In Our Time, A Young Man, Native Of
This Country, During A Severe Illness, Suffered As Violent A
Persecution From
Toads, {129} as if the reptiles of the whole
province had come to him by agreement; and though destroyed by
His
nurses and friends, they increased again on all sides in infinite
numbers, like hydras' heads. His attendants, both friends and
strangers, being wearied out, he was drawn up in a kind of bag, into
a high tree, stripped of its leaves, and shred; nor was he there
secure from his venomous enemies, for they crept up the tree in
great numbers, and consumed him even to the very bones. The young
man's name was Sisillus Esceir-hir, that is, Sisillus Long Leg. It
is also recorded that by the hidden but never unjust will of God,
another man suffered a similar persecution from rats. In the same
province, during the reign of king Henry I., a rich man, who had a
residence on the northern side of the Preseleu mountains, {130} was
warned for three successive nights, by dreams, that if he put his
hand under a stone which hung over the spring of a neighbouring
well, called the fountain of St. Bernacus, {131} he would find there
a golden torques. Obeying the admonition on the third day, he
received, from a viper, a deadly wound in his finger; but as it
appears that many treasures have been discovered through dreams, it
seems to me probable that, with respect to rumours, in the same
manner as to dreams, some ought, and some ought not, to be believed.
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