Another tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman legends which hand about stories of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed" into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with salted pork; and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as a Christian break his fast: "So much the less reason," he said, "have you for scruple; to the pure all things are pure." A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his journey to the council. It was his usual practice to travel on foot. But on this occasion the length of the journey, as well as the dignity of his office, induced him to ride, in company with his deacon, on two mules, a white and a chestnut. One night at his arrival at a caravansary where a cavalcade of orthodox bishops were already assembled, the mules were turned out to pasture, while he retired to his devotions. The bishops had conceived an alarm lest the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly, taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a sign from the bishop the two mules with their restored heads shook themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.