They travelled on then, and they were not gone any distance until the mill was full of flour as white as snow. When Martin perceived this great miracle he understood well that it was the Son of God and His Mother who chanced that way. He ran out and followed them, at his best, and he made across the fields until he came up with them, and there was that much haste on him in going through a scunce of hawthorns that a spike of the hawthorn met his breast and wounded him greatly. There was that much zeal in him that he did not feel the pain, but clapt his hand over it, and never stopped until he came up with them. When our Saviour beheld the wound upon poor Martin, He laid His hand upon it, and it was closed, and healed upon the spot. He said to Martin then that he was a fitting man in the presence of God; "and go home now," said He, "and place a fistful of the flour under a dish, and do not stir it until morning."
When Martin went home he did that, and he put the dish, mouth under, and the fistful of flour beneath it.
The servant girl was watching him, and thought that maybe it would be a good thing if she were to set a dish for herself in the same way, and signs on her, she set it.
On the morning of the next day Martin lifted his dish, and what should run out from under it but a fine sow and a big litter of bonhams with her. The girl lifted her own dish, and there ran out a big mouse and a clutch of young mouselets with her. They ran here and there, and Martin at once thought that they were not good, and he plucked a big mitten off his hand and flung it at the young mice, but as soon as it touched the ground it changed into a cat, and the cat began to kill the young mice. That was the beginning of cats. Martin was a saint from that time forward, but I do not know which of the saints he was of all who were called Martin.
GOD SPARE YOU YOUR HEALTH.
PREFACE.
There is an Anglo-Irish proverb to the effect that "fine words butter no parsnips," and an Irish one runs "Ní bheathuigheann na briathra na bráithre," "words don't feed friars." This story is also told in other parts of the country about a cobbler. I have translated this version of it from the Lochrann "Márta agus Abrán, 1912," written down by "Giolla na lice."