Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions.: A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.Cowan, Frank
History
Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions.: A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.
Cowan, Frank
Insects
“Certaine theeves (thieves) having stolen the silver boxe wherein the
wafer-Gods vse to lie, and finding one of them there being loath,
belike, that he should lie abroad all night, did not cast him away, but
laid him under a hive: whom the Bees acknowledging advanced to a high
roome in the hive, and there insteade of his silver boxe made him
another of the whitest wax: and when they had so done, in worshippe of
him, and set howres they sang most sweetly beyond all measure about it:
yea the owner of them took them at it at midnight with a light and al.
Wherewith the bishop being made acquainted, came thither with many
others: and lifting vp the hive he sawe there neere the top a most fine
boxe, wherein the host was laid, and the quires of Bees singing about
it, and keeping watch in the night, as monkes do in their cloisters. The
bishop therefore taking the host, carried it with the greater honour
into the church: whether many resorting were cured of innumerable
diseases.”[605]
Another legend, from the School of the Eucharist, is as follows:
“A peasant swayed by a covetous mind, being communicated on Easter-Day,
received the Host in his mouth, and afterwards laid it among his bees,
believing that all the Bees of the neighborhood would come thither to
work their wax and honey. This covetous, impious wretch was not wholly
disappointed of his hopes; for all his neighbors’ Bees came indeed to
his hives, but not to make honey, but to render there the honours due to
the Creator. The issue of their arrival was that they melodiously sang
to Him songs of praise as they were able; after that they built a little
church with their wax from the foundations to the roof, divided into
three rooms, sustained by pillars, with their bases and chapiters. They
had there also an Altar, upon which they had laid the precious Body of
our Lord, and flew round about it, continuing their musick. The peasant
... coming nigh that hive where he had put the H. Sacrament, the Bees
issued out furiously by troops, and surrounding him on all sides,
revenged the irreverence done to their Creator, and stung him so
severely that they left him in a sad case. This punishment made this
miserable wretch come to himself, who, acknowledging his error, went to
find out the parish priest to confess his fault to him....” etc.[606]
We quote also another from the School of the Eucharist:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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