St Edmunds’s Wolf

 As we wandered around the grounds of the Cathedral we came across this sculpture of a wolf.  We then found the following legend.

Edmund King of East Anglia fought against the Danish invasion (vikings) but on 20 November 869 he was captured.  When he refused to give up his Christian faith the Danes tied him to a tree, shot him with arrows until he bristled like a hedgehog.  Then they decapitated him.  The King’s men came to find his body after the battle but they could not find his head.  Hearing a cry of here, here, here from a near by wood they discovered a wolf protecting the head of the King.  The wolf allowed the men to take the head and when placed with the body a miracle occurred and the head fused back.  Edmund’s final resting place was in the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds where his shrine soon became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England.  St Edmund was the patron saint of England from 869 until 1350.