The Coastguard's Fate

Lady Jane Francesca Wilde

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland

1888

One day a coastguard man was out in his boat with some of the islanders when a terrible storm arose with thunder and lightning. The poor people fell on their knees and prayed devoutly, but the man laughed at them, called them fools and cowards, and said he also could make lightning and thunder as well as the God they were praying to. So he immediately prepared a small cannon he had on board, and set a match to the powder and fired it off. But before the echo died away a stream of lightning passed over him, and he fell dead in the boat a blackened corpse—a dreadful sign of the vengeance of heaven on his blasphemous daring.

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