LXXXV. In this same year, after the fighting had ceased, the wild beasts became very ferocious against us. In consequence of the great number of dead bodies of those who had fallen in these battles, they had acquired a taste for eating human flesh; and when the bodies of the slain rotted and disappeared, the wild beasts entered the villages and carried off children and devoured them. They also fell upon single men on the roads and killed them. At last they became so afraid that, at the time of threshing, not a man in the whole district would pass the night in his threshing-floor without a hut (to shelter him), for fear of the beasts of prey. But by the help of our Lord, who is always careful for us and delivers us from all trials by His mercy, some of them fell by the hands of the villagers, who stabbed them, and sent their dead carcases to Edessa; and others were caught by huntsmen, who bound them and brought them (thither) alive, so that every one saw them and praised God, who has said, "The fear of you and the dread of you I will put upon every beast of the earth." For although, because of our sins, war and famine and pestilence and captivity and noxious beasts and other chastisements, written and unwritten, were sent upon us, yet by His grace we have been delivered from them all.