94 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. IV. — S. SAMSON. 



and disciples, he crossed the Severn sea with his cousin S. 

 Maglorius and many other companions. His destination was 

 Brittany, but on his route he appears to have sojourned awhile in 

 Cornwall. Tradition accuses him of carrying off with him into 

 Brittany all the manuscripts which he could collect. " Scarce am 

 I reconciled to this Samson," says the Church historian. Fuller, 

 " for carrying away with him the monuments of British antiquity. 

 Had he put them out to the Bank by procuring several copies to 

 be transcribed, learning thereby had been a gainer, and a saver 

 had he only secured the originals : whereas now her loss is irre- 

 coverable, principal and interest, Authenticks and Transcripts are 

 all embezzled ; nor is the matter much whether they had miscar- 

 ried at home by Foes' violence, or abroad by such friends 

 negligence." That there is some ground for this complaint, may 

 be inferred from a statement in the life before us, to the effect 

 that, on Samson's arrival at the coast, apparently the coast of 

 Cornwall, he dismissed the ship, and procured a waggon to carry 

 across the country the holy vessels and volumes which belonged 

 to him. He also employed two horses to draw his own car, which 

 he had brought with him on his return from Ireland.'^ On his 

 journey he passed by a certain village called Tri curium, where he 

 saw men worshipping, with profane rites, an idol standing on the 

 summit of a lofty hill. Taking two companions with him, he 

 hastens to the spot, and gently admonishes the idolaters and 

 Geclian their chief, that instead of adoring an image, they ought 

 to worship the one GoD, Who created all things. "In that 

 mountain," says the narrator, "I have myself been, and have 

 adored and felt with my own hand the sign of the cross, which 

 holy Samson himself engraved with iron on a stone which stands 

 there," After this Samson retires to a cave near a certain river, 

 and there lives a celestial life, constantly applying himself to 

 prayer and fasting. Two puerile miracles are connected with 

 those incidents ; one the restoration to life of a boy who had 

 fallen from his horse in the idolatrous village, and had broken his 

 neck, and the other the destruction of a huge and venomous 



* "Plaustrnm ordinans ad portanda spiritnalia utensilia sua atque volu- 

 mina, snumqiie eurrum in dnobus imponens eqnis, qnem de Hibernia apnd 

 se asportaverat patriam pertransieus, Domino comitante, iter suum ordi- 

 navit." 



