The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 30

How the Dry Land was turned into a Marsh.

And going forward, he arrived at a place which was called Aonach Tailltion, and there he made ready to refresh himself and his people, and to announce the office of his ministry. But the idolatrous inhabitants, not enduring the presence of the man of God, gathered together and violently drove him thence, as the light of the sun is intolerable to the weak-eyed. Yet the God whom Patrick bore about him, and glorified in his body, permitted not that an affront offered unto His servant for the sake of His name should go unpunished; but quickly did he bring on them his deserved wrath, inasmuch as for the wickedness of them who dwelt therein the Lord converted their fruitful land into a salt marsh; and the sea, with the foreflowing of an unwonted tide, covered it, and, that it might even for ever be unhabitable, changed the dry land into a plashy lake. Then the saint, going unto a small island not far from the main shore, abided there certain days, and it is called unto this time Saint Patrick's Island.