The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/saints/page/2)
I am standing at an overlook outside the rail station in Durham. Mist covers the city, and slow rain leaves slicks along the path to my right. Past the lines of brick houses and motorways stands the newer Catholic church, Our Lady of Mercy and St. Godric. It’s barely a century-and-a-half old; I suspect the mortar between the stones is still wet.
Jean Genet’s text “The Criminal Child,” previously unavailable in English, was translated and published in December 2015. An anonymous commentary on the text, included as an afterword within the same pamphlet, reads “The Criminal Child” as an intricately coded set of instructions for magical initiation and ordeal. “The Criminal Child” was originally written in 1948 as a speech to be read on a radio show in order to address reforms to France’s youth prisons that had been proposed at the time. It was rejected and never read on the air. When Genet published the censored text the following year, he wrote in his introduction, “I would have liked to make the voice of the criminal audible.
[Author’s Note: Before we get into the column: this summer I am looking for second-generation Pagans of all stripes for a series of profiles. Much of my material comes from thinking through my own life as someone who was raised by witches, but I’m interested in getting the stories and perspectives of other children of Pagans. The profiles will, of course, respect the wishes of anyone who chooses to remain anonymous or only known by a craft name. Interested parties should send an email to eric.o.scott@gmail.com or on my Facebook page. Now, on with the column.]
I have never known much about saints, nor have I worried about my ignorance of them.