120 SOGER OF WENDOVER. [A.D . 699. and on account of the intolerable stench, he was thrown into the river Meuse ; and all the accomplices of his guilt fell victims to the divine vengence in the course of this year; for the man who struck the holy martyr engaged in a contest with his brother, in which they both fell. Of a dead man who was restored to life from the pains of purgatory.* In these days, a certain head of a family in the country of the Northumbrians, was seized with severe bodily illness, and died in the early part of the night; but in the early dawn he revived, and of a sudden sat up, at which all who were weeping around his body fled in consternation. His wife, however, who loved him best, remained, though greatly terrified. Consoling her, he said, " Be not afraid, for in very deed I am risen from the dead, and permitted to live again among men." Then rising immediately, he .repaired to the oratory of the little town, where he remained in prayer until day, and then, dividing all Ms substance into three portions, he gave one to his wife, another to his children, and, reserving the third to himself, he distributed it forthwith among the poor ; and not long after, he freed himself entirely from worldly cares, and received the tonsure in the monastery of Mailros. After entering the monastery, he made the following narration to the abbat and brethren of the fearful sights he had seen. " I was led by a person of a shining countenance and in bright apparel, and we walked on in silence, as it seemed to me, towards the rising of the sun in summer, until we came to a valley of immense breadth and depth, and of infinite length ; on the left side were scorching flames, while the other was no less intolerable by reason of a chilling storm of hail and snow; each was full of human souls, which seemed to be tossed from one side to the other, as if by a violent storm ; for when the wretches could not endure the force of the heat, they leaped into the midst of the cutting cold; and finding no rest there, they leaped back again into the midst of the unquenchable flames,—a miserable alternation of suffering without any interval of rest ; and there was an innumerable multitude of ill-looking spirits. I began to think within myself that this was the infernal place of whose intolerable torments I had so often heard tell ; on which my * See Bede's Eccles. Hist, book v. ch. 12.