The boat was old and decayed; it had been used in war, and flint arrows and spears had pierced its sides of skin. A human head and shoulders dried in the wind, and tanned with the bark of the oak-tree, ornamented its prow. Long ringlets of fair Saxon hair waved about its shrunken ears, and two clam-shells filled its hollow eyelids; it was a horrible and ghastly companion, and, when night came on, seemed like a demon of the sea, leading the fallen saint to destruction.
Endlong and sidelong, the sport of the waves and the current, the boat drifted down the broad Bodoria; the sun set behind the hills of the west, and its last rays faded away from the mountain peaks that look down on the valley of Dolour, and the waters of Sorrow and Care. The sky grew dark, and the shores grew darker; there were no stars, but the red sheet lightning gleamed afar off, revealing the rocky isles of the widening estuary. Still the boat floated on, darkly and silently; and, resigned to her fate, and pouring all her soul in prayer—but prayer only for the poor infant that nestled in her bosom—St. Thena, overcome with weariness, after a time sank to sleep; and then, more than ever, did her good angel watch over her.
When she awoke, the sun had risen again; there was no motion; the little bark was still. Thena looked around her. The currach was fast, high and dry, upon a sandy beach; on one side, the broad and glassy river was flowing past; on the other, were the green and waving woods of Rosse.[*] An old man, with long flowing garments, and a beard of snow that floated in the passing wind, approached; and in his bent form, and the cross-staff on which he leant, she recognised St. Serf of the Isle, and hurried to meet him, and implore his blessing on her babe. Then the good man blessed it, and taking a little water from a limpid fountain that poured over a neighbouring rock, he marked its little forehead with the cross, and called the babe _Mungo_—a name which, he prophesied, would become famous in future times.
[*] Fife, so called as it lay between the Tay and Forth; hence _Kinross_ and _Culross_, the head and back of Rosse.
And there, in that lonely place, where the fountain ran, the mother built a cell, where she dwelt in holiness, rearing her boy for the service of God; there she died in the odour of sanctity, and there she was interred; and above her grave her son built an oratory, which is called, even unto this day, by the burghers of Culross, the chapel of St. Mungo.