place these splinters on their heads. St. Samson entered the Bay of St.
Michael's Mount in a granite vessel which will one day be called St.
Samson's basin. It is because of these facts that when he saw the stone
trough the holy Mael understood that the Lord intended him for the
apostolate of the pagans who still peopled the coast and the Breton
islands.

He handed his ashen staff to the holy Budoc, thus investing him with
the government of the monastery. Then, furnished with bread, a barrel
of fresh water, and the book of the Holy Gospels, he entered the stone
trough which carried him gently to the island of Hoedic.

This island is perpetually buffeted by the winds. In it some poor
men fished among the clefts of the rocks and labouriously cultivated
vegetables in gardens full of sand and pebbles that were sheltered from
the wind by walls of barren stone and hedges of tamarisk. A beautiful
fig-tree raised itself in a hollow of the island and thrust forth its
branches far and wide. The inhabitants of the island used to worship it.

And the holy Mael said to them: "You worship this tree because it is
beautiful. Therefore you are capable of feeling beauty. Now I come to
reveal to you the hidden beauty." And he taught them the Gospel. And
after having instructed them, he baptized them with salt and water.

The islands of Morbihan were more numerous in those times than they are
to-day. For since then many have been swallowed up by the sea. St. Mael
evangelized sixty of them. Then in his granite trough he ascended the
river Auray. And after sailing for three hours he landed before a
Roman house. A thin column of smoke went up from the roof. The holy man
crossed the threshold on which there was a mosaic representing a dog