Patron Saint of gardening and, bizarrely, cab drivers, St. Fiacre was an Irish hermit who founded a monastery in France (Saint-Fiacre-en-Brie, near Paris).
Legend has it that Fiacre had established a garden to aid in his healing and feeding of the sick and hungry. His following grew so large that he found the garden to be too small, and upon asking the Bishop Faro for more land was told that he could have as much land as he could entrench in a day. The following morning, he set out to drag a tiny spade along the ground, uprooting trees, roots and rocks - anything in the way of the land he desired.
Another variation of the story tells of a local woman who had heard of Fiacre's plan to try and obtain land. She, along with several other villagers, entrenched a great deal of land in his absence, and reported him as a sorcerer to the bishop. However, their plan backfired, as the bishop ruled that Fiacre had performed a miracle, and accused the woman of witchcraft, thereby denying access to Fiacre's garden to all women from that moment on.
Parisian cab drivers also have the honour of having Fiacre as their patron saint. French cabs are known as fiacres because the first establishment to run such a service, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was located near the Hotel de Saint-Fiacre in Paris. Some of the carriages carried small effigies of the saint on their dashboards for luck.
Fiacre died around 670 AD, and to this day his shrine is regarded by many as still having the powers of healing. Fiacre's shield bears the word humilitas, meaning humility. The feast of this particular saint is celebrated in both Ireland and France around the end of August, with parades, hymns, and floral camaraderie.