_The Funeral Honors which Men and Angels paid unto the Body of the
Saint._
And as Saint Patrick expired, the surrounding circle of monks commended
his spirit unto God, and enwrapped his body in the linen cloth which
Saint Brigida had prepared. And the multitude of the people and of the
clergy gathered together, and mourned with tears and with sighs the
dissolution of Patrick, their patron, even as the desolation of their
country, and paid in psalms and in hymns the rites which unto his
funeral were due. But on the following night a light-streaming choir
of angels kept their heavenly watch, and waked around the body; and
illumining the place and all therein with their radiance, delighting
with their odor, charming with the modulation of their soft-flowing
psalmody, poured they all around their spiritual sweetness. Then came
the sleep of the Lord on all who had thither collected, and while the
angelic rites were performed, held them in their slumber even until the
morning. And when the morning came, the company of angels reascended
into heaven, leaving behind them the sweet odor which excelled all
perfumes; the which, when the sleepers awakened, they and all who came
unto the place experienced even for twelve succeeding days. For during
that time was the sanctified body preserved unsepultured, inasmuch as
the controversies of the people with the clergy permitted it not to be
buried in that holy place.