Historic%20Yorkshire

CHAPTER xxvii.
THE BISHOP BLAIZE FESTIVAL.
Then followeth good sir Blaize, whodoth a waxen Candel give,
Andholy water to his men, whereby they safelylive.
I,divers Barrels ofthave seene, drawn out of water cleare,
Through one small blessed bone ofthis same holy Martyr heare,
And carried thence to other townes and cities farre away,
Each superstition dothrequire such earnest kinde ofplay.
PV^fJi?%HE Armenia. Amongst other qualifications he was
name of St. Blaize, or Blase, or Blasins, is
Bpv-i chiefly known in the woollenmanufacturing
l|#A\ districts from the fact of his having been the
%3m inventor of the old methodof wool-combing.
He lived during the earlypart of the fourth
century, and was the Bishop of Sebaste, in
celebrated for the power he exhibited in relieving those
who were suffering from sickness or disease. The medicine
he resorted to was prayer, and it is said that his
supplications to the Almighty were always answeredby
favourable results. Tradition relates that he was once
taken from his solitudeand putin prison,andwhilst there
relieved,through the medium of prayer,a youth who had
a fish-bone stuck inhis throat. He appears to have been
especially successful in curing complaints of the throat.
The Greeks were in the habit of imploring the aid of St.
Blaize for the purposeofrelieving stoppagesin the throat.
So efficacious was his power supposed to be for affections
of this part that, it is related, no less a personage than
Ætius, an Ancient Greek physician, used to give to his