Legend
Her legend states that she came from a noble German family (her father was a king), and that she took a vow of celibacy at the age of twelve. When her parents forced her into marriage when she turned twenty, she fled from Germany into France. The man to whom she had been promised, a Saxon lord, pursued her into France after receiving approval to do so from Saturnina's parents. He found her hiding with some shepherds at Arras; she had been working as a maidservant. He attempted to rape her, and when she resisted him, he decapitated her.
The lord miraculously drowned in a fountain, and Saturnina then carried her own head in her hands, and as witnessed by the townspeople, carried her head to the church of St. Remi, which was in the next village: Sains-Les-Marquion. She was then buried there. Another tradition states that Saturnina placed her head on a stone at Sains-lès-Marquion, proclaiming herself to be the last human sacrifice the town would ever suffer.
Read more about this topic: Saturnina
Famous quotes containing the word legend:
“We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.”
—Miles Davis (1926–1991)