e of the death bed, to console him with songs of Valhalla.

The wounded man waved them away with his hand.

Then drew near, on the other side of the dying, three Christian
priests, who had been made prisoners in the battle, and would have
given him the holy last Sacrament, if he acknowledged the Lord.

Indignantly the godless sinner repulsed them with his arm. And when
King Harald, astonished, asked him in whom then he believed, if not in
the heathen Gods, nor in the white Christ? he laughed and said--"I
believe in myself, and my strength. Kiss me once more, Gunnlodh, and
give me Greek wine in a golden cup."

And he kissed her, and drank, and said--

"Glorious it is to die in victory"--and died.

But he remained unhonoured and unburied by heathen priests and
Christians, since he had defiantly rejected both.

So then it is certain and set forth as a warning to all--but to us a
righteous consolation--that the God accursed soul of this most
blasphemous of all sinners must burn in hell for ever and ever--Amen.

POSTSCRIPT.

What I here wrote down, years since, as my belief concerning the fate,
after death, of this abandoned sinner, has been fully confirmed by a
delightful testimony.

That is to say, Brother Ignatius--who lately died--and certainly in
great sanctity--was before his death honoured by a wonderful vision.

Saint Columban, himself, in a dream, led him by the hand into hell, and
there he saw, in the deepest pit of sulpher, Brother Irenaeus, burning
whole and entire.

But upon his left shoulder blade, on the spot where he struck me, his
Abbot, sat an infernal raven, and hacked unceasingly through the
shoulder even to his blaspheming heart.

Of this has Brother Ignatius assured us before his death. And therefore
have I hereunto add this also, about the raven and the shoulder blade,
in order that all who read these pages, but especially the disciples of
the holy Columban in this monastery, may learn the chastisement which
awaits him who lifts heart and hand against his soul's shepherd, the
Abbot.

AMEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Oski," in reality one of the special forms of Odin, is,
in the Scandinavian mythology, the god who fulfils all the desires of
men.]

[Footnote 2: Here the parchment is pierced through, and with different
ink three crosses are signed over the burnt out part.]

[Footnote 3: Cup sacred to Bragi, t