"And so St. Austin drew southward, so that he came to Dorchester; there he found the worst men that dwelt in the land. He told them God's lore, and they had him in derision; he taught them Christendom, and they grinned at him. Where the Saint stood, and his clerks with him, and spake of Christ, as was ever their custom, there they approached to their injury, and took tails of rays and hanged them on his cope, on each side. And they ran beside, and threw at him with the bones, and afterwards attacked him with grievous stones. And so they did him shame and drove him out of the place. To St. Austin they were odious, and he became exceeding wroth; and he proceeded five miles from Dorchester, and came to a mount that was mickle and fair; there he lay on his knees in prayer and called ever toward God, that he should avenge him of the cursed folk, who had dishonoured him with their evil deeds. Our Lord heard him, in heaven, and sent his vengeance on the wretched folk that hanged the rays' tails on the clerks. The tails came on them--therefore they be tailed! Disgraced was all the race, for muggles they had; and in each company men call them mugglings, and every freeman speaketh foul of them, and English freemen in foreign lands have a red face for the same deed, and many a good man's son, in strange lands, who never came there nigh, is called base."[346] The same occurrence is related in the English prose version of the _Brut_, with the addition of aggravating circumstances of violence and contumely. But what imparts special interest to the passage is the mention of the ingenious means adopted for the purpose of evading the hereditary curse: "And in the menewhile that the peple turnede ham to God, seynt Austyn came to Rochestre and there prechede Goddis worde. The paynnemys therefor him scornede and caste uppon hym reyghe tayles, so that al his mantel was hongede ful of reyghe tailes; and for more despite thai keste uppon hym the guttis of reyghes and of other fysshe, wherefore the good man seynt Austyn was sore anoyede and grevede, and prayede to God that alle the childerne that shulde be borne afterward in that citee of Rochestre muste have tayles. And wherre the kyng herde and wiste of this vengaunce that was falle thurghe seynt Austynus praier, he lette make one howse in the honoure of God, wherein wymmen shulde have hire childerne, at the brugges ende: in whiche howse wymmen yette of the citee be delyveride of child."[347]