1261
Snaring a wild boar turns out to be much less dangerous than keeping centaurs away from their wine.
Heracles is performing a series of ‘Labours’ for King Eurystheus, who regards his cousin as a rival and would not be sorry to see him dead. But ever since Heracles came back wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion, Eurystheus’s nerves have been jangling and he now keeps a capacious wine-jar, half buried in the ground, as a place of refuge.
Posted September 7 2016
1263
An apparent miracle is revealed as sleight-of-hand.
In 587 BC, the Babylonians (from modern Iraq) conquered Judah, and brought many of the nobility of Jerusalem to their own capital. Then in 539 Babylon fell to the Persians, and Daniel found himself serving the Persian King, Cyrus the Great.
Posted September 4 2016
1264
The magnificent cathedral at Durham owes its existence to a missing cow.
Durham Cathedral is founded on the shrine of St Cuthbert, an Anglo-Saxon saint who was Bishop of Lindisfarne in the 7th century. How he came to his last resting place in Durham at the turn of the 11th century, after over a century of wandering, is told in the story of the Dun Cow.
Posted September 4 2016
1265
Henry VIII’s experts declared that saints were nothing special, but St Cuthbert had a surprise for them.
In the Reformation, King Henry VIII’s University men told him research had shown that praying for miracles at the shrine of a saint was superstitious nonsense. So he let them smash the shrines, break open the coffins with a sledgehammer, and recover any nice jewellery before the human remains were incinerated.
Posted September 4 2016
1266
Was it an over-excited imagination, or an answer to prayer?
Jane Eyre has fled Edward Rochester’s house and arms in shame, after discovering he was hiding his insane wife in an attic. So when the Revd St John Rivers proposes a marriage of convenience followed by a life of self-sacrifice as missionaries in India, the heartbroken Jane gives the idea serious thought.
Posted September 3 2016