_A wicked Tyrant is transformed into a Fox._
In that part of Britain which is now called Vallia, lived a certain
tyrant named Cereticus; and he was a deceiver, an oppressor, a
blasphemer of the name of the Lord, a persecutor and a cruel destroyer
of Christians. And Patrick hearing of his brutal tyranny, labored to
recall him into the path of salvation, writing unto him a monitory
epistle, for his conversion from so great vices. But he, that more
wicked he might become from day to day, laughed to scorn the monition
of the saint, and waxed stronger in his sins, in his crimes, in his
falsehoods and in his cruelties. The which when Patrick heard, taught
by the Divine Spirit, he knew that the vessel of evil was hardened in
reprobation, prepared in no wise for correction, but rather for
perdition; and thus he prayed unto the Lord: "O Lord God, as thou
knowest this vulpine man to be monstrous in vice, do thou in a
monstrous mode cast him forth from the face of the earth, and appoint
an end unto his offences!" Then the Lord, inclining his ear unto the
voice of his servant, while on a certain time the tyrant stood in the
middle of his court surrounded by many of his people, suddenly
transformed him into a fox; and he, flying from their sight, never more
appeared on the earth. And this no one can reasonably disbelieve, who
hath read of the wife of Lot who was changed into a pillar of salt, or
the history of the King Nabuchodonoser.