About that time Kenelm, son and heir of Kenulph, king of Wessex, was seven years old. His sister, who wanted to succeed to the throne in his place, procured his murder. The instant this was accomplished the fact was notified to the Pope, according to the _Chronicles_ of Roger de Wendover, by a white dove that alighted on the altar of St. Peter’s, bearing in its beak a scroll on which was written
In Clent cow-pasture, under a thorn, Of head bereft lies Kenelm, king-born.
The Pope sent word to England, the body was found in a thicket over which hung a pillar of supernal light, and was taken to Winchelcumb, in Gloucestershire, for burial; and at the spot near Halesowen, in Shropshire, where he was killed, Kenelm’s Chapel was erected.
But the most mystical legend in which birds are a part, is one familiar in Brittany. It is related of St. Leonore, a Welsh missionary who went to Brittany in the sixth century, to whom many fabulous powers and deeds are attributed, the most comprehensible of which Baring-Gould has put into verse. Leonore, with a band of followers, had decided to settle in Brittany on a desolate moor; but they had forgotten to bring any seed-wheat, and were alarmed.
Said the abbot, “God will help us In this hour of bitter loss.” Then one spied a little redbreast Sitting on a wayside cross.
Doubtless came the bird in answer To the words the monk did speak, For a heavy wheat-ear dangled From the robin’s polished beak.
Then the brothers, as he dropped it Picked it up and careful sowed; And abundantly in autumn Reaped the harvest where they strewed.[21]
Greater poets than Baring-Gould or even Bishop Trench have found literary material in these monastic tales. Witness Longfellow’s _Golden Legend_, where he sings of good St. Felix, the Burgundian missionary who crossed the Channel, and in A.D. 604 converted to Christianity the wild king of the East Saxons; and who listened to the singing of a milk-white bird for a hundred years, although it had seemed to him but an hour, so enchanted was he with the music. No doubt myth-mongers might discourse very scientifically on this and some other of these episodes in the penumbra of history, but we will leave the pleasure of it to them.