It is difficult, as already intimated, to tell how much of pure legend has been imported into the history of the saints of Soissons. One tradition declares them to have been of noble birth, and to have adopted their humble trade entirely for Christian and charitable purposes. Another story relates how they furnished the poor with shoes at a very low price, and that, in order to replenish their stock, and as a mark of divine favor, an angel came to them by night with supplies of leather; while yet another fable, not very creditable to their morals, avows that _Saint_ Crispin _stole_ the leather, so that he might be able to _give_ shoes to the poor. Hence the term _Crispinades_ to denote charities done at the expense of other people. To crown all, it is averred on one authority that after suffering a horrible death by the sword, their bodies were thrown into the sea, and were cast ashore at Romney Marsh.[82] Such tales are worthless, except as indicating the wide extent of popularity the shoemakers of Soissons secured by virtue of their piety and benevolence.[83] [82] On the beach at Lidde, near Stonend, "there is yet to be seene," says Weever, in his "Funeral Monuments," "an heap of great stones which the neighbour inhabitants call St. Crispin's and St. Crispinian's tomb, whom they report to have been cast upon this shore by ship-wracke, and from hence called into the glorious company of the saints. Look _Jacobus de Voraigne_, in the legend of their lives, and you may believe perhaps as much as is spoken. They were shoemakers, and suffered martyrdom the tenth of the kalends of November (25th October), which day is kept holy to this day by all our shoemakers in London and elsewhere."--Quoted in "Crispin Anecdotes," Sheffield, 1827, p. 18. [83] For the legends of these saints, and much curious information respecting the craft and its guilds in early times, the reader may consult Lacroix, "Manners, Customs, and Dress in the Middle Ages;" "Histoire de la Chaussure," etc. That quaint old book, "The Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft," by T. Deloney, 1678, gives the story of the _princely_ and _saintly_ brothers in its English dress, and it is one of the strangest tales even in legendary lore. This story, Deloney tells us, accounts for the term "gentle craft" as applied to shoemaking, and explains the saying "a shoemaker's son is a prince born." The _Princes_ Crispin and Crispinian becoming shoemakers sufficiently accounts for the former term, for "The gentle craft is fittest then For poor distressed gentlemen;"