Here begins the prologue of the Life of Saint Guthlac.

In the name of the Lord of Lords, to my lord King Ælfwald beloved by me beyond any other of royal rank, who rules by right over the realm of the East Angles, Felix, a servant of the Catholic community, sends greeting and wishes him everlasting happiness in Christ.

In obedience to your commands, though not without a bold forwardness, I have drawn up the book which you bade me compose concerning the life of our father Guthlac of blessed memory, weaving the text in a simple pattern. In this confidence I have publicly presented it to you, praying that if, as will happen, my faulty language shall here and there have offended the ears of a learned reader in any respect, he may note at the beginning of the volume these words in which I ask his pardon. And let him also remember, I earnestly pray, that the Kingdom of God does not consist in the eloquence of our language but in the constancy of our faith. And let him know that salvation was preached to the world not by orators but by fishermen; let him remember the saying of St Gregory, who considered it to be a ridiculous thing to confine the words of the heavenly oracle within the rules of the grammarian Donatus.