One of the most haunting images in all English writing derives from this experience of cold and rain falling. It is taken from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, at that part when the venerable historian reports the discussions of King Edwin of Northumbria and his councillors, in 627, on the wisdom of accepting the Christian faith.

Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your thegns and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came.