A colleague forwards this information in the Walstan tradition (?)
Georges Whalen
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 07:17:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oren Falk <[log in to unmask]>
To: Georges Whalen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: St Walstan (fwd)
Thanks georges, that's actually quite interesting specifically in that
IIRC Thomas a Becket was for a long while revered in Iceland, wasn't he?
On Priapic Saints in general, you might want to mention to the list that
there's a legend about a monk on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella who
has a vision of St.James, which turns out to be the Devil. D tells m to
castrate himself + commit suicide, which he does, but as he is being
dragged down to hell the BVM shows up + intercedes on his behalf w/C
Himself, pointing out that the poor monk had been deluded into thinking he
was doing something God would approve of. He gets sent back to earth
w/scars to verify his story but if I'm not mistaken he does get his balls
back as well as his life. That's the general drift ofthe story anyway, I
may have botched some of the details. It occurs in _Mariu saga_ (around
pp. 860-870 of Unger's edn), but I don't know if it's a particularly
Icelandic tale - from the setting it sounds like it shouldn't be.
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