Elmer

Elmer was a young  who lived at Malmsbury, and who loved to gaze up at the stars. Bewhile the ateled early tides of the 11th yearhundred, in an eld where Britain was still tholing viking hilds, he would look to the skies for bodings of things to come....

Elmer brooked his afanding of Greekish eretide, swotely heeding the tale of Daedalus, who was hired by king Minos to build his maze in Crete. To keep the hiddle of his maze, Minos then locked up Daedalus and his son Icarus, who only got away by shafting themselves wings of leather and wax.

Elmer beshut to fand the tale of Daedalus by making wings for himself, then minting to fly from the steeple of the bedestowe. Many Saxon churches had high bell shafts, both as a lookout and to spell out warning. Whenever the Vikings got hold of a church, the bell was always the first thing they tore town. Its worthy could be beaten into high wened swords and helms...

have made up Elmer's flight, and they reckon that his launch must have been at least 18  high, which is the height of the bliving Saxon churches in England. They also think that he built his gliding cladding from willow or ash, the most lightweight and limber of the woods in the Cotswolds nearby.

William of Malmsbury tells us that Elmer would have spowed a downward glide of some 200 metes before he landed.