Hilbert, some monks to accompany him and assist him in his mission, he embarked at Caudebec, in 700, spread the white sail to the breeze, and flew out into the sea. [69] Anciently Fontenelle. "To the ship's bow he ascended, By his choristers attended, Round him were the tapers lighted, And the sacred incense rose. "On the bow stood bishop Wulfram, In his robes, as one transfigured, And the crucifix he planted High amid the rain and mist. "Then with holy water sprinkled All the ship; the mass-bells tinkled; Loud the monks around him chanted, Loud he read the Evangelist."[70] [70] Longfellow's Saga of king Olaf. But as the deacon was wiping the paten, during mass, it slipped from his fingers, and glanced down through a green wave and was lost. Then he uttered a cry of dismay, for they had no other paten with them in the vessel. But Wulfram turning himself about from the altar in the ship's-bows, bade him thrust his hand over the side into the water. And he did so, nothing doubting, and brought up the paten, dripping with sea-water. This paten was preserved in the monastery of S. Vandrille till the year 1621, when it was stolen. Now when they had come into Friesland, Wulfram went before the king, Radbod, and preached boldly to him the Word of God. The king listened, and allowed the missionaries to settle in the land, and to declare the Gospel of the Kingdom to his subjects, but he himself put off giving attention to what they taught till a more convenient season. And as Wulfram dwelt in the land, and saw it wholly given up to the worship of false gods, and to the performance of cruel sacrifices, his spirit was stirred within him, and he denounced the hideous offerings of children made to the false gods. It was then the custom among the Frisians to offer to Wodin their sons, by hanging them on gibbets. This method of sacrifice was common to all the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. One horrible instance is related, for instance, in one of the old Norse Sagas, of a mother thus sacrificing her child to Wodin to obtain from him the secret of brewing better ale than the second wife of her husband, in order that she might thus be able to attach him to herself more closely. Wulfram preached in vain, king Radbod replied to all his remonstrances that it was the custom of the country, and that he could not, or would not alter it. And this was the way in which the victims were chosen. Lots were cast on the children of the nobles, and those who were taken, were hung on a tree or gibbet, to Wodin, or else were fastened to a post between tides, and left to drown with the rising flood, as an offering to Ran, the sea-goddess, to stay her from bringing her waves over the low, flat land, and submerging it.