Saint Petka

Petka was an 11th century hermit born near modern-day Istanbul and known during her life for a decade-long stint in the wilderness, where she ate only desert grasses. Perhaps this strange diet contributed to her early death, at the age 27, after which she was buried in an unmarked grave by the sea.

Years passed, and the bloated and rotting corpse of a drowned sailor washed ashore. Unknowingly, a gravedigger named George set about preparing the sailor a spot right next to Petka — until he was greeted by a vision of a queen on a throne surrounded by soldiers. It was Petka, who’d been waiting to be discovered as the saint she was. “George, dig up my relics at once,” she told him. “I can’t bear that man’s stench.”

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