Reading Notes: Week 03 "Women Saints" Part A

     My two favorite stories from this unit were the stories of SS. Juliana and Margaret. The stories are pretty similar, but both women are different enough in personality that they take the stories' middles in kind of two different directions.

    Both stories involve the women refusing to marry a pagan official and being tortured and jailed for the refusal of both the marriage and of turning back to pagan gods. While in jail a demon (demons in Margaret's case) visit them in an attempt to get them to sin. Unfortunately, they both die in the end by being beheaded.

    S. Juliana's story is more of a mental one. Of the two, she's definitely more laid back and chill. She simply grabs the demon by the wrist and speaks to him. They have a conversation about religion, why he tempts people, and where he comes from. It's all a rather civil affair.

    For this reason, demons when represented less like a Hollywood jumpscare and more like the sentient things they are (or at least have the ability to be) are all the scarier to me. They're not some mindless things not in control of their own actions. They have full knowledge of and take full enjoyment in what they do to people.

    I admire S. Juliana's ability to keep calm and level-headed in the story while being unbending to the torments set on her. My favorite line in her story was after she had just grabbed the demon and simply asked him, "And of what craft art thou?"

Orthodox Icon of Saint Julia of Nicomedia. (Source: WkiMedia Commons)

    S. Margaret gets way more physical with the two demons she encounters. If S. Juliana has chill, S. Margaret has none. The first demon appears as a dragon, and I prefer the second version of the encounter. The first is: dragon visits her but flees when she makes the sign of the cross. The second is the demon dragon eats her, but she makes the sign of the cross, bursts out of his belly, and the dragon runs away.

    The second version is much cooler and more fitting in my opinion.

    The second demon appears to S. Margaret as a young man who holds her hand. He tells her resisting this far is sufficient and to relax about being faithful. Well, she was going to have none of that and proceeds to beat and interrogate him as to why he's there trying to lead her astray.

    She has a more outward showing fearlessness and a will to not only endure evil but actively fight it.

    My favorite line comes after she steps on the second demon's neck and says, "Lie still, thou fiend, under the feet of a woman." I love it because it's 1. awesome to see femininity be empowered like that over evil, and 2. it conjures up parallels with Mother Mary is often depicted with demons dying under her feet.

Saint Margaret. Willem Vrelent. (Source: WikiMedia Commons)

Bibliography: Golden Legend: Saint Juliana by F.S. Ellis (1900)

                       Golden Legend: Saint Margaret by F.S. Ellis (1900)