Excerpt from A Dictionary of Saintly Women, Vol. 1 of 2 For nearly half of a long life it has been my vocation to collect and arrange legends and records of women worshipped as saints or so considered. Although the work has been to me a sanctuary from the anxieties and vexations of daily life, I have, during the whole time, been painfully conscious of my unworthiness to write on the subject of saints, and my inability to approach the degree of excellence to which such a book might attain in better hands. From the mass of information - often contradictory - concerning this vast multitude, I have selected the most remarkable incidents. Some of these are chosen on account of the historical importance of the heroine, her noble character or wonderful gifts, or because of some interesting side-light which they shed on customs or beliefs of her time and country. Some few stories have been included as examples of the extreme absurdity to which these memorials have reached. Where there are several saints of one name they are arranged chronologically. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.