Celtic Saints And Animal Stories

This Book Explores the rich tradition of the stories of the Celtic saints and their kinship with animals. The lives of the Celtic saints constitute the largest body of hagiographies of any group in Christian history to have so many creature stories included in them, revealing early and medieval Irish as true lovers of animals, with the saints sharing this quality to the full. Anyone who studies these hagiographies can discern not only what the saints did for animals, often protecting them from hunters, but also what the animals did for the saints. This pattern of reciprocity that transcends species-differences so that all benefit in the circle of life has a great deal to teach contemporaries about what can be called "a new spirituality of holiness." Book jacket.