The present cathedral is not the first nor second building of its kind erected here. Even before the Christian era its site held buildings devoted to worship; for the old chroniclers, the monks, to whom we owe most of our early history, have stated that the temple to Dagon stood on this spot. [Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.] Up to the time of the Norman Conquest the history of the Cathedral is one long account of building, destruction, and rebuilding--for those were troublous times, and religious institutions fared no better than secular. Walkelin, the first Bishop of Winchester after the Conquest, was appointed in 1070. In the year 1079 he began to rebuild the existing Saxon cathedral from its foundations; and in 1086, the king, for its completion granted him as much wood from a certain forest as his workmen could cut and carry in the space of four days and nights. But the wily bishop brought together an innumerable troop of workmen who, within the prescribed time, felled the entire wood and carried it off. For this piece of sharp practice Walkelin had to humbly implore pardon of the enraged William. In 1093 the new building was completed, and was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. [Illustration: ST. SWITHUN AND THE INDIGNANT TOURIST.] The Cathedral is now (or, at least, part of it is) dedicated to Saint Swithun. Now, Swithun was a holy man who died in the odour of sanctity and the Saxon era. He was Bishop of Winchester, but lowly minded indeed, for he desired his body to be buried without the building, under the eaves, where the rain might always drip upon his grave; but disregarding the spirit of the saint’s injunctions, the monks “howked” his corpse up again, after first complying with the letter of them by burying him for awhile in the cathedral yard. They proposed to enshrine the body within the Cathedral, but the saint, who had apparently obtained in the meantime an appointment as a sort of celestial turncock, brought about a continuous rainfall of forty days and nights. After this manifestation, the monks concluded to leave Swithun alone, and he lies in the close to this day. Unfortunately, the saint seems to have ever after made an annual commemoration of the event, commencing with July 15th. This would be a comparatively small matter did he confine himself to that period alone; but unlike the gyrating turncocks of our water companies, he is constantly on duty, more particularly when holiday folk most do fare abroad. Perhaps Swithun is offended at his name being so continually spelled wrongly--Swithin: perhaps--but, no matter. Anyhow, he is more addicted to water than (if all tales be true) holy friars were wont to be, either for external or inward application. What does Ingoldsby say of one typical friar--I quote from memory (a shocking habit):-- “Still less had he time to change the hair shirt he Had worn the last twenty years, probably thirty, And which by this time had grown somewhat dirty.”