In the lives of some of the early Celtic saints we are
told strange stories of their self-mortification, their
rigorous fasts. This was due to a very curious cause.
According to the Celtic law of distress, the appellant took the matter into his own hands. There was no executive administration of law. Everyone who was aggrieved had to exact the penalty as best he might. If he were too weak to recover the penalty by force, then the legal proceeding for him was to fast against the debtor or aggressor. He sat down at his door and starved himself The person fasted against almost always gave way, as the fact of the institution of the fast doubled the fine, and as he did not venture to allow the creditor to proceed to the last extremities lest he should entail on himself a blood feud.
When S. Patrick wanted to carry a point with King Lear (Laogaire) he adopted this method and succeeded, and the king gave way.
There is a very odd story—of course mere legend—of S. Germanus when he came to Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy. He found one particular city mightily opposed to the orthodox doctrine, and as he could not convince the citizens by reasoning with them, he and his attendant clerks sat down at the gates and starved themselves to force the citizens into adopting the true faith.
The same law of distress is found in the code of Menu, and the British Government has had to forbid the dharma—i.e. the legal fasting against a creditor—from being put in practice in India.
Now, very naturally, and by an easy transition,
