Still, there can be little doubt in a candid mind, that these ancient myths enshrine many facts, that in the early British times, nay in the very infancy of Christianity, Glastonbury was a centre of light under its earlier name, “the Isle of Avalon,” and that the site of S. Joseph’s Chapel, or the “Vetusta Ecclesia,” is that of one of the oldest, or perhaps _the_ oldest Christian Church in Britain. We have already seen that the English Conquest had advanced as far as Glastonbury by the year 658. Sixty years afterwards, Ina, King of Wessex, after building the first Church in Wells, by the advice of Adhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, (in which diocese the new conquests were incorporated until the foundation of the See of Wells by Edward the Elder in 909,) rebuilt the monastery on the Isle of Avalon, which by that time, owing to the subsidence of the sea, had either ceased, or was fast ceasing to be an island; save, so far as it was encircled by the waters of the river Brue and its tributary streams, with the marshes they formed. So long as the English had remained heathen they had destroyed all the Churches and monasteries they found; now that they, the West Saxons, had become Christian they respected the Churches and monks, and thus they became great benefactors of Avalonia, or as the English called it, “Glæstingabyrig,” or “Glastonbury.” Ina died at Rome, whither he had gone, after resigning his crown, in all the “odour of sanctity.” The monastery was burnt by the Danes in the following century, and restored by the great Saint Dunstan, as described in the author’s earlier tale, “Edwy the Fair, or the First Chronicle of Æscendune.” Here King Edgar died, and was buried; here, as recorded in a later tale of the writer, “Alfgar the Dane, or the Second Chronicle of Æscendune,” the murdered Edmund Ironside was solemnly interred. The first Norman Bishop, was one Turstinus, or Tustain, and a testy Abbot was he; he had a dislike to the ancient Gregorian music, and bade his English monks sing Parisian tones; but they clung to their old melodies; they had obeyed their foreign tyrant in other things, but would not give up their Gregorians; so the Abbot called in Norman soldiers to coerce the unwilling songsters, and there was a terrible riot in the Church, for the Normans did not respect the sanctity of the place, and slew many monks therein, so that after the conflict ended many arrows were found sticking in the Crucifix over the high altar. The plain Saxon edifice of Ina looked mean to men accustomed to the Norman abbeys, and therefore Tustain rebuilt the greater portion. The well known fighting Bishop, Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury in 1126, and Bishop of Winchester in 1134, retaining the earlier appointment also till his death in 1171. He rebuilt the monastery from the very foundations, (says an old chronicler) as well as a large palace for himself.