Rosaʹlia or St. Rosalie
. A native of Palermo, who was carried by angels to an inaccessible mountain, where she lived for many years in the cleft of a rock, a part of which she wore away with her knees in her devotions. If anyone doubts it, let him know that a rock with a hole in it may still be seen, and folks less sceptical have built a chapel there, with a marble statue, to commemorate the event.
“That grot where olives nod,
Where, darling of each heart and eye,
From all the youths of Sicily,
St. Rosalie retired to God.”
St. Rosalia, in Christian art, is depicted in a cave with a cross and skull, or else in the act of receiving a rosary or chaplet of roses from the Virgin.
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Entry taken from
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,
edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.