Eifel
The
Arrow at Prüm
It was in the little town of Prüm many a
long year
ago that Lothaire, the degenerate sort of St. Louis, did penance for
his
sins. In the church belonging to the town there are two very ancient
pictures;
one of them represents a knight standing on a huge rock, shooting an
arrow,
while his wife and retinue are looking devotedly towards heaven; the
other
represents a priest at an altar to whom an angel is bringing an arrow.
Who is the knight?
Who is the holy man?
The knight is Nithard, noble lord of Guise, who
lived
in the north of France towards the end of the ninth century. No
children
having been born to his excellent wife Erkanfrida, the knight
determined
to leave his estate for some pious object.
He meant to endow a cloister, where after their
deaths,
masses would be read for him and his spouse. But it was a difficult
matter
to select the most worthy from the many cloisters in the neighbourhood,
and
by the advice of a pious priest he resolved to leave the decision to
Heaven.
He fastened the document bequeathing his
possessions
to an arrow, and then set out for a great rock near the castle,
accompanied
by his wife and numerous followers.
After a fervent prayer he shot the arrow skyward,
and,
so the pious story runs, it was borne by angel hands, till it came to
Prüm – a journey of several days.
Ansbald, the holy abbot of the cloister, was
standing
at the altar when the arrow fell at his feet. He read the document with
astonishment and gratitude, and in a moved voice, announced its
contents
to the assembled congregation.
Knight Nithard assigned his estate to the
cloister, and
from that time forth many pilgrims journeyed to Prüm to see
the arrow
which had been carried there by angel hands.
The storms of many centuries have blown over those
hallowed
walls, but the pictures in the old church belonging to the abbey still
remain,
thus preserving the legend from oblivion.
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