Beasts and Saints

Customer Reviews

Charming and inspiring - a gem of a collection - By: Jeremy Bevan, 19 Oct 2007
This collection of stories & legends about the interaction between the saints of different Christian monastic traditions (the Desert Fathers, the Celtic & Irish saints) & animals is completely charming. Helen Waddell's translations, with a new introduction by Esther de Waal, depict a range of attitudes towards animals. In some, they feature only in order to provide moral lessons for humans (for example, animals shown as repenting of damage they've caused to crops). In others, they serve to convey a sense of the saint's holiness or the notion that it is in proximity to him/her that paradise is somehow restored. Just occasionallly, however, the tales appear to show us a radical, even revolutionary reversal of roles: humans become servants of the creatures, prefiguring contemporary concerns with the need for ecological humility on the part of humankind (see for example St. Malo & the Wren; St Columba & the Crane). Thought-provoking & inspiring.

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