AD. 686. MIRACLE AT THE TOMB 0 1 SAINT CTJTHBERT. 327 dency of the church. The same year, Lothaire, king of Kent, died on the sixth of February, for he had been wounded in the war with the South Saxons, which Eadric, the son of Egbert, his brother, had stirred up against him, and he died under the hands of the surgeons. And, after his death, that same Eadric reigned for a year and a half. The same year, when the man of God, Cuthbert, had for two years governed the church of Lindisfarne, he, knowing by the spirit of God, of which he was full, that the day of his departure was at hand, cast off the burden of his pastoral care, and was eager to return to the struggle of the anchorite's life which he had forsaken, in order that the freer flame of his ancient compunction might bum up in him the obstinate thorns of worldly solicitude. And when he had epent about two months with great exultation in his recovered tranquillity, and had chastised his body and soul with the abundant vigour of his accustomed strictness, he was seized with sudden infirmity, the fire of temporal suffering, and so he began to prepare himself for the joys of everlasting bliss ; and after having been worn out for three weeks with continued suffering, he thus came to his end. And fortifying his departure by the reception of the body and blood of the Lord, raising his eyes and hands to heaven, and commending his soul to God, he breathed his last. Then he was carried in a boat to the island of Lindisfarne, and he rests there, with an incorruptible body, in a stone sepulchre, in the church of the blessed Peter, on the right hand of the altar, and is placed as if he were asleep. But even after he was dead and buried, the signs of these virtues, which he had practised while alive, did not cease, for a certain boy in the district of Lindisfarne was vexed by a most cruel devil, and could not be cured by any manner or power of exorcism ; therefore, he was placed on a carriage and brought to the monastery, to be healed by the merits of the blessed man who lay there. Then a certain priest, prompted by the Holy Spirit, taking up a small portion of earth where he knew that water had been spilt with which the dead body of the blessed Father had been washed, dipped it in water, and then spread it over the mouth of the patient, who, immediately that he touched the water, ceased from his frenzy, and passed the night in quiet sleep, and in the morning found himself released from his affliction by the virtue of the blessed Father Cuthbert. Afterwards, after the lapse of eleven years since his burial, God put into the hearts