The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval AbbessSue, Eugène
History
The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess
Sue, Eugène
France -- History -- To 987 -- Fiction
The fugitives resumed their march. After having traveled without
accident until night and the following day, they arrived at moon-rise
not far from the first spurs of the wild and high mountains that serve
both as boundary and as ramparts to Armorica. The sight of his native
soil awoke in Bonaik the recollections of his boyhood days as if by
enchantment. Having before now crossed the frontiers with his father in
order to attend the Breton fairs, he remembered that four druid stones
of colossal size rose not far from a path that was cut between the
rocks, and that was so closely hemmed in, that it allowed only one
person to march abreast. The fugitives entered the path one after the
other and began climbing the steep ascent. Amael marched first.
Presently they arrived at a little clearing or platform, surrounded by
precipices and beetled over by huge rocks.
Suddenly the fugitives heard from a far distance above their heads a
sonorous voice, that, quivering through the surrounding and profound
silence of the night, melancholically chanted these words:
"She was young,
She was fair,
And holy was she;
Hena her name,
Hena, the Maid of the Island of Sen."
Rosen-Aer, Bonaik and Amael, the three descendants of Joel, remained for
a moment transfixed with exaltation, and yielding to an irresistible
impulse all three fell upon their knees. Tears ran down their cheeks.
Septimine and the apprentices, sharing the emotion which they were
unable to account for, also fell upon their knees, and all listened,
while the sonorous voice which seemed to descend from the skies,
concluded the Gallic chant now eight centuries old.
"Oh, Hesus!" finally exclaimed Rosen-Aer, raising her tear-stained face
toward the starry vault where the sacred luminary of Gaul was shining in
its splendor, "Oh, Hesus! I see a divine omen in this chant, so dear to
the descendants of Joel.... Blessed be the chant! It salutes us at this
solemn hour when, at last setting foot on this free soil, we return to
the ancient cradle of our family!"
Guided by the old goldsmith, Amael, his mother, Septimine and the
apprentices, arrived in the vicinity of the sacred stones of Karnak, and
were tenderly received by the sons of Bonaik's brother. Amael became a
field laborer, the young apprentices followed his example and settled in
the tribe. At the death of Bonaik, the abbatial crosier, which he had
finished at his leisure, was joined to the relics of the family of Joel
accompanied by this narrative which I, Amael, the son of Guen-Ael, who
was the son of Wanoch, who was the son of Alan a grandson of Ronan the
Vagre through Ronan's son Gregory, wrote shortly after our return to
Brittany.
THE END.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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