There is a similar legend about St. Procopius, a hermit, with whom a hunted hind took refuge.
As St. Anselm was riding to the Manor of Herse, a hare, pursued by hunters, sought shelter under the housings of his mule. St. Anselm wept, but the foresters laughed, and the hounds stood around at bay. The saint said: "This poor hare reminds me of the soul of a sinner beset by fiends eager to seize their prey." He ordered the hunters not to pursue the hare, which fled.
So a deer took refuge from hunters in the cell of St. Aventin, a hermit who lived on an island in the Seine. One night a bear attacked his hut with furious cries. The saint betook himself to prayer, and at dawn found the animal, subdued and gentle, lying at his door licking his paw. The saint saw it was pierced by a thorn, and drew it out, when the beast went quietly away into the forest. When a person, who lived for a time with St. Aventin, caught some fish, the saint threw them back into the river, saying: "Go, little creatures, return to your element and food and remain there at liberty: my element and food are Jesus Christ, to whom I wish to return, that in him I may live for ever."
St. Bartholomew, a hermit of Farne, was so gentle in his movements that the wild sea-birds were not afraid of him. He allowed no one to molest them. He tamed an eider-duck, which daily fed out of his hand. One day, as St. Bartholomew was sitting on the sea-shore, a cormorant pulled the edge of his garment with its bill. He followed the bird, and found its young had fallen into a fissure in the rocks. He rescued them from danger.
St. Helier, a hermit in the isle of Jersey, lived for years on a barren crag overlooking the sea. Attention was called to the place of his retreat by the flight of the birds who shared the rock with him, and he was beheaded by his pagan discoverers.
The marine animals would fawn on St. Cuthbert while he was praying by night on the island of Farne. The eider-ducks are called by the islanders to this day "St. Cuthbert's ducks."
So the nuns of Whitby "exulting told"
"How sea-fowls' pinions fail,
As over Whitby's towers they sail,
And sinking down, with flutterings faint,
They do their homage to the saint."
St. Serf, an old Scottish monk, had a pet ram which he had raised and used to follow him about. The laird of Tillicoultry stole the animal and "ate him up in pieces small." Being accused of the theft, the laird declared on oath that he had neither stolen nor eaten the ram. Whereupon, so runs the old legend, the ram "bleated in his wayme"! The saint predicted that no heir born to the estate of Tillicoultry should succeed to his patrimony, which prediction has been verified down to our own time. During the last two centuries Tillicoultry has been in the possession of thirteen different families, and in no case has the heir born to it become the owner. Lord Colville, a distinguished soldier of the time of James VI., retired to his estate of Tillicoultry to spend the rest of his life in retirement. Walking on the terrace one day, he slipped while looking up at an old hawthorn tree, and fell down the bank and was instantly killed. The estate was afterwards sold to the Earl of Stirling, at whose death it was sold to Sir Alexander Rollo, and so it has passed from one family to another down to our time. In 1837, it was bought by Mr. Stirling, who was accidentally killed. His brother, not the born heir, succeeded him, but sold it in 1842 to Mr. Anstruther, who in turn sold it to his brother, the present proprietor.
St. Richard, Bishop of Winchester, through excessive tenderness for the animal world, hardly ever ate any meat. When he saw any lamb or chicken on his table, he used to say: "We are the cause of your death, ye innocent ones. What have ye done worthy of death?" He thought as Frederick Schlegel, who remarks: "The sorrows of beasts are certainly a theme for the meditations of men, and I could not agree to the justice of regarding it as a subject unworthy of reflection, or of permitting sympathy with them to be banished from the human breast." St. Richard's love extended to the whole natural world. In the time of his troubles he used to retire to the parsonage of a country curate, not far from Winchester, to find solace in communion with nature. His friend loved to look at him walking in the garden watching the unfolding of the flower-buds or amusing himself by budding and grafting, forgetful of the wrath of the king and the number of his enemies. A graft which the owner regarded with great pride having died, Richard regrafted it. It lived and bore fruit.