Legends of Saints & Sinners. Collected and Translated from the Irish

by Unknown

Then on the third day he saw dry land over from him at a distance. "I shall go," said he, "to yon dry land over there, and perhaps we may get something there that we can eat." The man was on the road to be lost. He drew towards the place and walked out upon the dry land. He spent from twelve o'clock in the day walking until it was eight o'clock at night. Then when the night had fallen black, he found himself in a great wood, and he saw a light at a distance from him in the wood, and he drew towards it. There were twelve little girls there before him and they had a good fire, and he asked of them a morsel to eat for God's sake. Something to eat was got ready for him. After that he got a good supper, and when he had the supper eaten he began to talk to them, telling them how he had left home and what it was he had done out of the way, and the penance that had been put on him by the bishop, and how he had to go out to sea and throw the needles from him.

"God help you, poor man," said one of the women, "it was a hard penance that was put upon you."

Says he, "I am afraid that I shall never go home. I have no hope of it. Have you any idea at all for me down from heaven as to where I shall get a man who will tell me whether I shall save myself from the sins that I have committed?"

"I don't know," said a little girl of them, "but we have mass in this house every day in the year at twelve o'clock. A priest comes here to read mass for us, and unless that priest is able to tell it to you there is no use in your going back for ever."

The poor man was tired then and he went to sleep. Well now, he was that tired that he never felt to get up, and never heard the priest in the house reading mass until the mass was read and priest gone. He awoke then and asked one of the women had the priest come yet. She told him that he had and that he had read mass and was gone again. He was greatly troubled and sorry then after the priest.

Now with fear lest he might not awake next day, he brought in a harrow and he lay down on the harrow in such a way that he would have no means, as he thought, of getting any repose.

But in spite of all that the sleep preyed on him so much that he never felt to get up until mass was read and the priest gone the second day. Now he had two days lost, and the girls told him that unless he got the priest the third day he would have to go away from themselves. He went out then and brought in a bed of briars on which were thorns to wound his skin, and he lay down on them without his shirt in the corner, and with all sorts of torture that he was putting on himself he kept himself awake throughout the night until the priest came. The priest read mass, and when he had it read and he going away, my poor man went up to him and asked him to remain, that he had a story to tell him, and he told him then the way in which he was, and the penance that was on him, and how he had left home, and how he had thrown the needles behind him into the sea, and all that he had gone through of every kind.

It was a saint who was in the priest who read mass, and when he heard all that the other priest had to tell him, "to-morrow," says the saint to him, "go up to such and such a street that was in the town in that country; there is a woman there," says he, "selling fish, and the first fish you take hold of bring it with you. Fourpence the woman will want from you for the fish, and here is the fourpence to give her. And when you have the fish bought, open it up, and there is never a needle of all you threw into the sea that is not inside in its stomach. Leave the fish there behind you, everything you want is in its stomach; bring the needles with you, but leave the fish." The saint went away from him then.

The priest went to that street where the woman was selling fish, as the saint had ordered, and he brought the first fish he took hold of, and opened it up and took out the thing which was in its stomach, and he found the needles there as the saint had said to him. He brought them with him and he left the fish behind him. He turned back until he came to the house again. He spent the night there until morning. He rose next day, and when he had his meal eaten he left his blessing to the women and faced for his own home.

He was travelling then until he came to his own home. When the bishop who had put the penance on him heard that he had come back he went to visit him.