CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 611 



The cult of S. Columba is certainly very ancient. She is 

 the only Q-allic female saint who has found a place in the 

 Mozarabic Liturgy of the 7th century, and her name is found in 

 the Gothic Liturgy of a still earlier period. The legend is a 

 poor and extravagant romance, which probably rests entirely on 

 popular tradition, but which has been filled in with inflated and 

 tedious discourses. 



According to this authority — a very worthless one— Columba 

 was daughter of a royal pagan family in Spain, but as she had 

 received the rudiments of Christianity, she resolved to run away 

 from home, and she took as her companions Augustine, a kins- 

 woman Beata, an attendant Sanctianus, and others, and they 

 made their way through Gaul to Vienne, where she was baptised. 

 A quarter of the town still bears her name, from a monastery 

 founded there in the 8th century, and this contained a baptistery 

 in which it was pretended she had been admitted into the Christian 

 church. From Yienne, S. Columba and her attendants to the 

 number of twenty, pushed on to Sens, where the emperor was, 

 who ordered their arrest. He sentenced all to be put to death, 

 with the exception of Columba, whom he sent to the amphitheatre 

 to be shut up there in one of the dens. There, by his orders, 

 she was devoted to insult ; but a she-bear burst into the den, and 

 defended her. 



The Emperor then offered to unite his son to her in marriage 

 if she would renounce Christ, but she refused. Previous to this, 

 however, in order to get the bear to leave its guard over the 

 virgin, he was constrained to set fire to the prison. The bear 

 broke through the rising flames, and an opportune thunder- 

 shower extinguished the fire before Columba was hurt. As the 

 virgin would not listen to the offers of the emperor, he sent her 

 to decapitation, and, "more sanctorum," having her head cut 

 off, she stood up and carried it. 



At the same time lived a prince near Sens, with the Teutonic 

 name of Autbert, who was blind. He sent and had the body of 

 the martyr buried, and found that a fountain had miraculously 

 sprung up where her blood had fallen, and that an ox was keep- 

 ing guard over it, with flames burning at the ends of its horns. 

 Some of the blood of the martyr, applied to the eyes of Autbert, 



