re: #312 Jay C

Yep: according to legends, St Helena had three crosses dug up in Jerusalem,* but didn’t know which was which until they brought out a sick (or dead) woman who was healed (or resurrected) by the touch of the “true” cross. Methinks Old Nell just MAY have been scammed.

Don’t know how true it is, but I read somewhere that somebody had made an exhaustive study of the “Relics Of The True Cross”, and calculated that the extant fragments only added up to about 2 cubic feet of wood: IOW, only a fraction of what an actual cross would have been. Maybe the rest WAS made into coffee tables…..

*three hundred years or so later: right…….

A fascinating bit of history - I didn’t know that.

Only two cubic feet of wood, eh? Yeah, sounds to me like St. Helena fell victim to some particularly slick con-artists.