SAINTS AS PIN-CUSHIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 15

SAINTS AS PIN-CUSHIONS.

. Breton girls who want to get married go to Sene, neas Yannes, and stick pins into the foot of the wooden statue, of a saint called St Uferier, who marries his devotees within the year. The pin must be well pushed, for if it falls out the wedding will fall through ; and it must be a long straight pin, for if it bends the future husband may be a hunchback or a cripple. This is on the Atlantic coast. On the channel, at Ploumanac’h, on a rock accessible at low tide, there is a little shrine supported by four Roman columns, and dedicated to St Quirec, who landed there from England in the sixth century. His wooden image is stuck full of pins. So is a statue of St Lawrence, near Quintin. Here the pin must stick at the first push, for each failure postpones tbe marriage for a year. The same practice has been traced further inland, at Leval, in the ancient province of Maine, where the bare legs and arms of a colossal wooden statue of St Christopher are covered with pinholes and pins ; and both young men and maidens join in the rite. There is an old tale told of an idiot who broke the statue of St Merli on the eve of his fete. In order to conceal his crime his mother made him take the saint’s place. Now, upon the occasion of his feast there was a great resort of pious pilgrims, who stuck pins in St Mirli’s knee for all sorts of wants. The first few pins of the day happened to be those of children, and did not much hurt the saint’s locum tenens ; a young girl followed and drew blood ; a stout old countrywoman then drove a corking pin so far into the poor idiot’s leg that he jumped, howling, over the devout and prostrate bodies, and then and there made a miracle ; for St Mirli is believed to have flown up to Heaven.—Pearson’s Christmas Number.