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| (15th-century illumination of St. Margaret slaying the dragon, by William Vrelant, via Wikipedia Commons) |
My favorite two stories in this section followed Saint Margaret and Saint Christine. These were the last two stories in Part A, and were slightly longer and more complex than the ones that had come before--in some cases they even could be viewed as an amalgamation of parts of the previous stories.
I have to admit, I picked this section to read because the idea of a saint who was not only a woman, but also a dragon-killer, intrigued me to no end (I LOVE dragons; I could read about them all day). And, truly, the scene in the prison with the St. Margaret dragon was my favorite part of her story. I was fascinated by the myriad versions of this scene that appeared in various stories throughout this reading section: the sheer idea of sitting down and talking with a devil that you've vanquished, whatever form it took, is both horrifying and thrilling. And St. Margaret does it with both aplomb and poise, straightforwardly and without fear. This is probably the scene that my story will follow.
St. Christine's story was also...well, not quite enjoyable, but quite interesting to read. Her endurance is what makes the story stand out, I think: it would probably be outside of the word limits for the storytelling posts to do a full, close-up retelling of all the trials she goes through, but that's also an idea that went through my head as I was reading.
Really, though, I loved reading this section, however gruesome and gory it was, because the idea of the kind of faith it takes to withstand torture and dragons and beheadings in the name of a belief is astounding by itself. I'm really looking forward to writing the story for this week.
Source: The Golden Legend, edited by F. S. Ellis (1900)
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