ant a little,
though he was pretty far gone, and he died again as soon as the priest
stopped preaching. St. Brandan went back to Clonfert, where three
thousand monks joined him in good works, and mendicants swarmed from
all over the land to benefit by their labor. He often told the people
and the brethren of the wonders he had seen in lands Columbus was to
rediscover nine hundred years later, and he dwelt with marvelling on
the mercy of God as shown to Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ,
who was encountered in the northern seas, lying naked on an iceberg in
silent delight. St. Brandan recognized him by portraits he had seen and
hailed him. Judas then told his story; he was roasting in hell when
the Lord remembered that once in Joppa this disciple had thrown his
cloak over the shoulders of a leper who was agonized by a wind that
blew sharp sand into his sores. An angel was sent to tell the doomed
one that for this mercy he would be allowed, for one hour in every
year, to breathe the wholesome air of the upper world, and stretch his
scorched body on the ice. Moved by this tenderness toward the most
despised of men, St. Brandan bowed and prayed, just as Judas, with
despair in his upturned face, slipped down again to the deeps of fire.

Some men of Ross, Ireland, had killed their king, despite his
successful wars against his rival monarchs, some of whose kingdoms were
as large as a township. For this offense the heir to the throne, or his
advisers, decreed that sixty couples should be set adrift on the ocean,
to meet what fate they might. A guard was put along the shore to keep
them from landing again, and an easterly gale blew them quickly out of
sight of their relatives and friends. For years none dared to seek for
them. Conall Ua Corra, of Connaught, had prayed in vain to the Lord for
children, so in anger he prayed to the devil, and three boys were born
to his wife. The neighbors jeered at them as the fiend's offspring,
and harassed them and made them bitter. They said, one to the other,
"If we are really sons of Satan we will justify these taunts," and
collecting all the vicious boys of their village they robbed farmers,
ruined churches, killed men who resisted plunder, and were about to
murder their father when they were warned in a vision of the eternal
punishment they would endure in blazing sulphur pits if they did not
repent. Their father had long regretted his hasty prayer to the evil
one, and had tried to re