Week 4 Reading Diary: Folklore of the Holy Land

Folklore of the Holy Land

One of the stories I like from this unit is called Lot and the Tree of the Cross . This story tells of Lot, a patriarch, who was told he would be forgiven of his sins if he watered the tree at the head of Adam's grave. On three attempts to carry a bucket of water to the tree, the Devil disguised as thirsty pilgrims tricks Lot into allowing the pilgrims to drink the water. He proves his selflessness by giving water to these fake pilgrims, and his sins are forgiven.

Another story that I found interesting was Legends of El Khudr because of the opening paragraph. It explains the Greeks taking communion by crumbling the bread up into the wine and taking both parts of the communion at the same time. Also, it tells of a time when a priest accidentally spilled the contents of the communion on his foot and it caused a hole to appear and even marked the floor. That's some powerful bread and wine! Afterwards, this stone that was marked from the spilled contents was believed to have miraculous healed many people.

I really enjoyed reading about St. George in Elijah and Saint George because I remember studying the famous Crusader icon St. George in my Byzantine Icon class. We did not really learn much about the story behind the artwork, so it was nice to know why the icon was created.