in prayer. The hammer was always sounding, except when silenced by his orisons; and here he imagined himself assailed by the Evil One. On a certain night all the neighbourhood was alarmed by the most terrific howlings, which seemed to issue from his den. In the morning the people flocked to him to inquire the cause. He told them that the devil had intruded his head into his window to tempt him while he was heating his iron-work; that he had seized him by the nose with his red-hot tongs; and that the noise was Satan's roaring at the pain![1]
The simple people are stated to have venerated the recluse for his amazing exploits with the enemy of mankind; and indeed he appears to have been as expert in fabricating tales as horse-shoes or other iron-work.
That priests of the highest rank on the continent at a very early period shod horses, tradition abundantly testifies. Saint Eloy or Eloi, who lived in France in the 7th century, during the reign of Clotaire II., is frequently spoken of as a goldsmith;[2] but in mediæval delineations he is most commonly represented shoeing solipeds. We have alluded to him elsewhere as a rather popular saint among horsemen during the Middle Ages. He has been the patron of the horse-shoer in nearly every country in Europe, and
- ↑ S. Turner, F. Palgrave. Hist. Anglo-Saxons. This fable concerning the attacks of his Satanic Majesty on the crafty Dunstan, is paralleled by that sustained by St Benedict in the 6th century. That worthy was tempted by the devil, who appears to have been particularly addicted to trifle with the feelings of the mediæval saints, in the form of a mulomedicus: 'ei antiquus hostis in mulomedici specie obviam factus est, cornu (to give the horses medicine) et tripedicam (an instrument to bind horses' feet) ferens,' etc.—Vita St Benedicti, Muratori. Scrip. Rer. Ital., vol. iv. p. 223.
- ↑ Michelet. Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 243, 1852.
