FABLE AND FOLKLORE 137 



wide-spread strike of workmen in India was threatened, as 

 an evidence of the deep feeling aroused by the boys' 

 sacrilegious act. It was evidence also of the panic-force 

 of superstition under an appropriate stimulus, and a good 

 illustration of Professor George Santayana's definition 

 of superstition as "reverence for what hurts." In the 

 same year it was reported by telegraph from Brownsville, 

 Texas, that a snow-white pigeon flew into Sacred Heart 

 Church there on the morning of November 11, during a 

 service celebrating Armistice Day, and perched over a 

 memorial window, where it remained throughout the 

 service. Had it been a sparrow or woodpecker no one 

 would have thought of recording the incident. 



Men in the Middle Ages had perfect faith in prodigies 

 such as those connected with the holy ampoule of St. 

 Remi and the subsequent miracles in which it was so 

 efficacious ; and everyone understood their meaning. This 

 continued as long as the Church held sway over hearts 

 and minds of the populace. Nobody, probably, had the 

 disposition, not to say the hardihood, to deny the story — 

 you may read it in Froissart — that at the battle of Roose- 

 beek (or Rosebeque), which put an end to the power of 

 Philip van Artevelde in 1382, a white dove was seen to 

 circle about and alight on the French oriflame, which 

 then swept on to victory. 



Readers of Malory's Morte D' Arthur will recall that 

 as on its appearance the Holy Grail passes before Lance- 

 lot's eyes in the castle of Pelleas, a dove, entering at the 

 window and carrying a small golden censer in its beak, 

 impressed the awe-struck knights of the Table Round as 

 a lovely token of the purity and worship to which the 

 castle was devoted. Nothing could be more natural in 

 medieval romance than this incident — a miracle com- 



