Those fortunate enough to live in the country in early spring know well the pleasure that is to be found in watching and listening to the birds. Now legends grow in the country, and when towns were only houses collected together in the country they grew there also. Legends are amongst life’s most precious gifts, telling us, as they do in story-shape how God is love, and how the saints were his friends. Perhaps it is in legends that we get nearest to the real man in the saint. The saints loved God, and therefore all his creatures—a solid fact, not a beautiful phrase. They spent their days helping others to come with them to God, a work which made them the busiest of the busy, and yet gave them leisure to thank God for all He had made and to admire His handiwork. Their love overflowed to the animal creation, the beauties of which inspired them to sing such canticles as we find in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, wherein God is thanked for the beauty He has given to His creatures. No more beautiful legends exist than those which tell us of saints and birds, and even Our Lord’s life became in the middle ages a centre of bird-lore. The wren was placed in the stable at Bethlehem, and the robin got his little red-breast from staunching the Precious Blood, so that ‘Robins and wrens are God Almighty’s friends.’