reading notes: Saints and Animals, Part A
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| Robin Source: Wikipedia |
The first story, Saint Kentigern and the Robin, is about some young children being jealous of Saint Kentigern at school because he is perfect in every way and is the the shool leader , Saint Servan, favorite pupil. So to try to get Saint Servan to not admire Saint Kentigern so much the other kids set traps for Kentigern to make him look bad or get in trouble. Many of the kids traps failed so they went to the extreme to get Kentigern in trouble by killing Servans pet robin and blaming Kentigern. Servan was furious and believed the kids saying Kentigern did it but Servan proved himself innocent when he prayed to heal the bird if he was innocent and the bird came back to life. What I question in this story is why Servan was so quick to put blame on Kentigern even though he knows how good of a person he is.
The second story in this reading was Saint Blaise and his beast. In this story a Saint named Blaise grew great friends with all the animals in the land. During this time soldiers would kill christians unless they renounced their face. Soldiers eventually capture Blaise because they saw animals watching him pray and not disturbed him. The soldiers took Blase and tried to drown Blais but it didn't work and he was able to walk on water and walk free. Blaise was eager to die though to proved his faith to god and allowed the soldiers to take him and behead him. On the 3rd of February every year England would celebrate in remembrance of Saint Blaise with bonfires allowing the animals to see the fire and remember Blaise also. I feel like this story end quick and was told in a almost random way. The first part of the story seems completely different and on a different route then the second part of the story. I almost did not feel a correlation between the two halves.
The third story within the book was Saint Comgall and the Mice. In this story the setting was in Ireland where there was a famine. even though there was a famine the king of the land had an entire barn full of grain but was to slefish to share it. So Comgall went to the king asking if he will share some if he gave him a silver goblet he owned. The king refused to share so Comgall had mice go an eat all the grain the king owned. I liked this story, I thought it had a very good build up to the point of the story.
The fourth and last story is The wonders of Saint Berach. This story is als in Ireland and is aout Saint Berach duign the winter. Berach had built a Monastery on some land that another person wanted making some enemies. These enemies went and threw snowballs at Berach aso he froze them in place. The king eneded up seeing this an invite him back to the castle praising him for being a holy man and powerful giving him gifts. Berach ended up going back home with gifts but not before unfreezing the enemies after they learned their lesson. I liked the plot of this story.
Bibliography:"The Book of Saints and Friendly Beast" by Abbie Farwell Brown.
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