effect that a city lay submerged under the crystal water. The story is this: Our Lord visited Le Velay to see what way the Gospel was making there. He lodged with an aged widow, who nourished herself on the milk of a single goat. The people received Christ badly, and pelted Him with stones. Then He laid hold of the widow by the hand and drew her away; and she, leading the goat, followed. They had not proceeded far before she turned and looked back. And lo! where the town had been was now a lake. Three stones mark the spot where the widow took up her final residence, and on one of these she is said to have sat to milk her goat. The same story is told of another of these lakes, that of Arconne, near Fay le Froid, and there also are found three blocks ranged in a line.
That these lakes were held sacred admits of no dispute.
Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, says that in the land of the Gabali (the adjoining Gevaudan) was a Mount Helanus, where was a lake. Every year the inhabitants of the country flocked thither and cast oblations into the water—linen, weaving-materials, cheese, wax, bread, and coins. They arrived in wagons, bringing their food with them, and feasted by the lakeside during three days. On the last day a storm of thunder, lightning, and hail was wont to break over the sheet of water. This usage lasted till a bishop of Clermont went thither, and preached to the people; but as he found it impossible to dissuade the natives from the practice, he built there a chapel to S. Hilary, and exhorted them to leave their gifts there instead of throwing them into the tarn. This lake is now called Lac S. Andéol, on the mountains of Aubrac, and
