Seventh-century England was an unstable mixture of feuding kingdoms, a cauldron of warfare in which Augustine’s new religion struggled to survive.

Into this turmoil was born a child named Etheldreda who, through the remarkable events of her suddenly-ended life, was to become the most popular female saint in the whole of Saxon Christendom.

This is the story of a dedication, and a succession of dramatic episodes which were to put her commitment to the severest test. It tells of terrible happenings and the triumph of Etheldreda’s physical and moral constancy and courage, and of the culmination in an epic and fearful journey back to her beloved island rising like a vision above the fenland swamps, and how Etheldreda founded a great monastery which in the fullness of time was to become the magnificent cathedral of Ely.