One manifestation of the religious element of the Irish nature is seen in the profound reverence for the memory of the saints. Of these, Ireland claims, according to one authority, no less than seventy-five thousand, and it is safe to say that the curious inquirer might find one or more legends of each, treasured up in the unwritten folk-lore of the country districts. To the disadvantage of the minor saints, however, most of the stories cluster round a few well-known names, and nothing delights the Irish story-teller more than to relate legends of the saints, which he does with a particularity as minute in all its details as though he had stood by the side of the saint, had seen everything that was done, and heard every word that was spoken; supplying missing links in the chain of the story from a ready imagination, and throwing over the whole the glamour of poetic fancy inseparable from the Irish nature. The neighborhood of Glendalough, County Wicklow, is sacred to the memory of Saint Kevin, and abounds with legends of his life and works. The seven churches which, according to tradition, were built there under his direction, are now mostly in ruins; his bed, a hollow in a precipice, is still shown, together with his kitchen and the altar at which he once ministered. In the graveyard of one of the churches is a curious stone cross, of considerable size, evidently monumental, though the inscription has been so defaced as to be illegible. On the front of the cross there is a deep indentation much resembling that made by the hoof of a cow in soft earth, the bottom of the indentation being deepest at the sides and somewhat ridged in the middle. Concerning this cross and the depression in its face, the following legend was related by an old peasant of the neighborhood. [Illustration: Glendalough] "Ye must know, that among all the saints that went to heaven from Ireland’s sod, there isn’t wan, barrin’ Saint Patrick, that stands in a betther place than the blessed Saint Kevin av Glendalough, fur the wondherful things that he done is past all tellin’. ’Twas he that built all the churches ye see in the vale here, an’ when he lived, he owned all the land round about, fur he restored King O’Toole’s goose, that the king had such divarshun in, when it was too ould to fly, so the king gev him all that the goose ’ud fly over, an’ when the goose got her wings agin, she was so merry that she flew over mighty near all the land that King O’Toole had before she come back at all, so he got it. "’Twas he too that put out o’ the counthry the very last sarpint that was left in it, afther Saint Patrick had druv the rest into the say, fur he met the baste wan day as he was walkin’ in the hills and tuk him home wid him to give him the bit an’ sup, an’ the sarpint got as dhrunk as a piper, so Saint Kevin put him in a box an’ nailed it up an’ flung it into the say, where it is to this blessed day.