How the aunt found Birgitta praying at night.

One night, the aforesaid aunt secretly entered the bedroom of the maidens and found Birgitta kneeling naked before her bed and praying with tears. The aunt, suspicious of maidenly levity, ordered someone to bring a switch. But when she had begun to extend the switch to strike Birgitta, at once it broke into tiny pieces so that the said aunt, seeing this, wondered greatly and said: "What have you done, Birgitta? Have the women taught you some fallacious prayers?" The maiden answered with tears: "No, my lady; but I arose from bed to praise him whose custom is ever to help me." And her aunt said: "Who is he?" To which the maiden said: "The Crucified One whom I saw." And because of this, from that day her aunt began to love and venerate her more fervently.

How she saw the devil.
Not long after, when Birgitta was wide awake and playing with girls, she saw the devil, as it were, having a hundred hands and feet and most deformed in every way. Thoroughly terrified, she ran to her bed, where the devil appeared to her again and said to her: "I can do nothing unless the Crucified were to permit." Since the women had seen and were asking what it was that had befallen her and why she was so thoroughly terrified, she answered: "A certain heartache seized upon me." And those women asked nothing more of her. But after some years, her aunt came and heard from her the whole truth and instructed her to cover her visions in silence and to be of good hope and to love God intimately and to beware of all levity.
How she came to marriage and how she lived in her marriage.
In the meantime, Lady Birgitta was betrothed to a rich young man, a noble and prudent knight who was called Lord Ulf of Ulvåsa, prince of Närke. Between them they had so very honorable a marriage that both spouses lived in virginity for one year, devoutly asking God that if they ought to come together he, the Creator of all, would from them create an offspring that would be at his service. She truly loved God and was most highly wary of herself so that no one might speak badly of her and that she might not give occasion for anyone to disparage her. Therefore she fled levities and places or persons for which she could be branded; and she had in her company honest handmaids and well-mannered companions. Indeed, together with the members of her household, she was intent upon work for divine worship or for the welfare of her neighbors.
How she prayed and how a prayer was poured into her.
In truth, the bride of Christ was so very fervent in prayer and tears that when her husband was away, she passed almost whole nights in vigil and did not spare her body many genuflexions and cruel disciplining. In fact, some time passed during which she constantly kept asking God in her prayers that some suitable manner of praying might be poured into her. One day, in a wonderful manner, she was elevated in mind; and then there was poured into her a most beautiful prayer concerning the passion of Christ and concerning the life and the praise of the most Blessed Virgin Mary. She kept this prayer in her memory so that afterward she might read it every day. And so one time when blessed Mary appeared to her afterward, she said: "I merited that prayer for you; therefore when you read it, you will be visited with the consolation of my Son."
About confession.
She continuously frequented confession; and for her confessor, she had a very expert and devout master of theology, called Master Matthias, who wrote an excellent gloss on the whole Bible and composed many volumes of books. And it was he who composed the prologue for the books of the Heavenly Revelations of the aforesaid Lady Birgitta; and it was him that she obeyed in all her difficulties. wherefore, this same confessor used to say familiarly to his friends: "In Lady Birgitta, it is a sign of some future grace that she so laments light matters as others lament things very serious and that she leaves nothing in her words or behavior unexamined."
About fasting.
When she could, she multiplied her great fasts and other acts of abstinence; and she very often abstained from delicacies in a hidden way so that it would not be noticed by her husband or by others.
About reading.
Indeed, when she was not occupied with manual labor, she was continually rereading the lives of the saints and the Bible, which she had caused to be written out for herself in her own language; and when she could hear the sermons of upright men, she did not spare herself the labor of going to hear those same sermons.