THE white rider gently explored the swollen knee. ‘Boil some wheaten flour in milk,’ he pronounced at length, ‘and apply the poultice warm to the swelling, and you will be well.’ Then he remounted, and rode away. Cuthbert followed his prescription to the letter, and in a few days was completely cured.

It was obvious, Bede continued, that the white-robed stranger had been an angel. Cuthbert knew well the story of Tobit, whom the archangel Raphael cured of blindness with a poultice of fish gall;* and as for an angel riding a horse, the reader should recall how in about 178 BC the Syrian legate Heliodorus confiscated from the Temple money intended for widows and orphans.* A horse appeared, with a terrible rider upon him, and together with two other young men ‘comely in apparel’ they scourged Heliodorus almost to death; but afterwards they sent him to the High Priest, Onias III, and by his prayers he was restored to health.