247
Magnus, Earl of Orkney, disappointed King Magnus of Norway by refusing to get involved in somebody else’s war.
In 1098, Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, King of Norway, swept across the Scottish islands, reminding their governors that these territories belonged to the crown of Norway. Three brothers of Orkney, the earls Erlend, Magnus and Hakon, were obliged to accompany him as his fleet sailed west and then south down to Wales, where King Magnus barged into a fight between peoples who owed him no loyalty at all.
Posted May 15 2022
248
A herd of goats is threatened by a pride of lions, and it falls to one brave billy to face the danger alone.
PV Ramaswami Raju published a collection of Indian Fables in 1887, shortly after he was called to the Bar and while he was teaching Indian languages at Oxford University and later at London. His fables are a creative blend of tradition and imagination: this one tells how one wily old goat saved the whole herd with an audacious bluff.
Posted May 14 2022
249
In this fable from India, a sly little insect teaches a jackdaw that all that glisters is not necessarily edible.
William Cowper’s ‘The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm’ told how a glow-worm persuaded a hungry bird to spare his life because light and song complement each other so beautifully. In the following Indian fable by Ramaswami Raju (playwright, London barrister and Oxford professor of Telugu), the hard-pressed glow-worm does not have such dainty material to work with.
Posted May 13 2022
250
Back in the 6th century, Mary was consumed by an addiction so compulsive that she would use and discard anyone to satisfy it.
St Mary of Egypt was a hermit of the Holy Land who made such an impression on England that Abbot Elfric (?955-?1022) left us a lengthy sermon on her extraordinary life. Her story remained a favourite long after the Norman Conquest, and the following account comes from a Martyrology customarily read out in Syon Abbey (long vanished, a victim of the Reformation) and printed in 1526.
Posted May 11 2022
251
Pliny was only about nine when his uncle left to go and help rescue the terrified townspeople of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
On August 24th, 70, Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples began to erupt. Pliny, a nine-year-old boy doing his homework in nearby Miseno, watched his uncle Pliny, the admiral, sail off to the disaster zone; later he learnt that Uncle Pliny had parted from the other boats to go and rescue Senator Pomponianus in Stabiae.
Posted May 8 2022
252
John’s enduring influence is evident today in the rich sights and sounds of Christian liturgy.
St John Damascene (676-749) was Syrian monk and a contemporary of our own St Bede, both of them highly respected scholars with a deep love for Church music. John left us an exposition of Christian theology of enduring importance throughout east and west; he compiled a wealth of hymns, collects and prayers; and he saved Christian iconography everywhere from the hands of extremists.
Posted May 6 2022