Then too a thrilling event in hagiological history touched our parts nearly. When the monks of Lindisfarne fled before the ravaging Danes with St. Cuthbert's body, they went westward for safety, and their wanderings brought them into Cumberland and Westmorland.[14] A gap in their travels which the antiquary has yet failed to trace may possibly have been filled by a route through Craven--that perpetual haunt of refugees--and about Morecambe Bay. [14] See "Translation of St. Cuthbert." _Transactions_ Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society, part 1, vol. ii. Certainly a well-used road must have passed not far from our district in the days of Northumbrian anarchy, when Danish kings and allies reigned alike at York and at Dublin. Windermere indeed is associated with the murder (741) of two young princes of the royal house.[15] [15] See D. F. Hodgkin's _History of Northumberland_. THE DEDICATION To the question so often asked, When was the church of Grasmere founded? no more than a conjectural answer can be given. The district formed part--though a remote one--of Northumbria, and doubtless shared in the conversion of that kingdom. Even before that time it may have been touched by those successive missionary efforts, which have been happily classed as the Romano-British of Ninian at the end of the fourth century, the Irish of Patrick in the fifth century, and the Kymric of Kentigern in the sixth; and these efforts were followed up by the steady work of the Anglo-Scottish monks, and the establishment under the Anglian kings of an organized church.[16] [16] See "Lost Churches in Carlisle Diocese," _Transactions_ Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society, vol. XV. The dedication of the Grasmere church favours the supposition that its foundation was early. Its name-saint is King Oswald, who planted a cross as a standard in the battle by which he gained Northumbria, and who was killed at Maserfeld by the heathen Penda in 642. He became the idol of the Northumbrian christians, and his relics were cherished in many a shrine. When danger threatened Lindisfarne, his head was placed for safety in the coffin of St. Cuthbert;[17] and with this sacred burden the monks, as stated above, fled westward, wandering for years in parts adjacent to Westmorland, if they did not actually cross its borders. [17] Where it is still, with the mark of a cut from sword or battle-axe plain to see.--ED.