Guntram, King of the Franks, was liberal to the poor, and he
himself experienced the wonderful effects of divine liberality. For
one day as he was hunting in a forest he was separated from his
companions and arrived at a little stream of water with only one
comrade of tried and approved fidelity. Here he found himself
opprest by drowsiness, and reclining his head upon the servant’s
lap went to sleep. The servant witnessed a wonderful thing, for he
saw a little beast (_bestiolam_) creep out of the mouth of his
sleeping master, and go immediately to the streamlet, which it
vainly attempted to cross. The servant drew his sword and laid it
across the water, over which the little beast easily past and crept
into a hole of a mountain on the opposite side; from whence it made
its appearance again in an hour, and returned by the same means
into the King’s mouth. The King then awakened, and told his
companion that he had dreamt that he was arrived upon the bank of
an immense river, which he had crossed by a bridge of iron, and
from thence came to a mountain in which a great quantity of gold
was concealed. When the King had concluded, the servant related
what he had beheld, and they both went to examine the mountain,
where upon digging they discovered an immense weight of gold.
I stumbled upon this tale in a book entitled SPHINX
_Theologico-Philosophica. Authore Johanne Heidfeldio, Ecclesiaste
Ebersbachiano_. 1621.
The same story is in Matthew of Westminster; it is added that
Guntram applied the treasures thus found to pious uses.
For the truth of this theory there is the evidence of a Monkish
miracle. When Thurcillus was about to follow St. Julian and visit
the world of souls, his guide said to him, “let thy body rest in
the bed for thy spirit only is about to depart with me; and lest
the body should appear dead, I will send into it a vital breath.”
The body however by a strange sympathy was affected like the
spirit; for when the foul and fetid smoke that arose from tithes
witheld, had nearly suffocated Thurcillus, and made him cough
twice, those who were near his body said that it coughed twice
about the same time.
_Matthew Paris_
[3] The Bastille. The expression is in one of Fuller’s works, an
Author from whose quaintness and ingenuity I have always found
amusement, and sometimes assistance
[4] These lines strongly resemble a passage in the _Pharonnida_ of
William Chamberlayne, a Poet who has told an interesting story in
uncouth rhymes, and mingled sublimity of thought and beauty of
expression, with the quaintest conceits, and most awkward
inversions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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