February 5th.  St. Agatha.

An early martyr (date unknown) of Catania in Sicily.  Despite the absence of details of her life, veneration of her was popular from an early date [e.g. 4th century Martyrology of St. Jerome], as with similar young girl martyrs such as Agnes and Lucy.  Allegedly of a wealthy family, and vowing herself in virginity to Christ, she was the object of persecution by the consul Quintinian, determined to break her resolve: she was handed over to a brothel, then tortured, suffering the cutting off of her breasts, and died of this ill-treatment in prison.  In her own locality she is much invoked as a protectress against eruptions of Mount Etna; in this respect her patronage has been partly, but not totally successful.  She is also the patron saint of bell-ringers, possibly, it is said, because of some artistic confusion between these percussion instruments and the shape of those portions of her anatomy of which she suffered deprivation.  Se non é vero …