Domenico Di Ceglie

A story is told of a young woman who in order to follow
her father who wished to live in a monastery without
being parted from her, dressed in male clothes and
changed her name to Marino (from her original female name
of Marina).

Although the father died fairly soon Marino /a continued to
live in the monastery maintaining his/her secret. Marino was
well loved and was cited by others for his exemplary behav-
iour. He used to go to the nearby village to do the shopping
for the monastery and he used to spend the night at the village
inn before returning the following day to the monastery with
his hand cart. One day the inn keeper's daughter, who had
become pregnant, accused the young monk of having raped
her. Marino did not defend himself and he was inexorably
thrown out of the monastery. However, he did not leave the
area and remained living near the monastery in a grotto,
where the child, the fruit of his presumed sin was given to him
to be brought up. [ Minghelli, 1996 ]

Eventually, Marino was re-admitted with "his child" to the monas-

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