THE STORIES 7 



Such marvellous tales are not confined to trans- 

 actions of the distant past. Maba' Seyon is a saint 

 whose deeds are related in an Ethiopic manuscript 

 of the fifteenth century, probably written very shortly 

 after his death. His miracles were numerous. A 

 barren woman came to him one day for help, 

 promising that if the Lord gave her a son she would 

 dedicate him as an offering to the commemoration of 

 the Redeemer. The saint "gave her some of the 

 bread of the commemoration of the Redeemer, and 

 she ate it," and the saint blessed her. So success- 

 ful was the performance that in two years she returned 

 with two children. 1 A satiric poet of the court of 

 Earl Eric Hakonsson, a Norse ruler who assisted in 

 the conquest of England by Sweyn and Cnut, recounts 

 in one of his lampoons that a nameless lady ate " a 

 fish like a stone-perch, soft of flesh," which " came 

 ashore with a tide on the sand." The outward and 

 visible signs of her resulting pregnancy are described 

 with gusto. She gave birth to a boy, "a currish 

 morsel." 2 This lampoon, if not based on actual gossip 

 respecting the persons intended to be satirised, is at 

 all events evidence that such a birth was not then 

 reckoned impossible. A story current in Iceland 

 in the middle of the last century witnesses to the 

 same belief. It is that a lady of rank who desired to 

 have a child laid herself down at a brook, on the 

 advice of three women who appeared to her in a 

 dream, and drank from it. In so doing she contrived 



1 Lady Meux Manuscript No. i. The Lives of Maba? Seyon and 

 Gabra Krastos. The Ethiopic Texts edited with an English trans- 

 lation by E. A. Wallis Budge, M.A. Litt.D. (London, 1898, 64.) 



2 Corp. Poet. Bor. ii. 109. 



