Of all the Norman print upon Sicily nothing gave like this great church a sense of the potency of Tancred de Hauteville and his mighty brood. For no defacing hand has been laid upon this monument to their piety and power. It stands as they wrought, tremendous, 245glorious; commemorating the winning of the kingship of the Land of the Gods. A story as strange as any of the myths of the mythic world. And perhaps thousands of years hence the historians will relegate the Norman story, too, to the catalogue of the incredible—to the list of the sun-myths; and Tancred will be thought of as a principle of life and fecundity—his twelve strong sons be held to be merely signs of months and seasons. Of the great Benedictine Abbey founded by William in connection with the Cathedral almost nothing remains unaltered except the delicious cloistered court with its fountain, and its two hundred and sixteen delicate, paired columns, no two alike, and with endless variations of freakish capitals. All this freshness and richness of invention resulted from the mingling of the Saracen with the Norman, all this early work being wrought by Moslem hands under Norman direction, since King Roger and King William were no bigots, and, giving respect and security to their Saracen subjects, could command in return their skilled service and fine taste. So that this bold, springing, early Norman architecture, Gothic in outward form, is adorned by the chaste, delicate minuteness of the grave Arab ornament.