A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Ebba

by Mary Matilda Betham

E.

EBBA, (Abbess of Coldingham, in Ireland),

Hearing of an invasion of the Danes, who put every thing to fire and sword, and committed the most horrid barbarities, Ebba persuaded the nuns of her monastery to save themselves from the violence of these barbarians, by disfiguring their faces, so as to become objects of horror rather than of love. Persuaded by her eloquence and example, the whole community cut off their noses and upper lips. When the Danes came and saw them in this state, they were so enraged that they set fire to the convent, and these martyrs to chastity perished in the flames.

F. C.