ALCESTER AND ITS FATE. 349 



portance of their occupation, were very numerous in some 

 parts of England, were not exempt from Christian (?) 

 priestly malediction. The ancient town of Alauna (now 

 Alcester), in Warwickshire, was at an early period famed 

 for its smiths and its forges. Saint Egwin, Capgrave tells 

 us,' reported that the inhabitants of this town were an 

 arrogant and luxurious race, and were chiefly workers in 

 iron. The founder of Evesham preached to them, to save 

 them from eternal perdition ; but the grimy blacksmiths 

 were either too busy to listen, or cared but little to hear 

 the miracle-working saint. So that, as he imagined, when 

 he attempted to speak, in contempt of his doctrine, they 

 thumped with their hammers upon the anvils, and made 

 a great noise. Then this good man, full of love and 

 mercy for his species, addressed a prayer to Heaven that 

 the workers in iron might be destroyed : — ' Contra artem 

 fabrilem castri illius dominum imprecatus est.' And the 

 town was immediately destroyed: ' Et ecce subito re^di- 

 ficato usque in hodierum diem in constructione novarum 

 domorum in fundamentis antiqua aedificia reperiuntur. 

 Nunquam enim postea in loco illo aliquis artem fabrilem 

 recte exercuit, nee aliquis eam exercere volens ibi vigere 

 potuit.' 



But Saint Egwin appears to have been an exception 

 to the priests of his age ; for many of them were skilled 

 workers in metals, and even shoers of hoofs ; and they 

 would have been far more likely to give the anvil-ringing 

 burn-the-winds of Alcester, a hint for some new feat in 

 metallurgy, than dooming them and their glowing forges 

 to destruction. 

 ' Nova Legenda Anglise. The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 139. 



