The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 44

How the Saint Escaped the Deadly Snares.

And the king, bidding farewell to the bishop, returned to his palace, and in the several places through which the saint was to pass he laid an ambush; and divers rivers crossed the road, which might in many parts be forded, nigh unto the shallows whereof he placed nine chariots with some of his murderous servants, that if the saint should escape the one he might meet with the other, and so that in no wise could he pass unharmed. But on the morrow Patrick, with eight persons only and the boy Benignus, going in a straight road to Teomaria, where the king then resided, passed through them who had laid snares for his life; and their eyes were bound, that they could not behold him; but to their sight appeared eight stags with one hind passing over the mountains; and thus, the Lord being his protector, did the saint and his companions escape the contrivers of his destruction. Therefore he came unto the royal city, and found the king at supper with his companions. And at his entrance no one arose excepting a certain bard of the king named Dubhtach, who devoutly saluted the saint, and besought and obtained of him that he should be made a Christian. And Dubhtach the first among them all believed in the Lord, and it was remembered to his justification; for, being baptized and confirmed in the faith of Christ, the strains that erewhile he had poured forth in the praise of his false gods, now converting to a better use, he composed more excellent poems unto the praise of the All-powerful and the honor of His saints.