The Dorimtkation ef Animals in the Middle AgeSi 819 



animal lias been drawn from its ordinary state into familiar 

 association with and dependence upon yourself, brings with it 

 the consciousness of an influence extending beyond yourself, 

 which is always pleasant; besides the desire felt by most 

 people, and a strong one too, of possessing permanently what, 

 untamed, they could only admire as it passed, for its beauty of 

 form or colour, its harmony of voice, or the elegance and play- 

 fulness of its movements, or any other agreeable quality pecu- 

 liar to it. And, also, there are other feelings mixed up with 

 these which are not so easily defined, for there were periods 

 in social history during which, under the influence of circum- 

 stances, the love of domesticated animals prevailed more 

 strongly or extensively than at others. Thus, the saintly 

 hermit, removed from the society of his fellow men, threw 

 himself upon that of the brute creation, and cultivated their 

 intimacy as at least an innocent recreation. Many of the 

 legends of the early saints present us with anecdotes illustra- 

 tive of this fact. At the beginning of the eighth century, St. 

 Guthlac, in the solitude of Croyland, fed two ravens, which in 

 their familiarity played him all sorts of mischievous tricks. 

 iC And," says the early writer of his life, " not only were the 

 birds subject to him, but also the fishes and wild beasts of 

 the wilderness all obeyed him, and he daily gave them food 

 from his own hand, as suited their kind/'' One day a monk 

 named Wilfrith paid a visit to Guthlac, and, " while they dis- 

 cussed in many discourses their spiritual life, there came sud- 

 denly two swallows flying in, and behold they raised up their 

 song rejoicing ; and, after that, they sat fearlessly on the 

 shoulders of the holy man Guthlac, and then lifted up their 

 song : and afterwards they sat on his bosom and on his arms and 

 knees." A few years before this, St. Cuthbert tamed the rooks 

 in his desert island of Fame, and made them familiar by the 

 kindness with which he fed them and their offspring. A her- 

 mit of a later date on the same island, St. Bartholomew, tamed 

 a small bird so that, for years, it came to perch on his table 

 and eat from his hand. The first St. Bridgida similarly taught 

 the birds in the neighbourhood of her hermitage to come to 

 her at her call. Another Irish saint, Oolman, tamed thirteen 

 teal, which tended him on the small lake adjoining his mo- 

 nastic retreat. In the same way St. Columbanus, in his soli- 

 tude in the wild country of the Vosges, tamed both birds and 

 beasts, that they obeyed his voice and came to him at his call. 

 Among them was a favourite squirrel, which, when he called 

 it, came down from the trees, let him take it in his hand, and 

 lay contented in his bosom. At a much later period, in the 

 twelfth century, St. Godric, the hermit of Finchale, in Durham, 

 tamed snakes and vipers, which in cold weather came and 



