Here is another story of miraculous bread. The _Mirakel Steeg_ (Miracle Street), at Leyden, derives its name from a miracle which happened there in 1315, and which is thus related in the _Kronyk van Holland van den Klerk_: ‘In the aforesaid year of famine, in the town of Leyden, there occurred a signal miracle to two women who lived next door to each other; for one having bought a barley loaf she cut it into two pieces and laid one half by, for that was all her living, because of the great dearness and famine that prevailed. And as she stood, and was cutting off the one half for her children, her neighbour, who was in great want and need through hunger, saw her, and begged her, for God’s sake, to give her the other half, and she would pay her well. But she denied again and again, and affirmed mightily and by oath that she had no other bread, and as her neighbour would not believe her, she said in an angry mood: “If I have any bread in my house more than this, I pray God that it may turn to stone.” Then her neighbour left her and went away. But when the first half of the loaf was eaten up, and she went for the other half which she had laid by, that bread was become stone, which stone, just as the bread was, is now at Leyden, at St. Peter’s Church, and as a sign they are wont, on all high feast days, to lay it before the Holy Ghost.’ A stone loaf, supposed to be this one, is now shown at the hospital in Middelburg, where, in the vestibule, hangs an old picture representing the miracle at Leyden. The original stone loaf, it is believed, disappeared from Leyden about the time of the Reformation. Of all extraordinary uses to which a loaf of bread could be put is that of ‘sin eating,’ by which, at a funeral, a man was found who would for a small fee eat a loaf of bread, in the eating of which he was supposed to take the dead man’s sins upon himself. In a letter from John Bagford, a famous bookseller, dated February 1, 1714-15, relating to the antiquities of London, which is printed in Leland’s _Collectanea_, he says: ‘Within the memory of our fathers in Shropshire, in those villages adjoyning to Wales, when a person dyed there was notice given to an old sire (for so they called him), who presently repaired to the place where the deceased lay, and stood before the door of the house, when some of the family came out and furnished him with a cricket, on which he sat down, facing the door. Then they gave him a groat, which he put in his pocket; a crust of bread, which he eat; and a full bowle of ale, which he drank off at a draught. After this he got up from the cricket and pronounced, with a composed gesture, _the ease and rest of the soul departed, for which he would pawn his own soul_. This I had from the ingenious John Aubrey, Esq., who made a collection of curious observations, which I have seen, and is now remaining in the hands of Mr. Churchill, the bookseller. How can a man think otherwise of this than it proceeded from the ancient heathens?’