50 EPPING FOREST
upright, and tied together by tongues of wood let
into perpendicular grooves at the edges of contact,
a form of construction which, in the opinion of
the learned, supports the belief that this part of
the church dates from the Anglo-Saxon period,
and renders it improbable that any part of it
could have been taken out and renewed. The
interior of the solid wooden wall thus formed has
been brought to a plane surface by the adze, the
marks of which are clearly traceable. Outside,
the cylindrical boles of the trees are left rough,
and their exposed surfaces are furrowed by the
action of the weather into ridges and deep grooves
in the direction of the grain, but are otherwise un-
injured by the thousand years of exposure which
they have probably endured, except that when the
church was under repair in 1848 their lower ends
were found to be partially decayed, and were cut
off and replaced by a brick sill. The church is
dedicated to the martyr-king St. Edmund, whose
body rested here for one night, when, more than
a hundred years after his death, it was carried
to Bedrickesworth, now called Bury St. Edmunds,
from London, whither it had been transported for
safety in the stormy times before the Conquest,
Greensted lying on the ancient road from London
to Suffolk. The incident is thus referred to in
an old chronicle of the Abbey of St. Edmund :—
" His body was likewise entertained at Aungre
[Ongar], where a wooden chapel erected to his
memory remains to the present day." Edmund,
who was more of a saint than a soldier, but had
the courage to say to his conquerors, the Danes,
who offered him his life if he embraced the religion
of Odin and gave up half his kingdom, " You may
destroy this frail body, but know the freedom of
mind shall never bow before you," was bound to
a tree and shot with arrows. It is related that,
when the church was under repair in 1848, and
the ancient timber lay on the ground, the old oak-
tree near Eye, in Suffolk, to which tradition had
always attached the scene of the martyrdom, fell
to the ground, and, being cut up, an arrow-head