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St. Patrick was born in Britain, which is called England, and was
learned at Rome and there flourished in virtues; and after departed out
of the parts of Italy, where he had long dwelled, and came home into his
country in Wales named Pendyac, and entered into a fair and joyous
country called the valley Rosine. To whom the angel of God appeared and
said: O Patrick, this see ne bishopric God hath not provided to thee,
but unto one not yet born, but shall thirty years hereafter be born, and
so he left that country and sailed over into Ireland. And as Higden
saith in Polycronicon the fourth book, the twenty-fourth chapter, that
St. Patrick's father was named Caprum, which was a priest and a deacon's
son which was called Fodum. And St. Patrick's mother was named
Conchessa, Martin's sister of France. In his baptism he was named
Sucate, and St. Germain called him Magonius, and Celestinus the pope
named him Patrick. That is as much to say as father of the citizens.

St. Patrick on a day as he preached a sermon of the patience and
sufferance of the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ to the king of the
country, he leaned upon his crook or cross, and it happed by adventure
that he set the end of the crook, or his staff, upon the king's foot,
and pierced his foot with the pike, which was sharp beneath. The king
had supposed that St. Patrick had done it wittingly, for to move him the
sooner to patience and to the faith of God, but when St. Patrick
perceived it he was much abashed, and by his prayers he healed the king.
And furthermore he impetred and gat grace of our Lord that no venomous
beast might live in all the country, and yet unto this day is no
venomous beast in all Ireland.

After it happed on a time that a man of that country stole a sheep,
which belonged to his neighbor, whereupon St. Patrick admonested the
people that whomsoever had taken it should deliver it again within seven
days. When all the people were assembled within the church, and the man
which had stolen it made no semblant to render ne deliver again this
sheep, then St. Patrick commanded, by the virtue of God, that the sheep
should bleat and cry in the belly of him that had eaten it, and so
happed it that, in the presence of all the people, the sheep cried and
bleated in the belly of him that had stolen it. And the man that was
culpable repented him of his trespass, and the others from then forthon
kept them from stealing of sheep from any other man.

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