Curiosities of Olden Times

by S. Baring-Gould

Christina had been in a cataleptic fit, or had been shamming death. All at once she scattered the funeral party and the worshippers by a leap off her bier, in winding-sheet, with a shrill cry, and then by a scramble up one of the pillars of the sacred edifice, which she managed to surmount. She then got upon one of the tie-beams of the roof, and there seated herself, as her biographer tells us, “like a bird.” The congregation, frightened out of their wits, ran helter-skelter in all directions. One of her sisters alone had courage to remain, or possibly knew enough of Christina’s eccentricities not to be alarmed. The priest at the altar faltered, stopped, turned and looked about him, and went forward headlong with the service to the end. When he had retired to the sacristy, probably, Christina’s sister came to him and explained matters. Anyhow we learn that he reappeared in the church showing no signs of fear, and very peremptorily ordered the young woman down from her perch, and demanded the reason of this extraordinary freak. Christina meekly descended, and on being again asked the reason of her proceedings, condescended to inform the priest that she had scrambled aloft to escape the strong odour emitted by the peasants, which to her refined perceptions was especially repugnant. It must be admitted that it continues the same to the present day, and that to the noses of those who are not saints.

Christina was now conducted home by her sisters, and was given something to eat. When she had fed, she told them a long and marvellous story of her having visited the regions of the dead; she said that she had been in Hell, where she recognised the familiar features of a good many acquaintances, no doubt of all such as had slighted and offended her in the past and were dead. Then she had visited Purgatory, where also she found herself among acquaintances. After that she ascended to Heaven, where she was offered her choice, whether she would remain there eternally, or return to earth and there perform the meritorious work of liberating, by her prayers and self-tortures, the souls of those still undergoing purification in Purgatory. With the utmost heroism and self-denial she chose the latter alternative, probably not to the satisfaction of her sisters, who seem to have regarded her as a self-willed, troublesome piece of goods, and would have preferred to have her at a distance, as an intercessor in heaven, than on earth an object of much solicitude and annoyance.

She speedily gave them cause enough to regret the choice she had made, for she took it into her head to race about the country, leaping hedges, climbing walls, as she pretended, to get away from the scent of men, which specially distressed her. She did not specify whether this odour was spiritual or carnal, but left it to be inferred that moral turpitude was the most odoriferous. She was repeatedly found on the tops of trees, or on the summit of church towers, balancing herself beside the weathercocks, gasping for wholesome air.

Naturally enough her relatives held her to be deranged; and they proceeded to have her bound, as mad folk were chained and held in bondage till comparatively recently. But one night she broke away from her prison, tore off her fetters, declaring that the “odour of men” was suffocating her, and ran away into the nearest forest, where she swarmed to the tops of the highest trees and there gasped for untainted air. There for a while her relatives left her, she must starve or return to them. As Thomas of Chantpré says, she lived for a while like a bird among the boughs of the trees, and though sorely in want of food, would not return to association with odoriferous human beings.

Her biographer gives us an outrageous story which accounts for the way in which she lived; but in all likelihood she fed on eggs.

After five weeks thus spent, she was recaptured and again put in chains, stronger than before.

Again she broke loose, ran to Liège, where she rushed headlong into the Church of St. Christopher, and insisted on the priest whom she found there giving her the Holy Communion. He naturally enough demurred to do so. Her wild appearance, with hair flying, her galled wrists, her flashing, frantic eyes, the condition of dirt and raggedness in which she was, made him conclude she was an escaped maniac. He made an excuse, and she was unable to force him to act against his conscience by any representation she made. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, so suddenly did she rush away again into another church, where she frightened the priest into compliance. But what was his disgust and dismay to see the communicant jump up, leave the church in flying leaps, and run as fast as she could tear down the steep hill that falls towards the Meuse. He hastily laid aside his surplice and stole, and ran after her. Then he came on the priest of St. Christopher, who was also in pursuit, and the two ran after her to the quay, where she made a plunge, went head foremost into the water, and swam to the farther shore. The Meuse, as any one who is acquainted with Liège knows, is no inconsiderable stream there, and the two priests watched, breathless and alarmed, till the girl had reached the farther shore. Then only did they breathe freely.

Christina’s conduct became daily more outrageous. She crept into bakers’ ovens, and there howled with pain at the heat, but would not come forth, till dragged out by the heels. Sometimes she would run into a fire and kick the brands about with her bare feet. When she saw water hot in large vessels for a washing, in she leaped, souse, and then shrieked with the pain. In winter she would run into the river and remain there squealing with cold, till the parish priest came and ordered her out. One of her favourite pursuits was to dive under the sluice of a miller’s water-conduit, and go with the water, head over heels, over the wheel. These exploits attracted a crowd, and excited her to renewed attempts, not always most decorous, but greeted with roars of approval and encouragement to re-attempt the feat.

Another of her freaks was to frequent the places of execution, and climb the poles with wheels at top on which robbers and murderers had been broken, and to writhe her own legs and arms in and out of the spokes, with more dexterity than delicacy, to amuse the vulgar rabble that followed and applauded her proceedings. Or she would provide herself with a rope and hang herself between two criminals on the public gallows, with happy indifference to the savour the corpses emitted. All these proceedings were, she affirmed, eminently grateful to the souls in Purgatory, and afforded them consolation and relief.

At night it was her delight to run through the streets of St. Trond, with all the dogs of the town barking and snapping after her; she led them a chase over the country, running like the wind, they tearing her tattered garments, and also biting and wounding her limbs. She, however, seemed insensible to pain, in her enjoyment of the race. Finally, when exhausted, she went up a tree like a chased cat.