"These things are not matters of faith; you may believe them or not as you will.  Perhaps they did not happen in the way in which they are now told, but if they are not altogether true, they are at least images and symbols of truth.  But this I have no doubt is true--that when the blessed Columba was Abbot in Iona, he called one of the brethren to him and bade him go on the third day to the western side of the island, and sit on the sea-shore, and watch for a guest who would arrive, weary and hungry, in the afternoon.  And the guest would be a crane, beaten by the stormy winds, and it would fall on the beach, unable to fly further.  'And do thou,' said Columba, 'take it up with gentle hands and carry it to the house of the guests, and tend it for three days and three nights, and when it is refreshed it will fly up into the air, and after scanning its path through the clouds it will return to its old sweet home in Erinn; and if I charge thee so earnestly with this service, it is because the guest comes from our dear land.'  And the Brother obeyed; and on the third day the crane arrived, storm-beaten and weary, and three days later it departed.  Have you not also heard or read how our own St. Godrich at Whitby protected the four-footed foresters, and how a great stag, which had been saved by him from the hunters, came year after year at a certain season to visit him?"