[Sidenote:  Vita Dunstani.] Of this Dunstane manie things are recorded by writers, that he should be of such holinesse and vertue, that God wrought manie miracles by him, both whilest he liued heere on earth, and also [Sidenote:  Iohn Capgr. Osborne. Ran.  Higd.] after his deceasse.  He was borne in Westsaxon, his father was named Heorstan, and his mother Cinifride, who in his youth set him to schoole, where he so profited, that he excelled all his equals in age.  Afterward he fell sicke of an ague, which vexed him so sore that it draue him into a frensie:  and therefore his parents appointed him to the cure and charge of a certeine woman, where his disease grew so on him, that he fell in a trance, as though he had beene dead, and after that he suddenlie arose, & by chance caught a staffe in his hand, and ran vp and downe through hils and dales, and laid about him as though he had beene afraid of mad dogs.  The next night (as it is said) he gat him to the top of the church (by the helpe of certeine ladders that stood there for woorkemen to mend the roofe) and there ran vp and downe verie dangerouslie, but in the end came safelie downe, and laid him to sleepe betweene two men that watched the church that night, & when he awaked, he maruelled how he came there.  Finallie, recouering his disease, his parents made him a priest, and placed him in the abbeie of Glastenburie, where he gaue himselfe to the reading of scriptures and knowledge of vertue.  But as well his kinsmen as certeine other did raise a report of him, that he gaue not himselfe so much to the reading of scriptures, as to charming, coniuring and sorcerie, which he vtterlie denied:  howbeit learned he was in deed, & could doo manie pretie things both in handie woorke and other deuises:  he had good skill in musicke and delighted much therein.  At length he grew in such fauour, that he was aduanced into the seruice of king Adelstane.

Vpon a time, as he came to a gentlewomans house with his harpe, and hoong the same on the wall, while he shaped a priests stole, the harpe suddenlie began to plaie a psalme, which draue the whole houshold in such feare, that they ran out and said, he was too cunning, and knew more than was expedient:  wherevpon he was accused of necromancie, and so banished out of the court.  After this he began to haue a liking to women, and when Elfeagus then bishop of Winchester and his coosen, persuaded him to become a moonke, he refused it, for he rather wished to haue maried a yoong damesell, whose pleasant companie he dailie inioied.  But being soone after striken with such a swelling disease in his bellie, that all his bodie was brought into such state, as though he had beene infected with a foule leprosie, he bethought him selfe, and vpon his recouerie sent to the bishop, who immediatlie shore him a moonke, in which life he liued in so great opinion of holinesse, as he in time became abbat of Glastenburie:  where on a time as he was in his