The misery of extreme cold was a familiar fact to the Northumbrians after the experiences of Benedict Biscop and others in crossing the Alps. It is brought out in a very graphic way in the description which Bede gives of the trance of one Drithelme[250], who had appeared to be dead for six hours. Among other remarkable visions of the other world, he came in his trance to a valley, on one side of which was piercing cold, and on the other unquenchable fire. The unhappy souls, tortured in the biting cold, leaped madly across for warmth into the flames. Then, scorched in the fearful heat, they sprang back again for coolness into the torturing cold. In that continual alternation of tortures their time was spent. Drithelme was wont ever after, in beating down his animal passions, to stand up to his neck in the river, even in winter with broken masses of ice dashing against him. And when one called to him from the bank, “I wonder, brother Drithelme, that you endure such cold,” he would reply, “I, at least, have seen worse cold than this.” Here is a peep behind the scenes in connexion with the morals of a Pope, and an example of wisdom in burning letters that ought not to see the light. Alcuin is writing to Arno. [Sidenote: Ep. 127. A.D. 799.] “You were the third cause of my [proposed] journey. The first was that of the churches of Christ. The second was that of the lord king, because mourning in tears I left him; my desire being to inscribe on my soul a perpetual memory of the joy of his presence. The third was the longing to see the most sweet face of your dearness. But I am prevented from accomplishing that which I have strongly wished to accomplish. It will come to pass through your holy prayers, if it do but please Him without whom nothing good can be done. “Your former letter[251], which reached us under your name, contained some complaints about the manner of life of the apostolic[252] and about the danger you were in when with him by reason of the Romans. Your clerk Baldric, as I suppose, brought it, bringing also a cope stitched together in the Roman fashion, a vestment of linen and wool. As I did not wish that your letter should fall into other hands, Candidus alone read it with me; and then I put it in the fire, lest any scandal should arise through carelessness on the part of the keeper of my papers.... “I would gladly write more, but the runner has your orders to get back quickly.” Nothing could exceed the affectionateness of Alcuin’s letters to Arno, the Archbishop of Salzburg, to whose care in preserving the letters addressed to him we owe so much. Arno’s name recalled to Alcuin’s mind the early days when he saw hovering in the Yorkshire skies the great eagles that gave their Anglian name of _earn_ (_arn_) to Arncliffe and other places. He always thought of him as the Arn, addressed him as the Aquila, the eagle. [Sidenote: Ep. 108. A.D. 798.] “To the Eagle, most noble of birds, the Goose, with strident voice, sends greeting.