a strong stake, and that
he should be through-shotten with arrows with forty knights archers. But
none of the knights might attain him, for the arrows hung in the air
about, nigh him, without touching. Then the king weened that he had been
through-shotten with the arrows of the knights, and addressed him for to
go to him. And one of the arrows returned suddenly from the air and
smote him in the eye, and blinded him. To whom Christopher said: Tyrant,
I shall die to-morn, make a little clay, with my blood tempered, and
anoint therewith thine eye, and thou shalt receive health. Then by the
commandment of the king he was led for to be beheaded, and then, there
made he his orison, and his head was smitten off, and so suffered
martyrdom. And the king then took a little of his blood and laid it on
his eye, and said: In the name of God and of St. Christopher! and was
anon healed. Then the king believed in God, and gave commandment that
if any person blamed God or St. Christopher, he should anon be slain
with the sword.

Ambrose saith in his preface thus, of this holy martyr: Lord, thou hast
given to Christopher so great plenty of virtues, and such grace of
doctrine, that he called from the error of Paynims forty-eight thousand
men, to the honor of Christian faith, by his shining miracles. And with
this, he being strained and bounden in a seat of iron, and great fire
put under, doubted nothing the heat. And all a whole day during, stood
bounden to a stake, yet might not be through-pierced with arrows of all
the knights. And with that, one of the arrows smote out the eye of the
tyrant, to whom the blood of the holy martyr re-established his sight,
and enlumined him in taking away the blindness of his body, and gat of
the Christian mind and pardon, and he also gat of thee by prayer power
to put away sickness and sores from them that remember his passion and
figure. Then let us pray to St. Christopher that he pray for us, etc.

THE SEVEN SLEEPERS

The seven sleepers were born in the city of Ephesus. And when Decius the
emperor came into Ephesus for the persecution of Christian men, he
commanded to edify the temples in the middle of the city, so that all
should come with him to do sacrifice to the idols, and did do seek all
the Christian people, and bind them for to make them to do sacrifice, or
else to put them to death; in such wise that every man was afeard of the
pains that he promised, that the friend forsook his frie