Some Crazy Saints
monks of Sterium brought him into the church and endeavoured to exorcise the demon, first with prayers, and afterwards with kicks and blows. Nicolas rushed from the gates of the church shrieking, "Kyrie eleison!" He was brought back and shut up in a tower, with a slab of stone against the door, to keep him in. During the night the sleep of the monks was broken by the muffled cries of "Kyrie eleison!" issuing from the old tower. A thunderstorm burst over the monastery at midnight, and Nicolas dashed the door open, threw down the stone, and leaped forth, shouting between the thunder crashes, "Kyrie eleison!" The monks caught him, put shackles on his wrists, and thrust him into a cell. As they sat next day at their meal in the refectory, the door flew open, and in stalked Nicolas with the chains broken in his hands; he clashed them down on the table before their eyes, and shouted "Kyrie eleison!" till the rafters and walls shook again. The monks rose from table, and thrust him forth, whilst they proceeded with their meal.
Nicolas ran to the church, scrambled up the walls—how no one knew; his biographer Bartholomew thinks he must have swarmed up a sunbeam—reached the dome, and mounting to the apex, began to shout his supplication, "Kyrie eleison!"
In the meantime the monks had retired for their nap after dinner, when the reiterated cries from the top of the church cupola roused them and made sleep impossible. They came forth in great excite-
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