Page 6 of 9Original Research
were rather to elevate his special (saintly) status instead of being correct in natural terms. A similar marvellous story is that of the cicada (cricket) which Francis kept in his cell in Portiuncula. When he called her (referring to her as ‘sister’) to his hand, she would come and on his command sing praises to God. Francis would often join her in singing and then send her back to her little hiding place. Armstrong (1973:155, fn. 17), however, also notes the interesting point that insects of this kind are known to duet with tapping sounds or sounds of the mouth.
Armstrong (1973:160) indicates that Francis was one of
the few saints that felt empathy for fish as fish is ipso facto
considered as food. It was near lake Rieti that fisherman
caught a large tench which they gave to Francis.[1] As he
was sitting in the boat, he felt the same empathy for it as for
other living things, addressed it as ‘brother’ and set it free.
However, to ‘add radiance to the saint’s halo’ (Armstrong
1973:161), his biographers embroidered on this anecdote –
the fish refused to swim away but seemed to be drawn to
Francis’ love. Celano relates that it swam away only after
he had said a prayer whilst Bonaventura made Francis bless
the fish before it went its way. It is clear that both of them
idealised a revived earthly paradise like before the Fall, a
paradise in which Francis was instrumental (Armstrong
1973:161).
Although Francis was not a complete maverick in his
ecological consciousness but echoed many that went before
him, his nature mysticism made him unique: ‘Francis’ nature
mysticism was his most untraditional positive reaction to
creation’ (Sorrell 1988:79). The story most famously told to
prove that Francis was a nature mystic is about the waterfowl
(probably a water-hen or duck – Armstrong 1973:84) that he
held in his hand and then went into ecstasy. It was again in
the vicinity of lake Rieti, on his way to Greccio, that someone
brought him a waterfowl that probably got stuck in fishing
nets. Celano (Armstrong 1973) verbalises this incident as
follows:
On receiving the bird Francis invited it to fly away, but it crouched in his hands ‘as in a little nest’ while the saint prayed and went into ecstasy. After a long time and ‘as though coming back to himself from elsewhere’, he told the waterfowl to depart and gave it his blessing. Thereupon it flew joyously away. (pp. 84–85)
Following Celano, Armstrong (1973:85) reiterates that this
was probably the only instance where a saint fell into a
trance whilst holding a bird. Many other legendary accounts
of interactions between Francis and birds, apart from his
Sermon to the Birds, were told. One example is the rescuing
of turtledoves that have been caught in a trap by a young
boy and making nests for them. Here they were fed by friars,
reared their young and would not depart until told so by
Francis. The duet with the nightingale where both Francis
and the bird praised God antiphonally is another example
as is the kindly falcon who kept watch over Francis, as if it had supernatural intuition, whilst he was sojourning
in meditation at a place at La Verna (Armstrong 1973:52,
68, 78). However, Francis also rebuked noisy swallows at
Alviano whilst preaching, and they kept silent till the end.
This legendary tale greatly impressed his audience, and they
believed only someone who was a friend of the Most High
could achieve such a feat.[2]
Moving on to mammals, it brings us to the anecdote of the
Temptation by Mice. One of the severe criticisms against the
ascetics of the middle ages was their negative view of nature,
namely that it often harboured demons in its beauty to trap
naïve humans. Despite Francis being an exception to this, he,
as a child of his time, could not escape this conviction. He
fell sick whilst in a cell near St Damian’s and was constantly
tormented by mice. Amazingly he endured this ‘diabolical
temptation’ with cheerful patience (Armstrong 1973:184)
and allowed them to keep on running over him instead of
considering some kind of exorcism to drive them away.
This ‘grey’ (see Habel above) anecdote, however, is by far
overshadowed by the majority of ‘green’ ones, exemplifying
his sincere love for nature’s creatures, which also marks his
contextual innovativeness (Sorrell 1988:46).
Two other ‘furred beasts’ (Armstrong 1973:184) that Francis
lovingly reached out to were the hare and the deer. At
Greccio, a leveret that was caught in a snare was brought
to him. As we have become used to by now, Francis called
him ‘Brother Leveret’ and fondly caressed him. As soon as he
released the hare, it would simply jump back onto his bosom
and repeated this behaviour. At long last, Francis had to ask
his fellow brothers to go and release it in the woods. Here
we again clearly detect the imaginative hand of hagiography.
However, what we should notice behind this legendary tale’s
‘unnaturalness’ is the highlighting of Francis’ sincerity and
sympathetic character, even to the extent of being feminine
or maternal (Armstrong 1973:190–196). People knew he was
the right person to whom to bring an injured or distressed
animal. The medieval conviction that true saints have power
over animals is also illustrated by Bonaventura’s tale of the
deer in the woods crossing Francis’ path. He commanded the
deer to stand still, laid his hands on him and told him to go
and praise God, and only then the deer bounded away. Again
we get the idea of Francis being a wonder-worker, perhaps
more than an animal lover (Armstrong 1973:198) although
the latter is most certainly not absent.
Still in the realm of fable-like anecdotes is the tale of the
most widely known act of Francis, apart from the Sermon
to the Birds and the Canticle of Creatures, namely his
miraculous taming of the Wolf of Gubbio. Armstrong
(1973:212) eloquently refers to this animal as ‘a beast from
the books, not from the woods’. This wolf, so it is told, was
constantly harassing, menacing and even killing (some) of
the inhabitants of Gubbio as soon as they set foot outside the
http://www.ve.org.zadoi:10.4102/ve.v35i1.1310
- ↑ Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish (e.g. Lk 5:1–11) probably inspired this anecdote.
- ↑ As Jesus (see fn. 4) had his ecological ‘grey’ moments, so also Francis. He cursed a pig (sow) for killing an innocent lamb, and it (the pig) died. It is told that both the dead lamb and the sow’s carcass were avoided by other animals. A similar fate came upon a gluttonous robin which Francis cursed and whose dead body a cat would not eat (Armstrong 1973:113, 114).
