Reading Notes: Saints and Animals, Part A

For this week's reading, I chose to read about saints and their encounters with animals. I am fond of animals myself, and I was curious to see the story of saints interacting with animals as I have not heard many types of stories about animals with saints. From the Saints and Animals unit from the Un-Textbook, I enjoyed the story of Saint Kentigern and the Robin. I have not heard many stories of saints in general, so this was the most exposure I have had to saints in one sitting. This was interesting to me because I got to see the "powers" of saints given to them by their God. Most stories that I have heard or read before about people with powers are about heroes or people with magic. The unit about Saints and Animals was a refreshing twist on the hero story where people with religious powers are being used for good and not displayed in an unfavorable light.

The story of Kentigern showed the nature of jealousy in the boys in the story. They wanted to be loved and adored as Kentigern was in the eyes of Saint Servan. This was an important part of this story to help drive the plot forward. In result, this want drove them to make unwise choices to try to get Kentigern in trouble. Kentigern was smart, patient, and tolerant when it came to dealing with the meddling of the other boys. First, the unruly boys put out the great fire and the next time, they killed an innocent robin to do their best attempt at getting Kentigern blamed for these happenings. Luckily for Kentigern, he had already been blessed with some abilities like being able to light a fire and bringing the robin back to life by the grace of his God. This saved Kentigern both times from the spiteful boys that were trying to ruin his life.

Bibliography

Saint Kentigern and the Robin, The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farwell Brown (1900)

Image Information: Robin, Wikimedia Commons