Saints' legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes' suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws.
 
In Saints, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints, including our own King Edmund. She draws on 'official' lives, vernacular romances, artworks and obscene poetry, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends' heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. The commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and, together, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. 
 
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Storyland and Wild, this is a sweeping new legend of miracles, magic, human frailty and heroic strength. 
 
Amy Jeffs is a Somerset-based art historian and printmaker with expertise in medieval art and literature. In 2020, she gained a PhD in Art History from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, having worked at the British Library, and studied for earlier degrees at the Courtauld Institute of Art and Cambridge. Her first book, Storyland was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and was a Sunday Times Bestseller, her second book, Wild received widespread acclaim and was a Guardian audio Book of the Week. Saints is her third book.