Week 2 Essay: Analysis of the Supernatural in the Saints and Animals Unit

Occurrences of magic and the supernatural were prevalent in the Saints and Animals reading unit. As a Christian, I really liked seeing God's presence in the stories of these saints. Whether people believe these stories really happened or not, the tales can act as a conversation starter about religion, beliefs, and values. These are all topics that our society is uncomfortable discussing, and I believe they need more light shone on them. Because I come from a religious background, the evidence of God that was apparent in these stories made them much more believable to me. I think that I was able to accept the miracles as an actuality from the beginning and focus more on other story elements. In this way, God's presence and miracles became a wonderfully underlying tone of the stories.

Typically, it was the saint characters who performed miracles by the grace of God. For example, Saint Kentigern healed the robin and brought it back to life with God's help. This event happened in order to prove Kentigern's innocence in the cruel ordeal. Saint Berach used his God-given authority to change the nature of the wolf who killed the young calf and bind the lives of the murdering wolf and the grieving mother cow together.God helped Saint Comgall to whisper to the mice and command them to eat horrible Croadh's grain. These events were usually critical to the story's plot and often were the solution to the biggest source of conflict in the story. I definitely noticed that all of the saints used their supernatural abilities for good. There weren't any evil saints. I appreciated this because it paints religion in a more positive light than it is typically seen in the media.

(Image information: "Four Male Saints" by Fra Diamante, c. 1470.)

As a happy and willing participant of the Harry Potter generation, magic and the supernatural will always hold a special place in my heart. The Harry Potter stories inspired me to believe that anything is possible, and I truly believe that's where my affinity for fantasy was born. I'm excited to see that magic and the supernatural are storytelling traditions in mythology in folklore, and I look forward to reading more in the future.