¹ There was a certain illustrious man in Britain named Fracan, cousin of Cotonius the British king, who embarked in a vessel with a few companions and, prosperously sailing the British sea, was borne to Armorica — where then a wide tract of land was heard to be, as yet dim and unharmed — into a port called Bracheus. In which, straightway exploring all the nearest parts, and finding a certain estate not small, hedged about with woods and thickets, he began to dwell there with his people. And while he was on the journey, bringing with him his son named Winwaloe to be committed to a certain spiritual father for the study of letters, the whole sky was wrapped in darkness, the earth trembled, the air flashed, the straits boiled, and the whole sea was troubled with whirlwind and fire and hail mingled with snow. And the son said to the father: “Why do you fear, father? That author of creatures who made all things when they were not, who enriched the heaven with stars, adorned the earth with flowers, set a bound to the sea: he is able also, when he wills, to assuage the injury of the air and to appease the waves of the sea. For nothing shall be lacking to those who fear him. One thing therefore is necessary, that we have our whole hope in him and ever abide in his love; for he first loved us.” While the boy said these and many other things, the sun suddenly shone forth, and a most serene day beamed forth until evening. And when he had come to that holy teacher with his son, the teacher said: “The boy whom you commend to me, I see transcending his age in manners, and in a boyish form I see a full-grown man, already instructed in divine wisdom by the sagacity of his wit.”

² His son therefore being commended to the holy man, and the father having returned to his own, the boy in a short time profited not a little in literary knowledge; and when a certain one of his companions, playing with his fellows, had broken his leg, he approached him and, prayer being poured out to God, impressed the sign of the cross upon the place of the wound, saying: “Arise quickly in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Who straightway, as if he had suffered no ill, arose, no trace of the injury remaining. For as soon as a poor man cried out, he, giving thanks to God, hastily ran to him to give him aid: and those whom he had no bodily substance wherewith to feed, he bewailed their want with most copious plaints of tears and lifted up their hearts with the hope of eternal recompense; and recalling to them the voice of the gospel, “Blessed shall you be who now weep and hunger, for you shall laugh and be filled”, he ceased not to educate them in heavenly riches.

³ And a certain one of his companions, seeing his charity towards the poor, stung with the gall of envy, began to rebuke him with mockery, saying: “Look, labouring all the day, you miserably waste your work on so ignoble a crowd, as if feigning a mercy whose affection you have not.” When he had cast these and many other revilings on him, Winwaloe, opening his mouth and giving thanks to God, answered him thus: “Blessed are you, most beloved brother, since yours alone are the eyes opened who could judge these things so rightly of me.” And straightway leading a certain blind man from the crowd to a secret place, praying thus he said: “As you healed the eyes of the blind crying to you, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’, so may you, Lord Jesus Christ, deign to heal the eyes of this brother trusting in you.” And opening his eyes with his hands and spitting upon them, he said: “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this I give you: in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, see.” Who straightway, his eyes opened, saw clearly.

⁴ On a certain day, when his little sister was playing with other girls, it befell that a goose passing by met her and, tearing out her eye, plucked it clean out and swallowed it. And while these things had been done, the angel of the Lord appeared in dreams the following night to Winwaloe, saying: “Arise, make haste and relieve your parents’ sorrow: for today, a gander drawing on a flock of geese, your only sister has lost her eye: but the place in which it is hidden is the goose’s belly.” And when he had come to his parents, he caused the goose which he saw more eminent than the rest to be taken and disembowelled. And taking the eye from there and placing it in its place, he restored it whole. And the bird, as if touched by none, went sound to the other birds.

⁵ While a certain fellow-pupil of his was taking sleep, a serpent suddenly hurt his foot with a bite and infected it wholly with venom. And as the venom crept through all his members, when the servant of God had seen the cleft in which the slippery snake had hidden itself, he soon began to cry with a loud voice: “Whatever of deadly seed you lie hid in this chink, burst forth, come out, learn the trophies of Christ, who is almighty God.” And without delay, hearing Christ’s name, the serpent, hissing, came out of its hiding-place; and pierced by the sign of the cross, perished, no one striking it. And water infused with oil being given to the sick man to drink, he recovered, every trace of the injury being put to flight. Which hearing, his father Fracan came to him and said: “My son, I beg you that you entreat the Lord your God that so pestiferous a kind may never presume to appear in this region.” And he invoking God, it was done that from then on no such pestiferous kind is said at all to have appeared in that region; and if ever, for proof’s sake, it be brought there, it stretches itself out as if pierced by a trident, about to die at once.

⁶ When a certain boy of Fracan’s, falling from a horse running too swiftly, had expired, St Winwaloe, coming upon him by chance, took the dead boy’s right hand, saying: “The Lord Jesus Christ, who formed you when you were not and, taking flesh of the immaculate Virgin, deigned to suffer for you, raise you up.” And the boy, as if roused from sleep, straightway arose.

⁷ At length Winwaloe, going out from that place with eleven companions, began to dwell on a certain island, girded by sharp rocks and sea, worthy of no human habitation, built an oratory and planted a garden. And three years having passed, when he had seen a certain place beyond the sea where now his body rests, he struck the sea with his staff and passed through with dry feet with his companions, glorifying God. And when the place pleased them, he made as it were a circle in the manner of a spring with the point of his staff, and the waters straightway issuing most plentifully, an open and pleasant spring appeared.

⁸ On a certain night, while he prayed alone in the oratory, there appeared to him a certain huge, most foul and horrible monster. For it was as it were an image made of iron and soot, woven with sooty feathers, most swift of feet and wings; having sometimes a hundred flaming eyes, now none, sometimes one fixed in the midst of the forehead, revolving like a very great shield; fashioning a hundred tongues, and as many mouths and ears; now raising itself up even to the clouds, now hanging downward and descending with the dust of the earth. Seeing these so profane things through the whole night, at length he said: “O madman, O profane one, why do you flaunt these so vain things against the soldiers of Christ? Or is it hidden from you that the perpetual torments of eternal fire await you with your fellows? For though now you already suffer certain grievous things, yet you shall suffer greater when Christ shall appear, our life and lawgiver.” Which said, the wretched one vanished with his illusions.

⁹ From the twenty-first year of his age even to his death, he was never seen to sit in church; never cast down by sadness nor loosed by joy, never exceeding the bound of moderation, neither angry nor turbulent, but affable and benevolent to all. Daily he sang thrice fifty psalms, now in the manner of the cross, now fixed immovable in stature, now prostrate on his knees. And from the day on which he began to build his place, he was never clothed in a woollen garment or linen, but was clad in goats’ skins. Nor did he lie in a bed strewn with feathers or clothes or even straw: he was wont to use the hardest nut-shells for feathers; for painted foreign carpets he delighted in sands mingled with pebbles; two stones being placed under his head. With such a garment as he was clad in the day, with the same he was also clad in the night. He ate not wheaten bread, but fed on a little barley bread mingled with ashes, weighed out in equal weight. Ever he took food but once in two days or three. For his pottage was made of flour and herbs, fattened with no fat at all. On the sabbath and the Lord’s day he used cheese boiled in water, and took a few little fishes in the Lord’s resurrection. And his drink was of water and the juices of trees or wild apples. Never was his mouth seen idle from spiritual things or empty. For many blind, deaf and demoniacs, and those having all kinds of infirmities, brought to him, obtained health, giving thanks to God.

¹⁰ A certain disciple of his, his mother being dead, when he had come to the place where the dead woman lay, sprinkling blessed water over the corpse, said: “The Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name my master has already worked very many mighty works, deign himself to heal you.” And straightway, as if roused from sleep, she arose, and sitting on the bed wiped her sweat, saying: “I saw around me, before I lost my last breath, certain blackest beings ready to devour me, who surrounding me and binding my feet with my hands, dragged me through rough places. And when they strove to draw me to torments, St Winwaloe, meeting them, terribly rebuked them and said: ‘Let this woman go to me. For why do you so boldly attempt to perpetrate this crime against my handmaid?’ They, dismayed and stupified, wishing to resist but not daring by the divine command, left me. Which being put to flight, God’s saint led my soul back to my body and, as you see, restored me to life.”

¹¹ Now it was the custom of blessed Winwaloe to visit a church a mile distant from the monastery with a certain deacon named Egbin, and there to offer sacrifices to God as well for the living as for the dead. And it befell that while they made their way there in harvest-time, they found a certain leper lying in the harvest, grievously lamenting, his whole body full of wounds, asking aid of them in a mournful voice. And approaching him, Winwaloe said: “What are the sicknesses, brother, for which you utter such grievous sighs?” To whom he said: “Great straits, grievous pains are shaken in my body. Moreover one pain is in me which is so noxious to my infirmity that if I pass this day without this pain’s relief, I deem death rather than life to be at hand: for my nostrils, full of the pain of wounds, are burnt up by the burning of so great an infirmity, as you see.” The man of God hearing this, seized the poor man by the sides — for he lay prone on the earth — and raised him. And when he stretched out his hands to his nostrils, the poor man began to cry with mournful voice as he could: “Do not, elder, do not touch my nostrils with your hands, for the pain permits it not: but if you wish to lighten my pain for the remission of your sins, it is needful for me that you put my nostrils in your mouth, and so heal me.” And blessed Winwaloe humbled himself: and when he thought to relieve the poor man in his mouth, he received God’s flesh; and as soon as he drew breath to himself, a wondrous stone fell in his mouth. And blessed Egbin, holding the master by the sides, looked upward, saw heaven opened, and on the head of the master whom he held the holy cross appeared, and he saw angels come to meet the Lord; and he said to the priest: “Holy Father, he whom I hold in my hands and you in your mouth, I believe to be the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who suffered himself to be crucified for us.” And they desiring to hold him in their hands, the Lord Jesus Christ raised himself in the clouds, saying: “You have not blushed for me, my servants, in my straits, nor will I blush for you in my Father’s kingdom. Your inheritance is with me; and for those who shall be mindful of you in their prayers, there is salvation in my kingdom.” These things said, he was received from their eyes into heaven. And the servants of God, astonished, praised the Lord, and blessed Winwaloe said: “This has befallen us for your merits, brother Egbin, who are of so great humility and obedience that whatever a human tongue can command, you hasten to fulfil with devout heart.” And he: “Not so, father; but you, who daily offer the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, have merited to see him in his body, whom you assiduously hold in your mind.”

¹² Now there were in those parts three brothers working many evils by their robberies: who, entering the monastery’s bounds by night with a fourth companion, found the barn open and barley placed in the midst. And their sacks filled, when they wished to go out, the first was straightway prostrated on the earth, his thigh broken and crushed, and the wretch lay pressed down under his burden. And the second following, his feet fixed to the earth, able in no way to move, was compelled, though unwilling, to stand in the same place. The third is smitten with blindness. The fourth, as if mad, cried with a great voice. And so all being bound by diverse calamities, the servant of God, coming to them in the morning, said: “How foolishly have you done! For did it not rather become you to ask something from the brethren’s labour and to receive by permission what might suffice, than to perpetrate an unlawful fraud upon God’s servants? But now may he himself who bound you, Jesus Christ our Lord, free you from this plague.” These things said, they were straightway loosed from all bodily plague. And he added, saying: “Take up hence your burdens with you: and as often as need shall be, ask of us, and we will give unhesitatingly; and do not lose your souls for transitory and perishing things.” And they, straightway converted, serving God in good works, led their life with the man of God even to decrepit age.

¹³ While on a certain night God’s saint passed the night alone in the oratory, he saw standing by him the angel of the Lord, most splendid, whose brightness shone as the sun, and he said to him: “Saint of God, Winwaloe, the time of the ripe harvest and good crop which you have sown is at hand to be gathered.” To whom he: “As is your will, so be it done to me.” He gave light to a certain woman’s blindness; and the angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying: “Venerable brother, the citizens of heaven demand you as their fellow-citizen, and soon you shall be freed from the toil of this contest.” Who straightway calling the brethren together said: “Prepare yourselves today, for after I shall have sung mass and received Christ’s body and blood, at the sixth hour of this day our Lord will receive me from this body.” Mass therefore being celebrated, standing before the altar sustained on either side by two monks, singing psalms together with the brethren, he rendered his soul to God, as untouched by bodily sickness as clean from carnal pollution. Now he died on the fifth of the Nones of March, and buried in his monastery of Landévennec, he is illustrious with frequent miracles. And he flourished about the year of the Lord four hundred and fifty-nine.

A Further Story #

¹ A certain handmaid of God and holy virgin, keeping abstinence for nine years, was solicited and corrupted by a certain cantor. Who straightway conceiving and the birth being accomplished, her mind was pricked with the exceeding pain of penitence, so that she wished to slay herself with hunger; importuning God continually with tearful prayers and saying: “You, great God, who are wont to bear the malice of the whole world: since it is your will that all be saved, show this also in me, a lost one, if you restore me to salvation — that you take away more swiftly from this light the thing which was created from my sin’s perdition, lest perhaps I be compelled to perish by the noose or the precipice.” And straightway the birth being taken away by death, divinely, she gave herself to the utmost straits of penitence and served women with elephantiasis for thirty years. Whose humble prayers the merciful God did not reject: for he revealed to a certain holy priest, saying: “That virgin has pleased me more in her penitence than in her virginity.” This Vincent relates in the Mirror.