The saints were beatified conjurers, and any nonsense about them was swallowed, if it involved the miraculous element.

The effect upon Froude may be left to his own words.

"St.Patrick I found once lighted a fire with icicles, changed a French marauder into a wolf, and floated to Ireland on an altar stone.

I thought it nonsense.

I found it eventually uncertain whether Patricius was not a title, and whether any single apostle of that name had so much as existed." Froude's scepticism was too indiscriminate when it assailed the existence of St.Patrick, which is not now doubted by scholars, baseless as the Patrician legends may be.