Now, perhaps many children have read the tale of Arthur's last farewell without guessing that there is a real  Isle of Avalon, and that it was given its name by the Romans, nineteen hundred years ago. Avalon lies on the river Brue, just where, long ago, it broadened and stretched out almost into a lake. The water was so clear that the Britons who dwelt in the country gave it a name which means the isle of glass; and you could lie on its banks and watch the fishes playing hide-and-seek below you. If you landed on the island you would find a tangle of flowering shrubs, and beyond, orchards white with blossom in spring, and golden with fruit in autumn.

Altogether, Avalon was a very pleasant place, and a pleasant place it is still, even though the glassy waters have disappeared and streets stand where water-lilies and forget-me-nots once grew. On all sides you may see ruined arches or fragments of old buildings, which tell those who understand a tale of the former greatness of Avalon—or as it was afterwards called, Glastonbury. And besides the ruins you will be shown the tree of the Holy Thorn, that blossoms at Christmas, and is supposed to have sprung from a hawthorn staff which St. Joseph of Arimathea, on a pilgrimage from Palestine, stuck into the ground when he threw himself down to rest. Of course it is only  a story, for St. Joseph never came here at all, but it is quite true that the thorn comes into flower every Christmas, and for hundreds of years pilgrims flocked to worship at the chapel, said to have been founded by the Jews.

By and bye a whole colony of Irish missionaries settled there, and built themselves cells of wattles or twisted willows, which must have been very cold and damp to live in, and constructed a wooden church. In course of time this was replaced by a stone one, and when in the reign of Henry II the existing church was burned down, a magnificent abbey was founded on its ruins.

It was about the year 924, when the famous King Athelstan reigned over the whole of the South of England, then known as Wessex, that a baby named Dunstan was born in Glastonbury, not far from the royal palace. His parents, who were both noble, wished their little boy to be taught carefully everything that a gentleman ought to learn. He was a clever, eager child, always wanting to do everything other people did, and the Irish monks who kept a sort of school for the sons of the rich people in the neighbourhood, had no trouble with their pupil. As soon as he could read and write his masters set him to study the Bible, and he was required to know the Latin poets and historians of the great days of Rome; the English poets, Caedmon and Beowulf; the stories of the saints (especially the Irish ones); and something about the Frankish kings who reigned across the sea, and the court of Charlemagne, where Athelstan's great-great-grandfather, King Egbert, had once spent many years in exile. You may think all this was enough for one little boy to learn, but it was only a part of Dunstan's lessons. There was one particular monk who taught him Latin, and another who was his musical teacher, while a third undertook to ground him in arithmetic and geometry, and took him out on fine nights to watch the stars. On wet days he sang church music, or drew, or modelled figures out of clay, for Dunstan's hands were as clever as his head; and in after years, when he was a very great man indeed, the monks would probably show the precious manuscripts he had copied and illuminated, the vestments he had designed for the priests, or the iron crosses he had made for the church; while his mother was never tired of displaying the gold and silver ornaments which were her son's work. Even as late as the thirteenth century, bells fashioned by Dunstan were still hanging in the church at Abingdon.

So time passed on. The boy could not have been more anxious to learn than the monks were to teach him; and the end of it was that Dunstan got brain fever and became dangerously ill. The monks were very unhappy but never thought the fault was theirs, and for weeks his mother sat with him day and night, but he did not know her. At length he sank into unconsciousness, and the poor lady, worn out with lack of rest, fell fast asleep. When she awoke, Dunstan was missing. The delirium had returned, and in his frenzy he had arisen, and rushed out to the church; the doors were closed, but a ladder leaned against the walls, left there by some workmen. Mad with fever, Dunstan ran up it on to the roof, yet, in spite of the locked doors, when the church was opened next morning he was found lying on the floor, faint and weak but without the fever.

It was after this that Athelstan invited the boy to come and live at the palace and be the playmate of his brother Edward, whose fast friend he remained through life. Dunstan was very handsome and had charming manners, but the young pages and nobles about the court did not like him, and mocked at his small size and delicacy, which prevented his joining in their rough sports.

He is more than half a maiden, they would cry, let him sit by the hearth with a distaff; and with anger in his heart, which he felt it would be well to conceal, Dunstan sought the ladies' bower, as their sitting-room was then called. There he was always welcome. Nobody could draw patterns for them to work like young Dunstan, and nobody was so good a judge of the evenness of the stitches, and of the way the colours were combined.

But an unlucky end came to his visits, and this was brought about by a piece of mischief of his own.

From the time that Dunstan was quite a little boy he had the power of imitating other people's voices, and of making them sound as if they proceeded from any direction he pleased. Nowadays, we call this gift ventriloquism, and listen with interest and amusement to anyone who possesses it; but when Athelstan sat on the throne it was held to be wicked magic, and inspired by the devil himself.

One morning Dunstan received a message from the lady Ethelwyn, begging him to give his advice as to the pattern of some new vestments which she and her maidens were embroidering. He entered the room and found them all bending over the work close to the window, for even when the sun shone brightly so little light penetrated the narrow slits in the wall, that nearly the whole apartment was in shadow. He was apparently considering carefully the important question as to whether red or yellow would look best in a particular part of the pattern, when a sound of soft low music was heard coning from the end of the room. For a moment the ladies gazed at each other in astonishment; then exclaiming that Dunstan knew more than any Christian ought to do, Ethelwyn rushed from the chamber, followed by her maidens.

The story was not long in reaching the ears of the King, and Dunstan was formally accused of dabbling in witchcraft, and other unlawful acts. Young though he was, his talents and the favour they gained him, had won him many enemies, and old tales were now whispered, all tending to prove him guilty. Sentence of exile from court was passed on him, but, as he still denied his crime, it was not to be carried out until he had first gone through one of the tests of innocence, known as the ordeal of cold water.

Several kinds of ordeals were practised at that time throughout Europe. There was the ordeal by hot iron, to which, perhaps you will remember, the mother of King Hacon had to submit, when a heavy weight, white with heat, was withdrawn from the fire, laid in her hand, and held there till she was told to throw it down. A bandage was next placed on the hand and sealed by the priest, and left for three days. On the third day the bandage was publicly unwound, and as no scar was to be found on the palm where the iron had lain, she was proclaimed innocent. In another kind of ordeal the accused person was forced to plunge his arm into boiling water and to draw out a bar of iron without being scalded. But, fortunately for Dunstan, the form of ordeal to which he was condemned was the easiest of all. He was merely to be thrown into cold water, to see if he would sink or swim, and his hands and feet were not allowed to be tied, as was the general custom.

A large crowd of idle and curious people were assembled to see Dunstan, mounted on a led horse, ride up to the pond where the ceremony was to take place. But before the arrival of the officials whose duty it was to watch that justice was done, the culprit was dragged from the saddle by some young men standing by and flung into the water. Gasping with the shock, he managed to crawl to the further bank, and then ran for his life, hearing behind him the noise of yelping dogs, set on by his cruel persecutors. Luckily the beasts had not touched him when they were called off by the officers of the court, who decided that Dunstan had done all that was required of him and was free.

Though Dunstan's life was safe, he was forbidden to return to court, and without delay he set out on a long ride to Winchester, to take refuge with the Bishop. His heart was very sad, for he left behind him a girl whom he loved deeply, and some day hoped to marry. But his kinsman, Elfege the Bald, Bishop of Winchester, who received him with great kindness, thought that it was a pity such abilities as Dunstan's should be lost to the Church. Elfege made constant appeals to the youth's ambition, and pointed out that the road to power lay only through the vestments of the priest. At first his words made no impression. But I can be a priest and be married too, argued Dunstan.

That is true, but then you will never be anything but a priest, answered Elfege. Whereas if you remain unmarried, you can—and will, rise to govern the state, and be a King in all but the name.

Yes, perhaps; still, there are other things in life besides power, murmured the boy in a low voice, and Elfege, who knew the value of silence, pretended not to hear him.

For some months the struggle between the two went on. Dunstan held out longer than most boys of sixteen would have done, but his health, always delicate, broke down from the strain. He had no strength to fight any more, and at length, to the joy of Elfege, he consented to do as the Bishop wished. So, to prevent any further change of mind, Elfege at once ordained him priest, and as soon as he was fit to travel sent him abroad to a Benedictine monastery.

When he returned, there was no more bitter enemy than he of the married clergy, several of whom had been his teachers in his childhood, not many years ago. It almost seemed as if he wanted to prove to himself that he was right when he gave up a home for ambition; and his first act after his appointment as Abbot of Glastonbury by King Edmund, when he was twenty-two, was to expel them from their posts. But all this happened later, for as soon as he came from Fleury he built himself a tiny cell close to the churchyard, five feet long and two and a half feet wide, and far too low for him to stand upright in. In this cell he believed he would spend the rest of his days thinking about heavenly things.

When he laid down this plan for himself he knew very little of his own nature. For a while, indeed, his cell contented him; he fasted till his mind as well as his body grew weak, and the visions he saw in this condition he took to be real. The devil, he said to the friends who now and then came to see him, visited him continually, and beset him with temptations; and, quite convinced of the truth of what he was telling, he convinced his listeners also, and they carried away wonderful stories of the devil looking in at the window of the cell and disturbing the holy man with mocking words, till Dunstan seized his nose with a pair of red-hot tongs; the devil's shrieks might have been heard at the palace.

If Dunstan had led this life for very long he would probably have ended in becoming mad, but, fortunately, a lady who formed part of King Athelstan's court was one of those who came to his cell to consult him about the state of her soul. She was a sensible woman, and saw that his mode of living was very bad for him in every way, and little by little obtained great influence over him, and persuaded him that it was his duty to go more into the world and seek out those who could not, or would not, come to him. After a while he listened to her, and sometimes left his cell for her house, where he met again men of experience and learning. The ambition which had been implanted in him by Elfege the Bald was awakened; he felt there existed another side to life than the monkish one, and when Athelstan died and Edmund sat on the throne, the newly-appointed Abbot of Glastonbury threw all his energy into his work.