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.

Also St. Patrick was wont for to worship and do reverence unto all the crosses devoutly that he might see, but on a time tofore the sepulchre of a Paynim stood a fair cross, which he passed and went forth by as he had not seen it, and he was demanded of his fellows why he saw not that cross.  And then he prayed to God he said for to know whose it was, and he said he heard a voice under the earth saying:  Thou sawest it not because I am a Paynim that am buried here, and am unworthy that the sign of the cross should