Their
tortures were increased after this, and so it went on till the 10th of
May, 253, when S. Alfio was killed by having his tongue pulled out, S.
Filiberto was burnt on a gridiron and S. Cirino was boiled in pitch and
bitumen.

Eight years later, in June, 261, Vitale in his retirement was cheered by
a visit from Neofito and Aquila, who brought to him, as tokens of the
martyrdom of his three sons, the mantle of Alfio, the girdle of Filiberto
and the veil of Cirino, saturated with blood.

The geographers write Trecastagne on the maps as though the village took
its name from Three Chestnut Trees, but the learned say it should be
Trecastagni--Tre Casti Agni, that is Three Chaste Lambs, after the three
saints who rested on the site of the parish church. Their memory is
perpetuated also at Mascali, Catania and Lentini. And they are adored at
Aci-reale, Pedara and at other places on the eastern slopes, whence the
faithful come to their shrine at Trecastagne on the 10th of May.

CHAPTER XX
THE NAKED RUNNERS

One may see in the foregoing story of S. Alfio the foundation of some of
the incidents painted on the carts, and perhaps the saints' travelling
bareheaded and barefooted is the origin of the people running so to
Trecastagne, but I can find nothing in the book to support the belief
that S. Alfio was a medical man or that he ever cured anyone of hernia.
Nevertheless that he was a medical man, especially successful in treating
hernia, is believed by everyone in and round Catania. Fortified by my
book I ventured to doubt it and asked my friends in what university he
took his diploma. They replied that I was confusing cause and effect;
for in the beginning it was not the universities that made the doctors,
it was the doctors that made the universities.

I then pointed out that he could not even cure himself from the wounds
made by the tortures; SS. Peter and Paul had to come to the Roman prison,
S. Andrea had to be called in at Mascali and the old man girdled with
grace and celestial light at Lentini. But they disposed of this by
reminding me that medical men are notoriously powerless to cure
themselves.

Then I objected that a saint who was born in 230 and who died in 253 was
too young to have got together anything of a practice. They replied that
the carts show him exercising his profession.

"Where are these carts?" I exclaimed. "If they are in Catania, let them
be called and give their evidence in the