in days gone
by, carried the vine. The god of the Christians had not yet been
proclaimed to this happy people. They worshipped for its beauty a leafy
beech-tree, whose honoured branches swept the ground, and they hung
fillets of wool thereon. They also worshipped a sacred stream and set up
images of clay in a dripping grotto. They made offering of little
cheeses and a bowl of milk to the Nymphs of the woods and mountains.

"But soon an apostle of sorrow was sent to them by the new God. He was
drier than a smoked fish. Although attenuated with fasting and watching,
he taught with unabated ardour all manner of gloomy mysteries. He loved
suffering, and thought it good; his anger fell upon all that was
beautiful, comely, and joyous. The sacred tree fell beneath his hatchet.
He hated the Nymphs, because they were beautiful, and he flung
imprecations at them when their shining limbs gleamed among the leaves
at evening, and he held my melodious flute in aversion. The poor wretch
thought that there were certain forms of words wherewith to put to
flight the deathless spirits that dwell in the cool groves, and in the
depths of the woods and on the tops of the mountains. He thought to
conquer us with a few drops of water over which he had pronounced
certain words and made certain gestures. The Nymphs, to avenge
themselves, appeared to him at nightfall and inflamed him with desire
which the foolish knave thought animal; then they fled, their laughter
scattered like grain over the fields, while their victim lay tossing
with burning limbs on his couch of leaves. Thus do the divine nymphs
laugh at exorcisers, and mock the wicked and their sordid chastity.

"The apostle did not do as much harm as he wished, because his teaching
was given to the simple souls living in obedience to Nature, and because
the mediocrity of most of mankind is such that they gain but little from
the principles inculcated in them. The little wood in which I dwelt
belonged to a Gaul of senatorial family, who retained some traces of
Latin elegance. He loved his young freed-woman and shared with her his
bed of broidered purple. His slaves cultivated his garden and his
vineyard; he was a poet and sang, in imitation of Ausonius, Venus
whipping her son with roses. Although a Christian, he offered me milk,
fruit, and vegetables as if I were the genius of the place. In return I
charmed his idle moments with the music of my flute, and I gave him
happy dreams. In fact,