A Book of Saints and Wonders

Lady Gregory

The volume is divided into `books', one each allotted to the doings and lives of Saints Brigit, Columcille, Patrick, and Brendan the Navigator (who voyaged to the promised land). The last two books are more mythical, one dealing with the fabulous voyage of Maeldune and the other, called `Great Wonders of the Old Time', amply justifies the title. (Published by us in paperback in 1973 under the title The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Navigator, this reissue is under its original title to avoid confusion with The Voyage of St Brendan by John J. O'Meara).

With a foreword by Edward Malins Irish Christian saints are known throughout the world. The best known are certainly St. Patrick, the country's patron, followed by St. Brendan the Navigator (who, if the stories of his voyages are based on fact, may have discovered America, and visited Greenland and Iceland as well), St.Brigid, known as `Mary of the Gael', and St. Columbkille (perhaps better known out-side Ireland as St Columba, founder of the monastic community on the island of Iona off Scotland), famous both for his prophecies (which are most probably forgeries) and for having been the cause of the first copyright law case in history. In that case the judgement was that `as to every cow its calf, so to every book its copy'.

Stories that have grown around the saints for 1500 years have been handed down to us by word of mouth and in ancient manuscripts. Lady Gregory collected many of them together in this volume and has added stories of othergreat wonders and the fantastic voyages of Maeldune, creating for us a treasure house of folk stories from the ancient times.

A Book of Saints and Wonders was first published in 1906 in a limitededition of 200 copies by the Dun Emer Press, Dundrum, near Dublin, and an enlarged edition was commercially published the following year.

This edition has a foreword written by the late Edward Malins.