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A Little Book Of
MIRACLES & MARVELS

Humankind has always loved a mystery or a miracle: in mediaeval times witches rode on broomsticks; nowadays crop circles appear in our cornfields. The most extraordinary myths, the strangest otherworldly creatures intrude even into our churches and cathedrals, on roof bosses, carved misericords, in stained-glass windows, often dramatising fables of good versus evil or, as with the pelican feeding its young with its own drops of blood, symbolising Jesus Christ himself. Otherwise, in monstrous, grotesque, supernatural forms, they speak of the world we don’t understand, can’t control, fear in the dark, but also all that makes life more than mundane - indeed, amazing and infinite. Here, then, from Mike Harding’s travels round Britain’s churches and cathedrals, is a mesmerising array of mythical creatures and miraculous events: dragons, mermaids, unicorns, wyverns and wodwos, as well as Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the Whale and David and Goliath.

2008