Chapter 22

THE NAKED RUNNERS

One may see in the foregoing story of S. Alfio the foundation of some of the incidents painted on the carts, and perhaps the saints' travelling bareheaded and barefooted is the origin of the people running so to Trecastagne, but I can find nothing in the book to support the belief that S. Alfio was a medical man or that he ever cured anyone of hernia. Nevertheless that he was a medical man, especially successful in treating hernia, is believed by everyone in and round Catania. Fortified by my