On this occasion, however, he stuck it down into the king's foot, and did not perceive his mistake until-- "The royal foot transfixed, the gushing blood Enrich'd the pavement with a noble flood." The ceremony had concluded, and the prince had neither moved nor complained of the severe suffering he had endured.

When the saint expressed his deep regret for such an occurrence, Aengus merely replied that he believed it to be a part of the ceremony, and did not appear to consider any suffering of consequence at such a moment.[127] When such was the spirit of the old kings of Erinn who received the faith of Christ from Patrick, we can scarcely marvel that their descendants have adhered to it with such unexampled fidelity.
After the conversion of the princesses Ethnea and Fethlimia, the daughters of King Laeghaire, St.Patrick traversed almost every part of Connaught, and, as our divine Lord promised to those whom He commissioned to teach all nations, proved his mission by the exercise of miraculous powers.

Some of his early biographers have been charged with an excess of credulity on this point.

But were this the place or time for such a discussion, it might easily be shown that miracles were to be expected when a nation was first evangelized, and that their absence should be rather a matter of surprise than their frequency or marvellousness.

He who alone could give the commission to preach, had promised that "greater things" than He Himself did should be done by those thus commissioned.