The second axiom credited to Saint Hervé is this: "He who is idle in his youth heaps poverty on the head of his old age."
The Breton mariners have retained the third maxim of which Saint Hervé passers as the author: "The words of Hervé are words of wisdom," they say; "Who yields not to the rudder will yield to the rock." I have also seen attributed to him a moral song, widely spread in Brittany, in which, perhaps, there are several couplets of his, but in any case modernized in language and style.
"Come to me, my little children, come to me that you may hear a new song, which I have composed expressly for you. Take the greatest pains in order that you may retain it entire."
"When you wake in your bed, offer your heart to the good God, make the sign of the cross, and say, with faith, hope, and love:
"'My God, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. Grant that I may be an honest man, or that I may die before the time.'
"When you see a raven flying, remember that the devil is as black as wicked; when you see a little white dove, remember that your angel is as gentle as white.
"Remember that God sees you like the sun in the midst of the sky; remember that God can make you bloom as the sun makes bloom the wild roses of the mountains.
"At night, before going to bed, recite your prayers; do not fail, so that a white angel will come from heaven to guard you until morning.
"Behold, dear children, the true means of living as good Christians. Put my song into practice and yon will lead a holy life."
Such lessons, where were so effectively found some of the practices which make a man strong, that is to say, Christians; where there was so much freshness and grace; where the sun, and the flowers, the birds and the angels, all the most smiling images were purposely united, captivated and charmed the young barbarians. I am no longer surprised if the legend assures us that Hervé tamed the savage beasts; if it recounts that one day he forced a thief of a fox to bring back, "without hurting her," his hen which he had carried off, and another time a robber of a wolf who had eaten up his ass--others say his dog--to serve and follow him like a spaniel. This new style of spaniel was seen in a crowd of bas-reliefs held in leash by the saints, and as elsewhere mothers threatened their children with the wolf, the Breton Mothers frightened their brats with Hervé's spaniel. Orpheus is thus represented followed by tamed tigers; and another bard, a half pagan, whom we have seen before accompanied by his black dog, is painted, running through the woods with a wolf which he calls his dear companion. Tu Lupe, care comes. The poets of the primitive times were supposed to be in a perpetual union with nature, [{820}] and to have reconquered the power, lost since leaving the Garden of Eden, of making all animals obedient to them. Hervé was considered to be endowed with the same power; but poetry and music were not the only form which the Christian gave to his charms. His true magic was prayer. See how he chanted when he was exposed to the snares or the ferocity of animals or of men: