Foremost among cathedral traditions is the story of the building of the roof, recorded in the same _Annales de Wintonia_ to which reference has been several times already made, and in them alone. Walkelyn had strained his resources to the full, and still needed timber for the roof. He applied accordingly to the Conqueror for a grant of timber, and received permission to take from one of his woods--Hempage Wood, near Avington, five miles from Winchester--as much timber as he could fell and cart away within three days. “Make hay while the king smiles,” was the bishop’s maxim. He collected a whole army of wood-cutters, carters, teams of horses, and in three days removed every timber tree in the wood, leaving one oak only, the so-called Gospel Oak under which tradition reported Augustine to have preached. Unwarranted as the tradition appears to have been, it served to protect the tree, which still stands, though to all appearance dead, an interesting reminder of Walkelyn and his cathedral. When William discovered what a sweep the bishop had made of his “most delectable wood,” he was furious, and was only with difficulty appeased. “Certainly as I was too liberal in my grant, so you were too exacting in the advantage you took of it,” he said, when at length he readmitted the bishop to his presence and his favour. The story acquires additional interest from the subsequent history of these huge and venerable timbers. For some 800 years they have continued to support the mighty roof, though quite recently some of them have had to be replaced, owing to the destructiveness of a grub--the grub of the _Sirex gigas_--which had in places eaten them through and through. A portion of one of these beams with a specimen of the destructive _sirex_ can be seen in the city museum, and curios made of this so-called ‘cathedral oak’--though much of it by the way is chestnut--are being sold now for the benefit of the Cathedral Preservation Fund: thus is exemplified Earl Godwine’s remark, “Brother brings aid to brother.” Two other items relative to Walkelyn are of interest. Curiously enough--and it speaks eloquently for his detachment of mind and freedom from professional narrowness--he wanted at first to revoke Æthelwold’s policy and put back secular canons for monks. The monks were aghast, and, more important still, Lanfranc was hostile, and accordingly after a struggle the bishop gave way and abandoned the project. The other item is the connection between Walkelyn and the great Fair of St. Giles, to which reference has been already made. Walkelyn persuaded William’s son, William Rufus, to grant him the right to a three days’ Fair, on the hill eastward of the city, and to apply the tolls so obtained to the erection of the Cathedral. To the development and further history of the Fair we shall return in a later chapter.