The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saints' Tales

From the sensuous sea to flight from the world, this book is an inspired collection of twelve themed short stories, based on the lives and legends of thirteen Celtic women saints from the first millennium. Retelling their stories in an intimate, contemporary, sometimes startling fashion, Imogen Rhia Herrad has created a new vision of these women, who were perhaps far from 'saintly' by current definition. Some – Non, Winifred, Tydfil, are relatively well known while other are almost forgotten. Their tales reveal a strength and inner freedom in those more usually seen as victims and martyrs. Imogen explores the crossover between the physical, sexual, spiritual and mystical in the ancient and modern worlds she visits. The sories tell of refugeen, circus acts, rape, love, deeath and miracles, while her saints also inhabit the natural world of streams, islnds and birds.