I wrote this paragraph intending to include it in my first post about The Old English Life of St. Margaret and the story of Thecla from The Acts of Paul, but it didn’t seem to fit into what was already a very long post! So, I figured I would post it as a separate follow-up! You might want to glance at the first post to understand why I’m comparing these…

  There is much to be shocked by in the Old English life of Saint Margaret: gruesome depictions of beheadings, beatings, and sexual threats are interpolated with Margaret’s miraculous exorcism and escape from the stomach of a dragon. Yet the first time I read Margaret’s hagiography, I found myself most surprised not by the tale’s violence or its inclusion of magical creatures, but by Margaret’s ability to turn her immersion…