ed if they knew where they were in their sleep, and what sort of dreams they had had; he answered that they had been oppressed with many fancies and wonderful dreams, different from those they were accustomed to in their chambers; and in the morning when they went out, in a short while they had clean forgotten their dreams and visions; wherefore he concluded that the whole matter was fancy.”
The next to give us an account of his descent into S. Patrick’s Purgatory, is William Staunton of Durham, who went down into the cave on the Friday next after the feast of Holyrood, in the year 1409. Mr. Wright has quoted the greater portion of his vision from a manuscript in the British Museum; I have only room for a few extracts, which I shall modernize, as the original spelling is somewhat perplexing.
“I was put in by the Prior of S. Matthew, of the same Purgatory, with procession and devout prayers of the prior, and the convent gave me an orison to bless me with, and to write the first word in my forehead, the which prayer is this, ‘Jhesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, miserere mihi peccatori.’ And the prior taught me to say this prayer when any spirit, good or evil, appeared unto me, or whe
