In the happy times when the greatest saints of paradise still enjoyed visiting Lower Brittany, Saint Thomas and Saint John were traveling one day near Botmeur. It was very hot, and the mountain, as you know, is not easy to climb under the sun.
"I am very tired, said Saint John, the younger of the two: I am thirsty and I see neither fountain nor farm on this side."
“Here is a house at the bend in the road,” replied Saint Thomas, "may Jesus have pity on these people, because I see above the door three apples stuck in a branch of holly: it is a chapel of the devil (cabaret); we cannot enter there."
“Yet I am very thirsty,” replied Saint John.
A little further on, they saw a poor hut a few steps from the road.
"Oh! The miserable dwelling", says Saint Thomas, "and when we think that men are attached to such mud, often to the point of preferring it to heaven!... There will undoubtedly be water for us in there... if God allows it.
And they entered the cabin.
"Hello to you, good woman, will you give us a glass of water to drink?"
"I no longer have fresh water, gentlemen. On his way back from the quarry, Lann will bring back a full jug, but here is a bit of piquette (sour wine) at the bottom of the jug."
"Give us that at least". And the two saints drank some piquette... It was so bad that Saint John (I hardly dare say that), Saint John made a grimace about it.
“Yes, she’s a little sour,” murmured the poor woman. "Ah! if it were only good cider!... But that is not possible. No, there will never be any cider or wine here."
You should add", said Saint Thomas, "without the will of God."
"Oh! Poverty is misery", replied the old woman, shaking her head, "and the piquette will always be the piquette."
"Please give me a little more in this glass..."
Thomas poured a few drops of liquid into the pitcher and into a bowl where there was cloudy water, and the two saints walked away.
"Blessing!" said the good woman, tasting: "It's wine, and a good one, that the pitcher and the large barrel are now full... If I poured what remained at the bottom of the glass into the barrel, we would we would have wine, I think, enough to keep us entertained for a long time."
And she did as she said. But it happened that the barrel only contained cloudy water instead of water, as did the jug and the pitcher.
The unfortunate woman was perhaps going to run after the travelers and implore their help, confessing what she had done when her husband returned; but they only knew how to quarrel instead of relying on the goodness of God, so that the dirty water remained in the barrel, like the trouble in the household.
Source: La Volonté de Dieu from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.
(To be Continued)
Previous Tale: The Giant Hok-Bras
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
Here is another tale, with traveling saints as we have already seen in other tales.
It is interesting that it is Saint Thomas who insists that people should trust God's will, as he was the one doubting Jesus.
Yesterday, I received a new book that has just been published: Not the End of the World, by Hannah Ritchie.
Hannah Ritchie is a 30-year-old Scottish woman who is the Lead Researcher in the scientific online publication Our World in Data. I have been following her on X/Twitter for some time and this is how I learned about her book.
The subtitle of the book is: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet.
by "the first generation", she means her generation, that is people that will live until the end of the 21st century. I will long be dead then.
After having been very pessimistic about Planet Earth ten years ago, she is now realistically optimistic and she explains why in her book.
She is of course talking about Climate Change, but also about Air Pollution, Deforestation, Food Production and Distribution, Biodiversity Loss, Ocean Plastics, and Overgishing.
I started to read the book and so far I am enjoying it.
-- Vincent Celier
