[...] Now you shall be told about some birds being kind to a Saint.
These birds were the seagulls—those gulls which are to be seen flying round the coast crying, “hyuk-kak-kah,” or hovering over the newly made furrows, as they follow the plough, seeking for worms in the fresh brown soil.
Now, these seagulls were resting on the rocks of Gower, in Glamorganshire, for they had been inland for a long flight, trying to find suitable places on marshy moors where they might build their nests when the spring came. And as they rested, many of them standing on one leg, others preening their feathers, one of them perceived something on the sea sailing towards them. It was small, and it was tossed gently up and down by the waves.
Then the gulls thought that they would go closer to it, thinking, perchance, it might contain something good for food. So they flew off, circling round and round, until they hovered over what they had come to see. What they saw was a coracle—a little wicker boat covered with hide—and inside it lay a baby.
He was fast asleep, for the waves had rocked the tiny boat, lulling him to rest as peacefully as a babe in its cradle, watched over by its mother. And the sea sang slumber songs to him, murmuring softly.
When the gulls saw him they wondered, for they had never before seen so small a craft containing so small a sailor. Men they knew, both on land and on sea; babies they had seen when they flew inland, but never alone as was this one.
Now, this poor little one had been cast out because his parents had sinned, and set adrift in the osier coracle to float where the wind and the waves carried him. Therefore the gulls, being tender-hearted birds, took counsel together.
“He is so small,” said they, “he cannot hurt us; and by next spring, when we nest, perchance he will be grown and will have left us.”
So they fluttered down, taking hold of the coracle with their beaks that so they might guide it to shore. When they reached the beach and the boat lay still on the sand, little Keneth awoke. He wanted more rocking; he wanted some one to gently pat him; most of all he wanted his mother; so he began to cry.
This puzzled the gulls: it was so different from their own cry of “hyuk-kak-kah.” Some of them, indeed, flew away, afraid. But the wise ones saw that all the baby seemed able to do was to open his mouth wide, and wrinkle his little face—he could not even stand, neither could he hurt them with his tiny fists.
So they thought they would carry him to their ledge of rock; they raised him from the coracle, bearing him up with their claws and beaks; and thus they were able to put him on the rock. And Keneth wept no longer, for the gulls built him a soft nest from their breast feathers, and being warm, he slept again.
Then those sea-birds gathered round him; they were proud of their new nestling.
“He must be fed,” said they, wondering what they should give him.
While they wondered, a very old gull, who had not been out to sea with them because her wings were getting feeble and she had needed rest after her long inland flight, came to know what they had found. She was looking at the baby, when she heard them talk of food for him. Then she told how, when nigh to the haunts of men, she had learned that human babes were fed on milk. And she said that, perhaps, the forest doe which sometimes came to nibble the short grass on the top of the cliffs, would help them.
So the gulls made another nest for Keneth, where the doe came, and here he lived. He was both healthy and happy, living there with those gulls, nestling against their soft feathers when he was cold, while when the wind blew they sheltered him with their wings. The doe, too, often came to see him, and he throve and grew big, cared for by his animal foster-mother.
Now, one day a shepherd was walking along the cliff, seeking for one of his sheep; and as he walked he perceived Keneth, and wondered how so small a babe could live on those rocks. Marvelling greatly, he picked up the little one, and carried him home to his wife, saying, “Here is a lamb for thee to cherish.”
And the wife was pleased, for her own cradle stood empty, and she longed for a babe to fill her empty arms and bring comfort to her sorrowing heart. So she laid little Keneth in the cradle of the baby who had died.
But the gulls were sorrowful when they saw the shepherd take Keneth, and followed after him. When they saw the cradle and Keneth lying in it, they swooped down upon it, and taking hold of it were able to carry it away. Back to the cliffs they took Keneth; but whether he lived there with them until he was grown a big boy I do not know.
Rather, I think, did that shepherd’s wife come to seek him, and one day—perchance when the seagulls had gone to that marsh where they built their nests—Keneth toddled home with her to learn those things which boys must know.
But we hear of him again as the Hermit of Gower. Years afterwards he returned to the cliffs where the seagulls lived. Here in his old age, after many years of well-doing, loved and revered by all who knew him, he ended his days, passing his remaining years in the company of the friends of his babyhood—the sea-birds and the forest deer.