St. Etheldreda and the death of Gervase

We have discovered an interesting account of sudden death reported in the Liber Eliensis, a Latin compendium of twelfth century happenings in the environs of Ely, the cathedral town found just north of Cambridge in the fenlands of England. The account tells how Gervase, a Norman official of the Sheriff, oppressed the local Saxons. The abbot took the people's part and was summoned before Gervase. However, during the night before the abbot arrived, Gervase dreamed that the local Saxon saint of the shrine, St. Etheldreda, struck him with her staff in the chest. He woke with pain, crying out that St. Etheldreda was about to strike him again, and died.