Young Emerens had the answer. “Lower me into the eastern silo and I will chase the rats away.”
The townspeople were disgusted by such a notion, but since they did not have to go swimming about with vermin themselves, they were willing to try it. They tied a rope around Emerens’ waist and lowered him into the grain like a bucket being dropped down a well.
Sure enough, as soon as Emerens sank into the grain, the rats sensed his holiness and chewed their way clear, eager to be away from such goodness. It took many hours of Emerens being lifted and dunked into the grain, but soon all the rats were gone and the grain was pure again.
The citizens of Girecht pronounced Emerens the savior of the village, hefted him up on their shoulders, and carried him around the town square, cheering his good name.
The next day, when the festival was to begin, the townspeople saw that, just as they had predicted, the rats had infested the southern silo. In went Emerens and the rats began to flee.
It was a long process, and as the evening wore on, the villagers minding Emerens’ rope heard music coming from the town square, heard the thump of people dancing, and smelled the syrups and sweet cakes and sausages they knew were being piled high onto platters just a short distance away. Surely, they thought, we can race down to the square, have a dance and a drink, and be back before we need to pull up the boy.
The next time Emerens sank into the silo, they raced down to the square. But after the first sip of beer, they couldn’t help but take a second. One dance became two and then three as the fiddles swelled around them, and soon they forgot that they’d ever been meant to do anything that night but enjoy themselves.
In the darkness of the silo, Emerens tugged on the rope in vain, waiting to be drawn up to the surface. There he died, floating in the grain, his mouth and eyes and nose full of barley. The next day, the townspeople slept soundly in their beds, long after the bells for morning services had rung. Only late in the afternoon, when they stumbled to their kitchen tables and threw their shutters open to the sunlight, did anyone wonder why Emerens had not come to call them to prayer.
Emerens was buried in the barley fields, but since his death, beer or bread made from Girecht grain has forever tasted of misery, and leaves anyone who consumes it with a sour stomach and melancholy thoughts.
Girecht and its bitter fields are long forgotten, but Emerens, patron saint of brewers, is paid homage in late summer when the harvest begins.
SANKT VLADIMIR THE FOOLISH
If you are lucky, you may have stood on the quay in the great city of Os Kervo and gazed in awe at its famous lighthouse and the massive seawall that protects it. Neither would have ever come to be without the work of a brave boy named Vladimir.
The bay at Os Kervo was once an untamed place where the sea savaged the shore and tossed ships against the land like bits of driftwood. For long years the people who had settled there tried to make the bay a working port. But all their efforts to build piers and protections were nothing against the fury of the ocean.
It seemed a hopeless cause, so when it was announced that the king would seek to land a fleet of ships on their shores, the people did not know what to do. This was their chance at prosperity, to be recognized by the king, whose attention might forever change their fortunes. Yet if the king could not land, it would all be for nothing and some other, gentler harbor would gain their ruler’s favor.
Vladimir was a young man without talents. He was not strong enough to be of help with building or farming or heavy work; neither was he particularly clever or interesting. He could not sing well and he was not pleasing to look at. Vladimir knew all this and the knowledge made him halting and shy, which only seemed to bother people more. They would call him “fool” or shoo him from their door, and Vladimir found that he was loneliest around other people. He was happier wandering down to the edge of the water to whisper to the waves.
Still, Vladimir listened closely to the conversations that eddied around him. He heard his neighbors worry and argue over the arrival of the king’s fleet, and he thought he might know a solution. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his words washed away and he was left to endure blank stares and exasperated sighs. The easiest thing would be to do what he must alone.
Vladimir waded into the water up to his knees, and then up to his hips, and then up to his chest. At first the people jeered and shouted. Until they saw that the water was going with him, the tide receding as he walked farther and farther from the land. The waves trailed him, the ocean pulling away from shore like a woman gathering her skirts. The people of the bay saw the extraordinary chance he’d given them and took up their hammers and chisels.
For thirty days and thirty nights, Vladimir stood in the water and held back the sea, whispering his prayers as the sun rose and fell, and crabs nibbled at his toes, until the great seawall and the base of the lighthouse were built.
At last, the foreman signaled to Vladimir that the work was done and he could finally rest. But Vladimir was too tired to make the walk back to land. He lowered his hands, his prayers fell silent, and the wild sea rushed in.
Vladimir’s body drifted to shore on the tide, and the people of Os Kervo gathered him up and placed him upon a bier covered in lilies. For another thirty days and thirty nights, they came to pay their respects, and to the astonishment of all, Vladimir’s corpse did not rot. On the thirty-first day, his body dissolved into sea-foam, leaving behind nothing but a small heap of sea salt among the lilies.
He is known as the patron saint of the drowned and of unlikely achievement.
SANKT GRIGORI OF THE WOOD
A nobleman’s son fell ill with a disease that none of his father’s wise friends and advisers had ever seen before.
“He must be bled,” decreed the local physician who had served the nobleman’s household for many years. “It is the only thing for such cases.” So the young man’s veins were opened and leeches were applied, but he only grew paler and weaker in his bed.
“He must be made warm,” declared the mayor, who dined at the nobleman’s house every week. “Such diseases must be sweated out.” So they swaddled the young man in thick blankets and kept a fire blazing in the hearth all day and night. Sure enough, he sweated through all his many layers of bedclothes, but he grew no stronger.
“He must be left to rest in the dark like a root,” said the nobleman’s rich neighbor, who was known for his prize vegetables. “A long sleep will restore him.” Heavy black curtains were drawn over the windows, and the young man’s head was wrapped in thick cotton batting so no sound could get through. When the door to his room was opened three days later, he did look white and lifeless as a turnip, but he was no better.
At last, the nobleman’s wife took charge and sent for Grigori, a healer and teacher who lived in the mountains nearby. It took many days for the nobleman’s emissaries to find the healer’s cave, but when at last they did, he agreed to follow them down the mountain.
Grigori was distressed when he saw the state of the nobleman’s home. He opened the windows and let in the fresh air. He banked the fire and tossed the leeches onto the coals. What else he did is not known, but only a few days later, the young man sat up in bed and declared that he was hungry. The next day he rose and walked with his mother around the garden. And the day after that, he asked that his horse be brought to him so that he might go for a ride.