Eight years later, in June, 261, Vitale in his retirement was cheered by a visit from Neofito and Aquila, who brought to him, as tokens of the martyrdom of his three sons, the mantle of Alfio, the girdle of Filiberto and the veil of Cirino, saturated with blood.
The geographers write Trecastagne on the maps as though the village took its name from Three Chestnut Trees, but the learned say it should be Trecastagni—Tre Casti Agni, that is Three Chaste Lambs, after the three saints who rested on the site of the parish church. Their memory is perpetuated also at Mascali, Catania and Lentini. And they are adored at Aci-reale, Pedara and at other places on the eastern slopes, whence the faithful come to their shrine at Trecastagne on the 10th of May.
CHAPTER XX
THE NAKED RUNNERS
One may see in the foregoing story of S. Alfio the foundation of some of the incidents painted on the carts, and perhaps the saints’ travelling bareheaded and barefooted is the origin of the people running so to Trecastagne, but I can find nothing in the book to support the belief that S. Alfio was a medical man or that he ever cured anyone of hernia. Nevertheless that he was a medical man, especially successful in treating hernia, is believed by everyone in and round Catania. Fortified by my book I ventured to doubt it and asked my friends in what university he took his diploma. They replied that I was confusing cause and effect; for in the beginning it was not the universities that made the doctors, it was the doctors that made the universities.
I then pointed out that he could not even cure himself
from the wounds made by the tortures; SS. Peter and Paul had to come to the Roman prison, S. Andrea had to be called in at Mascali and the old man girdled with grace and celestial light at Lentini. But they disposed of this by reminding me that medical men are notoriously powerless to cure themselves.
Then I objected that a saint who was born in 230 and who died in 253 was too young to have got together anything of a practice. They replied that the carts show him exercising his profession.
“Where are these carts?” I exclaimed. “If they are in Catania, let them be called and give their evidence in the usual manner.”
So we looked at all the carts we met that were not going too fast. On one of them Garibaldi was landing at Marsala and overcoming the Bourbons at Calatafimi; on another Cristoforo Colombo was receiving a bag of gold from Ferdinand and Isabella, who wanted to put an end to all this wearing delay about the discovery of America; on another Don José was being made a fool of by Carmen in the wine-shop of Lillas Pastia; we saw the enthusiasm of the Crusaders on catching sight of Jerusalem; Otello was smothering Desdemona; we saw the Rape of the Sabines and somebody before the Soldan. But none of these pictures threw any light on S. Alfio.
Peppino Di Gregorio said we must have patience. So we patiently turned down another street and saw King Ruggero dismissing the ambassadors: “Return at once to your Lord and tell him that we Sicilians are not—” something for which the artist had left so little room that it was illegible, but the noble attitude of King Ruggero conveyed the meaning: we saw Mazeppa bound to a white horse rushing through a rocky wood and frightening the lions and tigers; Etna was in eruption; banners were being blessed by the Pope; Musolino was tripping over that cursed wire and being taken by the carabinieri; Paolo and Francesca were abandoning the pursuit of