Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/359

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BREAGE
287


into the bell-metal if they would call it after her name.

She was a favourite disciple of S. Bridget, and this latter saint commissioned her to visit the great institution of the White House, near S. David's Head in Wales—to obtain thence rules by which her community might be directed. She was, it appears, the sister of S. Brendan the navigator, and it was in his sister's arms that the saint died. Brendan was a disciple of S. Ere, of Erth, on the Hayle river, and as Ere was one of the party, it is probable that Brendan made one as well.

Ere had been much trusted by S. Patrick, who appointed him as judge in all cases brought to him for decision, regarding him as a man of inviolable integrity and great calmness of judgment.

The church of Breage is large and fine. In the churchyard is an early cross of reddish conglomerate. The local story goes that there was a great fight, between Godolphin Hill and Tregonning Hill, fought by the natives with the Danes, and so much blood was shed that it compacted the granitic sand there into hard rock, and out of this rock Breaca's cross was cut. The fight was, of course, not with Danes, but was between the Cornish and the Irish. The cross is rude, with the Celtic interlaced work on it. The pedestal was also thus ornamented, but this is so worn that it can only be distinguished in certain lights.

In the church have been discovered several frescoes—S. Christopher, gigantic, of course; an equally gigantic figure of Christ covered with bleeding