Reading Notes: Saints and Animals Part B

Saints and Animals - from The Book of Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farewell Brown

The Fish Who Helped Saint Gudwall

• Summary: Saint Gudwall and his student live in a cave on a remote island. In the winter, it gets stormy and the water rushes in. They barely escape. The fish take pity on them and build them a sandbar. 
• The sea and Winter are personified. 

The Wolf-Mother of Saint Ailbe

• Summary: Ailbe was abandoned by his parents and taken in by a wolf mother. A hunter "rescued" him and gave him to a princess. The boy grew up and became a Bishop. Hunters tried to kill his wolf mother, and he rescued her and invited her and her children to join his family. 
• Theme of displacement, loss, recognition of early caregivers. 
• References to places and objects that are important to Irish culture. Blarney stone, e.g.
• "Gallopy" 

The Ballad of St. Athracta's Stags

• Summary: Athracta is a beautiful woman who goes to live in the woods with her maid. They are happy. Years later, a bad king takes over and makes everyone in the kingdom work on building him a fort. Athracta and her maid are weak and their horses are old, so they summon stags and use hair to harness them. The king is embarrassed because she's so smart and powerful. He gives her her own little kingdom to do what she wants. 
• Actual ballad.
• Some variation in rhyme scheme. (A-B-A-B most stanzas, some stanzas X-B-AA-B)
• "Alack!"
• Brains and social skills winning out over physical strength?

Deer by DennyMont via Flickr

The Ballad of St. Felix

• Summary: Christians are persecuted by a heathen emperor. Saint Felix disguises himself as a peasant and hides. A spider protects him with her web. He hides in a well for years and a Christian woman feeds him. Finally he emerges. 
• Strong political/cultural message. 
• I like the rhyme scheme a lot. It's easy to read and the dialogue is funny. 

The Ballad of Saint Giles and the Deer

• Summary: Saint Giles is a hermit who has a Deer friend. Hunters come to kill the Deer and St. Giles takes the arrow for her. The king feels bad and nurses him to health and converts to Christianity.
• Vivid imagery - April climbing the hill, visual descriptions of the deer,
• Lots of action!

St. Francis of Assisi

• Summary: St. Francis is a really good guy, he doesn't have any money, all the animals love him. He saves a lot of animals and eventually retires to a mountaintop. 
• This story doesn't have a real plot. It's more like a series of two-line anecdotes that tell us about the character of St. Francis. 
• There is a heavy theme of moral purity in these stories, and animals as the judge of someone's purity.