able to give it. The Irish hagiographers say that she had Celtic monks to teach her community to sing psalms. Two Irish monks—SS. Foillan and Ultan (May 1)—visited her on their way from Rome to Peronne, where their brother, St. Fursey (Jan. 16), was buried. Gertrude and Ida gave them a piece of land called Fosse, or "St. Mors des Fossez," to build a monastery for a perpetual place of entertainment for pilgrims coming from or going to distant places. St. Ultan was set over the new house, and St. Foillan returned to Nivelle to instruct Gertrude's nuns, particularly in singing the psalms and offices of the Church, and otherwise make himself useful to them. One day Foillan left home to pay a visit to his brother, taking three of Gertrude's monks with him. On the way they were all murdered by robbers, and no one was left to bring the sad news; but St. Ultan saw in a vision a dove of dazzling whiteness with stains of blood on its wings. He thought it was his brother's soul, but knew not what had befallen him. Meantime, Gertrude could not sleep; she felt uneasy and depressed, and when the time had passed that Foillan was to have returned, she sent a message to Ultan to know whether all was well. The messenger came back in haste and grief to tell that the four monks had never been seen since they left Nivelle, and that Ultan had seen, in a dream, a snow-white dove with blood on its wings. Gertrude next ordered a fast of three days, at the end of which an angel appeared to her, and showed her the place in the forest of Soignies where the murder had been committed, and over the body of St. Foillan was a pillar of fire extending up to heaven. She described the place to some of the monks, who went and found the four bodies, that of Foillan with the head cut off, the other three stabbed in the mouth. They brought the bodies to Nivelle, and Gertrude would have had her friend buried in her own church, but his brother claimed him, and many of his friends and brethren testified that it had been his own wish to be buried at Fosse, so to Fosse they took him.
About ten years after the death of Pepin, Ida died. It seems to have been on the occasion of her mother's burial that Gertrude translated her father's body from Landen to Nivelle.
After her mother's death, having the whole management and responsibility on her own shoulders, she employed the most capable and trustworthy of the monks to attend to the outer affairs of the double community, and appointed some of the elder nuns to the management in the house, that so she might reserve more of her own time for devotion and the study of the Holy Scriptures, which she already knew nearly by heart. A few years later, although only about thirty years old, she was so worn out with asceticism, and particularly with her incredible abstinence from food and sleep, that she found herself unequal to the fatigue of her office, and resigned it to her niece St. Wulfetrude, who was only twenty, but who, having been brought up by Gertrude, was in all respects worthy to succeed her. The holy abbess now devoted herself exclusively to preparation for death, increasing her austerities. When she found herself very near the great change, she was afraid on account of her unworthiness. She sent one of her monks to Fosse to tell St. Ultan of her fears, and to ask whether God had revealed to him the time of her death. He answered, "This is the 16th of March, and tomorrow during the saying of mass, she will die; but tell her not to be afraid but to go boldly, for St. Patrick and many saints and angels with great glory are waiting to receive her soul." The monk asked whether this was a direct revelation from God or not, and St. Ultan replied, "Go, quick, brother; do not I tell you her death is to be tomorrow. You have no time to lose in asking questions. Make haste and take her my message." He went, and when Gertrude heard the message, her face was lit up with joy, and awaking as if from sleep, she called all the nuns and made them pray with her all night; and next day, during the singing of the mass, she died, being about thirty-three years of age.
At the moment of her death she
