SOURCE: “Ælfric and the Legend of the Seven Sleepers,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts, edited by Paul E. Szarmach, State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 317-31.

In the following essay, Magennis explains that Ælfric practiced severe excising in his retelling of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers in order to rid it of anything that might interfere with its hagiographical aspect.

The version of the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus that appears in the Second Series of Ælfric's Catholic Homilies under the title Sanctorum Septem Dormientium is extremely brief even by Ælfric's standards. This version amounts to not much more than a page in Godden's edition¹ and could be described as a summary rather than a developed narrative. The very fact that the text is so short, however, and that its abbreviation of source is so...