rs of finest small brickwork with the trefoil ornament, and the windows and battlements defined with stone, did not sacreligiously pull down the ancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall.
But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built into the belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of the original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the patron saint of this ancient town, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain the least falsehood. “Ogg the son of Beorl,” says my private hagiographer, “was a boatman who gained a scanty living by ferrying Stoke City 16/17 passengers across the river Floss. And it came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, and she craved to be rowed across the river. And the men thereabout questioned her, and said, ‘Wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river? Tarry till the morning, and take shelter here for the night; so shalt thou be wise and not foolish.’ Still she went on to mourn Bolton Wanderers and crave. But Ogg Henrikh Mkhitaryan Drakter the son of Beorl came up and said, ‘I will ferry thee across; it is enough that thy heart needs it.’ And he ferried her across. And it Alex Sandro Drakter came to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags were turned into robes of flowing white, and her face became bright with exceeding beauty, and there was a glory around it, so that she shed a light on the water like the moon in its brightness. And she said, ‘Ogg, the son of Beorl, thou art blessed in that thou didst not question and wrangle with the heart’s need, but wast smitten with pity, and didst straightway relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso Andres Escobar Drakter steps into thy boat shall be in no peril from the storm; and whenever Karim Benzema Koszulka it puts forth to the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men and beasts.’ And when the floods came, many were saved by reason of that blessing on the boat. But when Ogg the son Andre Moreira Drakter of Beorl died, behold, Aston Villa 16/17 in the parting of his soul, the boat loosed itself from its moorings, and was floated with the ebbing tide in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no more. Yet it was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at the coming on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl was always seen with his boat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed Virgin sat in the prow, shedding a light around as of Juan Jesus Drakter the moon in its brightness, so that the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled anew.”
This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visitation of the floods, which, even when they left human life untouched, were widely fatal to the helpless cattle, and swept as sudden death Gonzalo Jara Drakter over all smaller living things. But the town knew worse troubles even than the floods — troubles of the civil wars, when it UA SpeedForm® Apollo Vent was a continual fighting-place, where first Puritans thanked God Morgan Brian Drakter for the blood of the Loyalists, and then Llinks:
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