Famous for her imprisonments, and subject to tortures for her Christian commitment before finally being beheaded, Saint Margaret's most remarkable imprisonment was within the belly of a dragon. The wooden cross she held so tickled the dragon’s insides that he belched her forth. She is thus often depicted subduing a dragon and is the patron saint of childbirth.
In the enigma of the bone-sculpted angel that links the generations of women throughout The Bone Angel trilogy, Saint Margaret and her story feature in Blood Rose Angel, 3rd novel in the trilogy.
Extract from Blood Rose Angel...
Our hoods pulled snug around our
faces, extra blankets shrouding our cloaks, Morgane and I sat on a
snow-shrouded log in the misty garden.
‘I’ve told you of Saint Margaret,’ I began.
Morgane nodded. ‘The one we pray to for a
safe birth.’
‘That’s right, my sweet. Well, it’s said
Saint Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest of Antioch.’
‘Antioch?’
‘A place in Pisidia … a far-off land across
the sea, where Margaret turned into a Christian, which made her father drive
her from their home. She became a shepherdess and there was a Roman prefect
called Olybrius who found her very beautiful.’
‘What’s a prefect, Maman?’
‘A very important person in the times of
the mighty Romans. Remember the people Papa told you about, who made camp here in
Lucie-sur-Vionne? Those who built the road that leads to our pool on the
Vionne, the crumbling fountain on la place de l’Eglise and the great aqueducts
to take water from the hills all the way down to Lyon? The same people who
mined for gold in our cave?’
‘Yes, I heard the tale at the Midsummer Eve
feast yesteryear. The storyteller told us the Roman slaves cut those caves from
the mountains and worked inside the tunnels, searching for gold. They made
shrines and vases and jewellery. And used it for coins, too. And that’s how
Lucie-sur-Vionne was named,’ she went on. ‘After the Roman soldier, Lucius.
Like the villages of Julien-sur-Vionne and Valeria-sur-Vionne too.’
‘Clever girl, you remember everything. So,
when Margaret would have nothing to do with Olybrius, he charged her with being
a Christian and had her tortured and imprisoned.’
‘A real barbarian, that Olybrius … like
horrible Captain Drogan and le Comte, who wanted to burn you at the stake.’
I nodded, trying to block all memory of
that dank gaol cell; the terrible burning sentence, from my mind. Our lives
since the Spring Fair, in fact. ‘While she was imprisoned, Margaret met the
Devil in the form of a dragon, and it swallowed her. But, with the cross she
was carrying, Margaret tickled the dragon’s throat and he spewed her out,
alive.’
‘Alive?’ Morgane frowned. ‘That sounds
impossible.’
‘Well, poppet, it is a legend. But because
she was delivered safely from the dragon’s stomach, she’s known as the patron
saint of women in childbirth—to deliver babies safely from their mother’s womb.
And, to finish the story, after many attempts to kill her, Margaret was finally
beheaded.’
‘Poor Margaret.’
***
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#saintmargaret patron saint of childbirth #14th century #midwife #atimeandaplace
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