>AND, we break with FEASTly tradition here, and note something Annalisa
>Bracciotti wrote to me yesterday:
>
>11 June 1959, nascita di Otfried Lieberknecht, vir doctissimus.
>E' un santo laico, patrono delle bibliografie...
>
>Happy birthday, Otfried; may you long remain near the 'mezzo del cammin di
>nostra vita'.
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * *
>George Ferzoco
>

Dear Annalisa, dear George,

Since I lack the appropriate English words (not to speak of Italian) to
express my Verlegenheit (which is *not* embarrassment), let me just thank
you, and don't believe that I am not touched. But even for us saints its not
always easy to live up to so much veneration...

  Otfried


P.S.: In reply to Jo Ann McNamara and Patricia Bell:

On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Jo Ann McNamara wrote:

> There were the head carrying saints: like Denis.  Does that count as 
> surviving beheading?
> Jo Ann McNamara
> 
>>What is the story behind the head carrying saints?  Sounds fascinating!
>>Patricia De'Bell

As far as I know, the legends don't describe it as a way of surviving, but
as a miracle post mortem or in morte, when the saint after his decapitation
still is able to speak and to get up and carry his head (in some cases, like
in the case of St Denis, the saint carries his head even singing to his
burial place). The topic of "saint cephalophores" had come up a few months
ago on this list, and George had posted a bibliography, which I think
deserves to be posted again (the ugly spellings are mine, not George's):

STUCKELBERG, E. A.
   Die Kephalophoren. In: Anzeiger für schweizerische Alter-
   tumskunde 18 (1916), p.75-79
SAINTYVES, Pierre
   Les saints ce/phalophores. E/tude de flolklore hagiographique.
   In: Revue de l'histoire des religions 99 (1929), p.158-231
SAINTYVES, Pierre
   En marge de la Le/gende dore/e. Paris 1930
MORETUS PLANTIN, H.
   Les Passions de saint Lucien et leurs de/rive/s ce/phalophores.
   Namur & Louvain & Paris, 1953 (= Bibliothe\que de la Faculte/
   de Philosophie et Lettres de Namur, 15), 139 pp.
COENS, Maurice
   Aux origines de la ce/phalophorie. Un fragment retrouve/ d'une
   ancienne Passion de S. Just, martyr de Beuvaie. In: Analecta
   Bollandiana 74 (1956), p.86-114
COENS, Maurice
   Nouvelles recherches sur un the\me hagiogaphique: la ce/phalo-
   phorie. In: *Recueil d'e/tudes bollandiennes, Bruxelles:
   E/ditions Bollandistes, 1963, p.9-29, zuvor in: Acade/mie
   Royale de la Belgique, Classe des lettres et des sciences
   morales et politiques, se/rie 5, 48 (1962), p.231-253
COENS, Maurice
   La plus ancienne <<Passion de S. Laurian>>, martyr céphalo-
   phore en Berry. In: Analecta Bollandiana 82 (1964),
   p.57-86
OURY, Guy-Marie
   Un saint ce/phalophore de Touraine? Saint Quentin. In:
   Analecta Bollandiana 97 (1979), p.289-300
GABET, Ph.
   Recherches sur les saintes 'ce/phalophores'. In: *Me/langes de
   Mythologie franc,aise offerts au Pre/sident Fondateur [i.e. de
   la Socie/te/ de Mythologie franc,aise.] Henri Dontenville, 
   Paris 1980, p.105-134
MEYER, Gertrud
   Die altfranzo"sische Vita der heiligen Valeria. Kritischer
   Text und Kommentar. Heidelberg 1987 (= Studia Romanica, 68)

Vaguely similar cases are known in ancient pagan literature, like the head
of Orpheus which, when the singer had been torn into pieces, flowing on the
water still continued to cry for his beloved ("tum quoque marmorea caput a
cervice revulsum / gurgite cum medio portans Oeagrius Hebrus / volveret,
Euridicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua / a! miseram Eurydicem anima fugiente
vocabat, / Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae" Verg. _Georg._
4,523-527; "flebile lingua / murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae"
Ovid _Metam._ 11,52s.); or the killing of Chromis, who continues to utter
words when his head has already fallen to the ground ("Decutit ense caput,
quod protinus incidit arae / Atque ibi semianimi verba exsecrantia lingua /
Edidit et medios animam exspiravit in ignes" _Metam._ 5,104-106); and even
the tongue of Philomele, when cut out of her throat, continues to murmur and
to move 'like the tail of a mutilated snake' ("Ipsa [sc. lingua] iacet
terraeque tremens inmurmurat atrae; / Utque salire solet mutilatae cauda
colubrae, / Palpitat et moriens dominae vestigia quaerit" _Metam._
6,598-560). Ancient examples like these, or Christian saints like St Denis
or San Miniato, or even cephalophores in front of God's throne in Islamic
descriptions of the Other World have been claimed to have been the model for
the description of the today most famous 'cephalophore' in medieval
literature, the trobador Bertran de Born, who in Dante's _Inferno_ is placed
and beheaded among the "seminator di scandalo e di scisma" and carries his
moaning and speaking head gripped by its hair and swinging 'like a lantern'
from his hand (_Inf._ 28,112ss.).  One of my duller experiences as a student
was a professor at Berlin who told us proudly how he once had discovered the
final proof for Dante's much debated journey to Paris, when he himself had
been at Paris, visited Notre Dame and suddenly realised the similarity
between Dante's Bertran and the statue of St Denis...




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