BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 37 



broke into a church, and stole the silver casket in 

 which the holy wafers were kept. They found 

 one wafer in the box, and this they hid under a 

 hive before making off with the more intrinsically 

 valuable part of their booty. In the night, it 

 seems, the owner of the hive was awakened by 

 the most ravishing strains of music, coming at set 

 intervals from the direction of his bee-garden. 

 He went out with a lantern to ascertain the cause 

 of it, and discovered it to proceed from the interior 

 of one of his hives. Full of perturbation at this 

 miracle, he went and roused the Bishop, and 

 acquainted him with the extraordinary state of 

 affairs ; and the Bishop coming with his retinue 

 and lifting up the hive, they found that the bees 

 had taken possession of the consecrated wafer, and 

 placed it in the upper part of their hive, having 

 first made for it a box of the whitest wax, an exact 

 replica of the one stolen. And all around this box 

 there were choirs of bees singing, and keeping 

 watch over it, as monks do in their chapel. " With 

 which story," adds the narrator prophetically, " I 

 doubt not but some incredulous people will 

 quarrell." 



In their directions for hiving a swarm, the 

 mediseval bee-masters were always quaintly ex- 

 plicit. The dressing of the skep which was to 

 receive the swarm was a particularly elaborate 

 process. When the skep was new, you were 

 recommended to scour it out with a handful of 



