This was the famous St. Simeon Stylites, so called from the Greek word stylos, a pillar. He lived early in the fifth century and adopted his original mode of life by way of penance, beginning with residence on the top of a pillar nine feet high. This was raised by degrees to the somewhat incredible height of sixty feet. He lived on his pillar situated on a mountain-side thirty or forty miles from Antioch for over thirty years, and died on the top in the year 459. He was the founder of the singular race of pillar-saints who, though never very numerous, existed in Eastern lands down to the twelfth century.
46. What famous stone in this country is said to have been Jacob’s pillow?
Competitors were right in saying that this is the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey, brought from Scotland by Edward I. on his return from invading that country in 1296. According to some, it was originally the stone on which Jacob rested his head when he slept at Bethel and had a vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth. Old chroniclers give a pretty circumstantial account of its wanderings till it arrived at Scone, the coronation city of the ancient kings of Scotland, from which King Edward carried it away. We notice that two or three girls describe the stone as of marble—“black marble,” says one. They are wrong. It is a block of sandstone—to be particular, “a dull reddish or purplish sandstone, with a few small embedded pebbles.”
47. Why is the wedding-ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?
Nearly everybody gave an answer and a good answer. We shall quote one competitor in full, and she will reply for all the rest: The selection of the fourth finger of the left hand as the wedding-ring finger both in Pagan and Christian times is accounted for by several reasons. In an ancient ritual of marriage, the husband placed the ring on the top of the thumb of the left hand whilst he said, “In the name of the Father”; he then removed it to the forefinger, saying, “And of the Son,” and then to the middle finger with the words, “And of the Holy Ghost,” and with the final word “Amen” he placed the ring on the fourth finger, where it remained.
The ancient supposition that a vein led direct from the fourth finger to the heart, and the fact that this finger is used less than any other, the ring being thereby less liable to receive injury, were doubtless also at the root of this old custom.
48. How did the forget-me-not get its name?
Several popular traditions, all no doubt equally authentic, were quoted in reply, hardly any competitor omitting to answer. According to some, the name perpetuates the last words of a lover to his mistress as he threw her the flower she craved of him at the cost of his own life in the Danube.
Another tradition told, with variations, by a good many was that “Adam, as he named the plants in Paradise, bade them all remember their names. One little flower, that had allowed its thoughts to wander, had to ask the father of men to repeat what he had said. ‘By what name dost thou call me?’ ‘Forget-me-not,’ was the reply; which has caused that humble flower ever since to droop its head in shame and ignominy.”