118 THE RAVEN IN POETRY AND FOLK-LORE 



perhaps, above all other spots, in the history of naval 

 discovery and warfare, for this was the spot chosen 

 by Prince Henry the " Navigator" for his school of 

 seamanship, whence, under his auspices, the ships 

 sailed which discovered Madeira and the Azores, and 

 afterwards, explored the whole of the West Coast 

 of Africa. The waters round it have been the 

 scene of no less than three English victories that 

 of Rodney in 1780, of Jervis and Nelson in 1797, of 

 Sir Charles Napier in 1833. The rock, where the 

 raven kept watch over the Saint's body, is still called, 

 by the natives, " the raven-rock " El Monte de las 

 cuervas, as it was called by the Moors themselves, 

 Kenisata-1-gorab, or " the church of the raven." 



When St Oswald, the most eminent of our early 

 Saxon princes, the man whom the venerable Bede 

 characterises as "the Beloved of God"; the man 

 who sent for Aidan from lona, and gave him the 

 Isle of Lindisfarne, whence Christianity was to 

 spread far and wide among the heathen of the 

 mainland ; the man who died fighting-^-saint and 

 martyr and king in one against Penda the pagan 

 king of Mercia, was being crowned king of 

 Northumbria, and the chrismatory containing the 

 holy oil was broken, a raven, so runs the legend, 

 forthwith appeared, carrying in his bill another 



