Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, and those of Ado and Usuardus, but in some editions on Dec. 12th. Authority: — A life written originally by Abbot Ragimbert, who succeeded him at no great distance of time; but this life j has not reached us in its integrity, having been rc-written by a monk of Luxeuil in the nth century.] Walaric, in French Vattry y was a native of Auvergne, and his boyhood was spent among the old volcanic cones, and by the circular lakes that occupy the exhausted craters, pasturing his sheep. But there was something in the mountain scenery, a voice in the pine woods, that spoke to his soul, and bade it quiver, as the little spines of the fir tremble when the wind arises. He knew not for what he felt the stirring of his heart; whither the voice called him.
The first strong desire in his childish breast was a craving to know his letters. And so, whilst his sheep j browsed in the grass beside the black tarns, he laboured ! with a little slate and a book to learn to read and write. [ Then he went further; he procured a psalter, and in the 1 mountain pastures found place and opportunity to learn J by heart the glorious psalms of the Shepherd-king. And 1 now, in David's words, the deepest cravings of his soul 1 found their utterance. He could not rest, but took refuge j in a monastery where lived an uncle of his, and there he, made rapid progress in virtue and knowledge. So great J was his modesty, so sweet and gentle his disposition, 1 that all loved him; he carried the freshness of his moun[ tain air, the sweetness of his mountain thyme, with him \ into the cloister.
After some years, he went to the monastery of S. 1 Aunacharius, at Auxerre; and thence, stirred by the tidings that reached him of the saintly life led by the monks of Luxeuil under the great Columbanus, and I think it not unlikely, with an undefined, unexpressed longing for rock and pine and blue mountains once more, he took his staff in hand, and with a faithful comrade, Bobbo, went to Columbanus, and was with the great Irish abbot till Queen Brunehild drave him from his retreat, scattered the two hundred and twenty monks who obeyed his rule, and gave the abbey into the hands of seculars. Walaric now laboured with the Blessed Eustace (March 29th), to collect the scattered sheep and replace them in the fold of Luxeuil, which they connived to persuade the seculars to vacate for them. And so time passed. Now after a while a monk named Waldelin felt called to undertake a mission to the heathen, and S. Walaric resolved to accompany him. They asked permission of King Clothair III., who governed that portion of France called Neustria, and the king, with the consent of S. Bercundus, bishop of Amiens, sent them to Leuconay, near the mouth of the Somme, to labour at the extirpation of the heathenism which still reigned there. The two missionaries built a hermitage and cells, and the bishop came to them every Lent [the forty days of fasting before Easter] to spend with them the forty days in retreat By degrees monks assembled around them, and Leuconay became a flourishing colony. The historian records several instances of S. Walaric's gift of seeing into and reading the hidden acts of others. One man he rebuked for approaching the Blessed Sacrament after he had drank a measure of wine at home, which his wife had offered him. A boy was sent by his mother with oblations (eulogiae) of bread and bottles of wine, and the lad, boy-like, took toll of the food and drink on the way. This S. Walaric detected, and gave the boy a sharp rebuke.
As he was riding on his ass one day at Auxy-le-Chlteau. April i.] S. Walaric. he saw on the bank of the little river Authe a huge stump of wood covered with rude sculptures, which the people of that part venerated with pagan rites. Fired with zeal, Walaric ordered the boy who accompanied him to knock the stump over; the boy put his hand to it, and the bottom being very rotten, the piece of wood rolled over. Some peasants rushed up, in great wrath, and would have done an injury to the man of God, or his servant, had he not arrested their arms by his mild remonstrances, and the incident enabled him to convert the neighbourhood. One day he turned in to warm himself at the fire of the priest at Cayeux, a little town or village on the coast, for it was winter, and the old man was numb with cold. The priest was then entertaining the magistrate of that part of the country, and the two were making merry, by relating to each other extremely indecent stories, and cutting many a foul joke.
Walaric remained for some moments warming his hands and listening in a sort of amaze, hardly realising what these two men were saying. Then suddenly he burst forth with “My children, for every idle word ye shall give account at the day of judgment”
But they, nothing heeding, continued their unseemly conversation; and Walaric, colouring like fire, caught up his stick, left the fire-place, shook off the snow from his feet against the evil house, and fled away through the biting cold, and the dark night, rather than remain and listen to such words. For he was a man of most simple and modest mind, and the knowledge of sin filled him with indescribable pain. And ever was his face bright and amiable, and as the thought of God, and the love of Jesus kindled his soul, his face was wont to become red as a rose. So gentle was he also, that the sparrows would come and feed in his hand, and allow him to caress them with his aged and trembling fingers. And if the sparrows were pecking up the crumbs that had fallen from the monastery table, “ Stand back, my sons,” said the abbot to his monks, “and let the little birds have their dinner in peace.”
There was a little hill near Leuconay, which he loved to ascend, and where he often spent long time under a great tree, musing or praying. Perhaps that little hill, the only rising ground above the sand-flats, was dear to him as faintly recalling his hills of Auvergne, or the Jura near Luxeuil; or perhaps it was because thence he could see the dark blue sea beyond the white sands, and it spoke to him with the same mysterious voice as did the rocks and pines afore. From whatever reason it was, he loved that little hill, and one day he led some of his monks to it, pointed to the foot of the tree, and prayed them to lay him there. Next day, a Sunday, he died, and under that tree the old abbot was laid. Some years after his death his monastery was ruined, in the civil wars that desolated France, but it was restored by S. Blithmund, his disciple and successor, who had retired to Bobbio. The new Church was erected with great magnificence, and the body of S. Walaric was laid in it. In 1200 the body of S. Walaric was taken into Normandy to a little town that has since borne his name, S. Valery, between Dieppe and Fdcamp. The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] were afterwards restored to their former resting-place, now called S. Valery-sur-Somme. At the Revolution in 1793, the | body of the saint was burnt in the choir of the Church. One bone alone was preserved by the piety of a woman, and is now enshrined at S. Valdry, of which city he is patron, as he is also of the mariners on that coast Dec. 1 2th is observed as the Feast of the Translation of his relics.
