Week 3: Saints and Animals Reading Diary

• Kentigern:
• -       Teacher’s pet, outcast, all the kids make fun of him. Having heard some of these stories before, I think that this may be a common theme.
• -       He easily relights a fire with a small breath, a symbol that though he is just a boy, he is favored supernaturally and may grow to use it for greater things.
• -       The other boys do get more and more jealous, but this just leads to hard times for Kentigern and then his first real show of connection with God by healing a beheaded robin.
• Blaise:
• -       Saint when it was popular to be a heathen. This one everyone liked though because he was like the village doctor, veterinarian, and wildlife ranger that could command animals.
• -       His abilities and doings were not for God to make the animals do something but rather he was confident in the authority over the animals that God had given him.
• -       Heathens decide they no longer like him. Not a great idea to go against a master of wild animals.
• -       The heathens had him arrested and his last patient was a choking little girl (like on Field of Dreams but I really don’t think that’s an important connection).
• -       They try to drown him but fail and the guards die. Though these are saints, someone besides them always seems to die.
• Comgall:
• -       Friend of all animals so the animals seemed to know and liked to come up to him. He has not commanded any yet though
• -       The mice is scary and kind of dumb because the mice just ate it instead of bringing it to the people. It’s like Willard but without the mice eating anyone.
• Berach:
• -       This story actually contains things that the saint said to the animals that are clearly to teach other lessons (like the wolf becoming the adopted son of the cow).
• -       Besides animals, this one coerced nature and plants in the middle of winter.
• -       Also froze and unfroze snow and even people.
• Gudwall:
• -       Lived in an awesome pirate hideout cave but almost drowned. So far probably the coolest of the saints
• -       The fish felt bad for the saint and his pupil so they slowly moved sand until a sandbar was formed in front of the cave, barricading the saint’s home in safety.
• Ailbe:
• -       He was abandoned in the woods by his no good parents but then a mother wolf decided to raise him herself, like Princess Mononoke or wolf Tarzan.
• -       When he was found as a toddler by a nice hunter, he was stolen away from the wolves and brought to a real family. And of course the hunter was a prince and then Ailbe grew up to do cool stuff and become a bishop
• -       He returns the love of his adoptive wolf mother by protecting her from hunters. So in the end not really like Princess Mononoke which is good news for the wolf.
• Athracta:
• -       She lived with two old warhorses and two awesome stags with her maid in the wilderness.
• -       She is like a lumberjack and deer whisperer and a survival expert all in one.
• -       Also Rapunzel
• Felix:
• -       Escaped becoming a martyr when a spider spun a web over the small alley where he was hiding.
• -       He hid inside of a well for months to survive. This is more what you think of when talking about saints.
• Giles:
• -       Takes an arrow for a deer and is brought back to health by the king.
• -       BUT the king then becomes a Christian and promises to leave his pagan ways, which is good for the whole kingdom.
• Francis of Assisi:
• -       Clearly a big deal.
• -       Trusted by princes, beggars, beasts, and small animals.
• -       My favorite is when he tames a wolf that had terrorized a town and even eaten men and it became a town pet.
•    He’s the best.

Read the Stories