We find this virtuous woman performing miracles wherever she went. The district now known by the name of Keynsham, in Somersetshire, was in those days infested with serpents. St Keyne, rivaling St Hilda of the Northern Isle, changed them all into coils of stone, and there they are in the quarries at the present time to attest the truth of the legend. Geologists, with more learning than poetry, term them Ammonites, deriving their name from the horn of Jupiter Ammon, as if the Egyptian Jupiter was likely to have charmed serpents in England. We are satisfied to leave the question for the consideration of our readers. After a life spent in the conversion of sinners, the building of churches, and the performance of miracles, this good woman retired into Cornwall, and in one of its most picturesque valleys, she sought and found that quiet which was conducive to a happy termination of a well-spent life. She desired, above all things, “peace on earth;” and she hoped to benefit the world, by giving to woman a chance of being equal to her lord and master. A beautiful well of water was near the home of the saint, and she planted, with her blessing, four trees around it—the withy, the oak, the elm, and the ash. When the hour of her death was drawing near, St Keyne caused herself to be borne on a litter to the shade which she had formed, and soothed by the influence of the murmur of the flowing fountain, she blessed the waters, and gave them their wondrous power, thus quaintly described by Carew:—“Next, I will relate to you, another of the Cornish natural wonders—viz., St Keyne’s Well; but lest you make wonder, first at the sainte, before you notice the well, you must understand that this was not Kayne the Manqueller, but one of a gentler spirit and milder sex—to wit, a woman. He who caused the spring to be pictured, added this rhyme for an explanation:—
‘In name, in shape, in quality,
This well is very quaint;
The name to lot of Kayne befell,
No over-holy saint.
The shape, four trees of divers kind,
Withy, oak, elm, and ash,
Make with their roots an arched roof,
Whose floor this spring does wash.
The quality, that man or wife,