243 ROGER OF WENDOVER [A.D. 934. Wessex a shepherd's daughter, a damsel of surpassing beauty, who had a dream that the moon shone forth from her womb, and illuminated the whole of England with its light. On relating the dream to a certain matron who had nursed the king's sons, the latter took the damsel to her own home, and adopted her as her daughter, nourishing her with delicate food, clothing her in finer garments, and instructing her in manners and behaviour. Not long after this, Eadward, son of the great king Alfred, happening to pass through that town, turned aside to the woman's house, thinking it would be a blot on his fame should he disdain visiting the nurse who had brought him up. At first sight of the damsel he fell in love with her, and, passing the night with her, he left her pregnant. In due time she brought forth a son, whom, in faith of the dream, she named Ethelstan. King Eadward dying, as has been related before, his son Ethelward, begotten of his lawful wife, died not long after his father; whereupon, by universal consent, Ethelstan, though the son of a concubine, was elected king and consecrated at the royal town of Kingston, as has been said before, Eadwin being set aside as, from his tender years, unfit to govern. After his consecration, Ethelstan conceived the darkest hatred towards his brother Eadwin, knowing him to be born in lawful wedlock, and fearing some day to be deprived by him of the throne. Instigated by this feeling, the king caused his brother Eadwin to be put, with a sole attendant, into an old worn-out boat, and being taken out a great way from land, to be exposed in this miserable condition to the mercy of the sea. Weary of life, the youth plunged into the billows and was drowned ; but his attendant, by dint of rowing with his hands and feet, succeeded in bringing the body of his master from Dover to Witsand. After his rage had cooled, king Ethelstan, struck with horror at the crime, underwent a penance of seven years, bewailing his brother's murder, and condemned to a cruel death his butler, who had persuaded him to the act. In the same year St. Birstan, bishop of Winchester, departed to the heavenly kingdom, and was succeeded by.Elfey, a most religious man; the same year died Wulfelm, archbishop of Canterbury, and was succeeded by Odo, bishop of Wells, in which church Odo was succeeded by Osulf.