At the Newman Society, we are blessed with many gifted scholars: recently, two among them discovered this astonishing Medieval Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, which they have transcribed for our enjoyment. It is attributed to St John of the Crossword, but is probably pseudepigraphical; the true authorship is lost to the sands of time.
St. Arbuck
1180-1211
A young man was born in a village so miserable and filled with illiterate serfs that it remained nameless. Local peasants would point and grunt to indicate its location. He was born at the eleventh hour at the beginning of the winter season to a poor family named Buck. His mother named him “Ar” after “Amen”, for she was an illiterate young village maid, and did not know how to spell holy words. The family of Ar’s father (Peter Noster Buck) all looked a bit goatish, hence their name (see Appendix 1) – a surname as tenacious as the accompanying resemblance. This curse shut many a Buck in poverty, as the people of *Hrgh* feared that their produce was cursed by the selfsame demon as afflicted their shared countenance. The young Ar was lecherous with local wenches until they stood up to him, for then he ran away. He was walking along the coast and saw a mermaid and went over to be lecherous, but she was a Christian mermaid and lo! he was converted on the spot! That day, he repented of his lechery and went around dissuading others from lechery.
After his conversion, as he became more holy, he became less goatly in countenance, and all his coarse features were replaced by a radiant light. He would travel many miles to share the Good News with kings and peasants alike, and all marvelled at his wisdom. Wherever he went, he studied in great depth the foliage that surrounded him, fifteen hours every day, and learned to brew many thousands of kinds of leaf in water whilst praying the psalms most diligently. He became known throughout the land for his powerful tinctures. One day, a beautiful woman in a beatific glow appeared to him and he recognised the face of that mermaid which once instilled in him such fervour for the divine. Except, this mermaid was not mermaid but woman, levitating four hands from the ground. She indicated to him a magical brown bean that he should brew and promised that it would resurrect those who had fallen asleep. He founded a small enclosed monastery, later known as Ar Buck’s, in the same village whence his mother bore him. The monastery grew to encompass every peasant, widow and wench in *Herrhghr* such that they were all converted and miraculously gained literacy. *Hgeuhyuehgr*, the small working town where no one but these peasant monks lived, became known as Staffonly. Alas, the monastery was frequently persecuted by a band of rogues who knew not the Lord but wanted the elixir for themselves, a group of ruffians called the Man Agers.
At Staffonly, the monks made the heavenly elixir from brown beans that had the power to animate the weary. They stored it in small vials made from the bark of trees. The elixir was given to many a peasant from faraway lands by request at the door of the monastery, and he prayed so diligently over every vial (see Appendix 2) such that the name of the recipient became miraculously inscribed on it and none other could partake of the elixir than the recipient for whom it was intended, lest they be so smitten with it that they be smited where they stood. The vessels of this precious liquid were delivered to recipients through a small hatch in the monastery wall a little way down the road. The elixir became a staple beverage throughout the town and every monk drank it upon waking every morning, for it gave them such animation that even the old felt young. At times the elixir was so powerful that one would shake after drinking it.
One day, St Ar was at a tavern and a wench came to seduce him but he said “no” and said the gospel at her instead. Verily, she repented and became a nun on the spot, closed in the veil in that very tavern where so often she had wenched. The innkeeper was mightily vexed at this disruption to the wenchery and sin that took place in that tavern, for the devil had hold of his heart. Alack! At the eleventh hour, with his mighty band of Man Agers, the innkeeper held down St. Ar and it was then that he knew he was going to die. As he lay oppressed by the Man Agers, he forgave his oppressors and said to them, “Benedictus bene decaf” and they poured boiling hot elixir down his throat until he died. The newly invested nun took his body back to the monastery where it lay for ten years without decay but emitted a pungent aroma of that great elixir. After his death, the monastery dissolved and the recipe for the brown elixir was lost forever, and all St. Ar’s knowledge of botany, forgotten. The people of Staffonly too forgot their literacy and have since referred to St. Ar together with his surname, and naming the ruined monastery “St. Arbuck’s”.
It is widely known to be efficacious to pray to St. Arbuck at 11:00 daily and after 08:00 Masses, especially for coffee-related intentions and the conversion of wenches.
Appendix
1: Buck – nickname from Middle English buc(ke) ‘male goat’ (Old English bucca) or a ‘male deer’ (Old English bucc). The goat was popularly associated with lecherous behaviour and the deer with timidity and speed.
2: Lord, bless these crushèd and well-brewèd beans and so too crush our sin and brew us in thy haev’nly love. Benedictus bene decaf, et benedic nos homines ut animas nostras revivatur.