Jerusalem in England by William Blake

Blake throws heart and soul into an impassioned expression of his dream of a new England.

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© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 21 NS

May 8 OS

The Spy : In 1910, Constantine Zervakos, a young monk from the Greek island of Paros, found himself charged with espionage.
The Miracle of St John of the Caves : The story of an unexpected escape through the heart of a hill.
The Peninsular War : Napoleon’s six-year-long campaign (1808-1814) to bring Spain and Portugal into his united Europe was frustrated by Arthur Wellesley.
Thick and Thin : Express each of these ideas as a single word.
Break : Explain what each of these common expressions means, and give examples.
Blind Guide : William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
It’s All in the Delivery : Aeschines paid tribute to the oratory of his greatest rival — whether he meant to or not.
The Road to Ruin : George Berkeley warned that industry, not financial speculation, was the guarantee of a nation’s wealth.
Signs of Command : Suggest publicly-displayed commands, and say how many of them are sentences.
My Native Notes : Scotsman James Boswell always spoke good English when in England, but he was careful to leave a little Scots in.
Hidden Message : Reveal the hidden message in a letter, and write a coded letter of your own.
The Great and the Good : Daniel Defoe wondered whether goodness was not preferable to greatness.
Statements, Questions and Commands : Choose a word from our list, and then use it in any one of the three basic types of sentence — if possible.
Sentegrams : These sentences, taken from English literature, have been jumbled up like an anagram; see if you can piece them back together.
Good Sense : Rewrite these sentences so that the word ‘unless’ is not used.
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