Religion: Beasts & Saints

How many saints have lived on earth, not even the wisest hagiologist knows. In the early days of Christendom, anchorites, eremites, monks and vagrants were of such piety that even the animals of the world collaborated with them. This half-forgot-ten aspect of the lore of sainthood was lately recalled by Helen Waddell, author of Peter Abelard. Delving in the Latin works of church fathers, monks and priests from the 4th to the 12th Century, she collected 44 anecdotes, translated them as Beasts & Saints.* Some saintly animal stories:

¶ St. Pachome and the Abbot Helenus both used crocodiles as ferries to cross rivers.

¶ St. Malo raised a sow from the dead.

¶While St. Brendan was singing mass at sea, fish and sea monsters rose to join him.

¶Because a rook upset his milk pail, St. Kevin condemned all rooks to be “sad, cawing and having the law of one another for very dismalness.” But St. Kevin was far from cruel. When a blackbird laid an egg in his hand, he held it steady until it hatched.

¶St. Colman had a mouse and a fly. The mouse aroused him from sleep in time for vigils and holy offices. The fly trotted up & down St. Colman’s books, kept his place by sitting down on a line whenever the holy man was temporarily called from his literary pursuits.

*With woodcuts by Robert Gibbings. Henry Holt ($2.50).