Saints and Fairies

The fairies were of the Old Profession;
Their songs were Ave-Maries;
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas, they are all dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.
—Richard Corbet

In the winter, the long, dark nights leave plenty of time for storytelling. In our family, we like to read aloud at night. Sometimes we pull out a board game and play while the snow falls outside and the fire crackles in the woodstove. Other times, we all settle down with tea while my husband or I pull out a book to read out loud.

Storytelling is a natural part of human society. We like to hear stories, tell stories, and imagine stories. Often, we like to expand on what we’ve seen or heard of to create something new and different. Maybe this is how stories of unicorns, phoenixes, dragons, and other creatures came to be; or maybe the stories are real and we are just too disconnected from our natural world to meet these creatures anymore.

Saints and Surprises

The early stories of the saints are full of meetings between saints and these unbelievable creatures. It’s funny now to read them and imagine just how natural it seemed to Christians at the time, to read of St. Collen interacting with fairies or St. Anthony meeting a satyr.

We tend to read these stories as pure fiction, but they’ve been carried down through the centuries as tales as real as St. Francis taming the wolf or the crows of St. Meinrad.

It’s another dark evening here, would you like me to tell you stories?

St. Collen in the Fairy Mound

In the early days of Christianity in Wales, holy St. Collen the hermit heard two men praising the Fairy King outside of his cave. The interrupted Saint told the men (who are actually fairies themselves) to stop interrupting his prayer and contemplation with talk of demons.

It was pretty common for many of the early Christians to think of fairies as demons, though other Christians considered them something else entirely. Collen’s comment offended the talking fairies and they warned him that Gwynn ap Nudd doesn’t allow anyone to speak of him that way. They threatened to report his words to the King of the Fairies, but Collen was dismissive. He came all the way out to this cave to pray in peace, and he didn’t want to be interrupted by talk of anything but God.

So the two men left him and reported Collen to the King. The offended King sent the saint a summons: Collen was to meet the King on a certain hill and apologize. Collen declined the King’s summons three times, but finally – probably because he was getting no peace for his contemplation, the saint grabbed a bottle of holy water and went off to deal with this bothersome king.

When Collen reached the hill, he entered a castle where the King sat feasting in a great hall. Gwynn ap Nudd was famous in Welsh tales for his hospitality, and he pulled out all the stops for Collen. There were dances, and well-dressed courtiers, beautiful ladies, and a table full of delicious food and drink. But Collen wisely ate nothing (it’s never a good idea to eat in a fairy’s house), and instead, he rudely sprinkled holy water all around him. Instantly, the fairy castle, all the attendants, and Gwynn ap Nudd himself all disappeared. St. Collen was left alone. He walked back to his little cave and settled down in peace to think and pray for the rest of his life. Unfortunately for him, he soon had a little collection of monks all around him and had to travel all over preaching the Gospel, so he wasn’t able to enjoy his solitude for long.

St. Anthony of the Desert Meets a Satyr

Another hermit, St. Anthony the Great, lived in the desert of Egypt early in the childhood of the Church. St. Anthony is known as the Father of Desert Monasticism, but at some point in his eremitical life, St. Anthony dreamed of the Grandfather of Monasticism – St. Paul of Thebes. St. Paul was living even more remotely in the depths of the desert. He was so far in the desert that his food had to be flown in to him every day by a crow.

Each day, the bird brought him half a loaf of bread with which to break his fast. St. Anthony went in search of his spiritual superior, and on the way, he met two wonderful creatures of mythology: a satyr and a centaur. Unlike St. Collen’s over-cautious response to the fairy king, St. Anthony was polite and willing to talk. He asked the two creatures what they were, and they responded honestly. Then the centaur helped St. Anthony find the way to St. Paul’s hermitage and the satyr offered him food and asked for his blessing.

The saint was delighted to see in the centaur and hear from the satyr that both of them acknowledged Christ. He continued on in the direction the centaur had given him and met St. Paul, who knew he would be coming because his crow had brought Paul a whole loaf of bread to share with his guest. They broke bread together, ate, prayed, and delighted in each other’s company before St. Anthony went home to his little hermitage and St. Paul died a peaceful, joyful death.

St. Columba Rebukes the Loch Ness Monster

Nessie is one of the world’s favorite monsters. This huge creature reportedly still lives in the deep, dark waters of Loch Ness in Scotland. St. Columba was one of the first great missionary saints of Ireland. He left his homeland for reasons that may or may not have to do with his participation in a battle. St. Adamnan, his biographer, dismisses this slightly scandalous rumor and speaks of his subjects longing for missionary work.

Columba left Ireland, founded a monastery at Iona, and then continued throughout Scotland, preaching, teaching, baptizing, and building monasteries. At one point, St. Columba had to cross the formidable river Ness that flowed out of the famous Lake (or Loch). Both were wide and deep, and Columba was planning his path.

But as he stood on the bank of the river, he watched a group of Picts burying their friend. Columba discovered that the man had died while swimming in the Loch. He’d been attacked by a huge beast that lived in the water. Columba decided the best way to introduce these men to Christ was through a miracle, so he laid his staff on the dead man’s chest and restored him to life and wholeness. Then, Columba decided to tackle the monster.

He ordered one of his monks, Brother Lugne Mocumin, to swim across the river and bring back a boat. Brother Lugne was obviously very confident in his abbot. He jumped into the water and started swimming. The monster came for him eagerly, but Lugne and Columba were calm and confident. Lugne continued his pace and Columba gave the monster a stern talking to. He made the sign of the cross over the water and told Nessie to leave the man alone.

He also told Nessie to go back to the Loch, the monster retreated and sunk down into the depths of the water. And ever since, though there have been sightings, there haven’t been any attacks by the Loch Ness Monster on anyone.

Of course, the Picts converted on the spot and Columba baptized them all before taking the boat Brother Lugne retrieved for him across the river.

Faith, Fairies, and Fantastic Imaginations

We don’t do much with mystery these days. We tend to like straightforward stories with simple rules and understandable facts. But our elders in the Church lived in wild, fantastic worlds – full of potential.

At the end of it all, it doesn’t really matter if you believe in satyrs, fairies, or even Nessie. But if you want to, you’re in good company. Many holy men and women did. Songs were sung, tales were told, and children grew up bright-eyed and full of certainty that the world contained wonders they might never see. It’s a delightful way to see the world, but sometimes hard to keep up under bright lights in busy streets.

Sts. Collen, Anthony, and Columba, pray for us to have the vision of Christ as King of all Mysteries that kept you confident in the midst of all that is uncertain or unexplained. Amen.