St Dunstan and the devil’s nose

Dunstan, later Archbishop of Canterbury, lived as a young monk at Glastonbury in a tiny cell where he worked as a smith and goldsmith. The legend says the devil came to his window in the shape of a woman to tempt him, and Dunstan seized him by the nose with his red-hot tongs until he roared through the night. The story was among the best known of all monkish tales, and the goldsmiths’ pageant on Lord Mayor’s Day once showed Dunstan with his tongs.