Why does Rudborne call this the temple of the Philistine god Dagon? Perhaps it was merely a term of contempt, to signify an outlandish deity. But we know that Dagon had a fish’s tail, and might it be that the Saxons arriving by sea, invested their figure of Woden here with some of the merman’s attributes? It is a curious coincidence--nothing more--that the Roman pavement in the Museum, found in Minster Lane, about a hundred yards from the west entrance of the Cathedral, is ornamented with representations of dolphins.[63] “I am glad we have come to the Saxons,” said Mr. Hertford, “there is something interesting about them. They lived in a fitful light. The sun of civilization was struggling through the clouds of primitive darkness. Literature was springing into life, with that centralization which begets great achievements.” “A hundred and forty-two years after Cerdic we reach the light,” I continued. “Cynegils destroyed this heathen temple and began to refound Winchester Church, which his successor, Cenwalh, finished about the middle of the seventh century. He dedicated it to St. Birinus, who had been sent over by Pope Honorius. Hedda translated the bishopric of the West Saxons from Dorchester to Winchester, and brought hither the bones of Birinus, by means of which the neighbourhood soon began to be blessed or cursed with miracles.” [Sidenote: St. Swithun.] We now reach the days of St. Swithun, who in his lifetime came down upon the Church in showers not of water, but of gold. He induced Athelwolf, Alfred’s father, to give tithes of the Crown lands, and the grant was confirmed here by the King, in a grand ceremony before the high altar of “St. Peter’s.” Swithun (a native of the place) was first Prior and then Bishop of Winchester, and well deserved remembrance. He moulded the mind of Alfred, and persuaded Ethelbald to put away his mother-in-law, whom, by some eccentricity, he had married. From feelings of humility, or fearing that his body would be utilized after his death, Swithun ordered that he should be buried outside the church on the west; where, writes Rudborne, “a little chapel can be seen on the north of the Cathedral.” (This chapel, which has disappeared, was probably not built until many years after the interment.)