Saints Alive is a transcription of classes held by Hilda Charlton in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City between 1976 and 1987. In this book Hilda speaks of saints, masters and other divine beings that were an important part of her life. These classes were a source of spiritual inspiration and a gift of love by the auther, who shared her experiences, knowledge and accomplishments in an informal manner with hundreds of people that gathered for these weekly meetings. She addressed the public with a conversatoinal style using a language that varied from sublime, to poetic to colloquial. Hilda's message was never preached with superiority or in judgement. Her quest was to be an instrument or channel of God's love and truth. Hilda accomplished what she set out to do leaving an extraordinarty legacy for all humanity to partake of.

The Danish monk Saxo lived from about 1150 to after 1216. His erudition and command of Latin got him appointed as scribe to the archbishop of Lund (site of Copenhagen), during which time he wrote the sixteen books of the Gesta Danorum. This 'Deeds of the Danes' stands proudly beside Gregory's History of the Franks, the Venerable Bede's History of the English Church and Nation, and the other medieval histories of the European nations. Even more important, it stands beside the Eddas as a main source for scholars of Germanic mythology.

This two volume edition, books one through nine, is translated by Peter Fisher and edited by H. R. Ellis-Davidson, eminent scholar and Grand-Dame of Nordic Scholarship. A scholar's sorce book to be sure, one volume text, the other notes and bibliography, this translation is, unlike earlier translations, very readable.

That out of the way, who should buy this work and why?

Saxo was indeed a man of God, but in his breast throbbed the heart of the Germanic/Nordic warrior-aristocracy in its truest form. The modern reader senses that, on occasion, he may have forgotten both his vows and that he was working for the archbishop.

Book one begins in mythological pre-time with a legendary account of a King Dan, possibly of Greek (Danai) origin , who saved the Danes from the Emperor Augustus. Book nine ends with the life and times of the historical King Gorm III, shortly before Saxo's own time.

Dan's progeny, their retinues and adversaries, include the widest range of boldest heroes, most dastardly scoundrels, moralists, deviants, and about any other type imaginable. Perhaps the best known of these figures is the Amleth (book 3), who feigns madness in order to visit vengeance on the uncle who murdered his father and became his step-father. This material came to Shakespeare by way of a contemporary French author.

One of my personal favorites has to be Starkather, whom Saxo presents to us with some license, but in a most remarkable way.

Starkather, according to the somewhat garbled report, has been condemned by Thor to live three lifetimes, each separated by an act of treachery or betrayal. Books six and seven tell of the old hero during his last lifetime and his long overdue death. He comes on as a leftover from a previous, more heroic time, before the Danish royalty had succumbed to the decadent, courtly (French via 'Teuton') mannerisms that had swept over Saxo's Europe. "Frothi was succeeded by his son, Ingel ... (who)abandoned the patterns of his forbears and surrendered himself wholly to the baits of wanton extravagance. At variance with all that was good and upright, he grasped at vice instead of sound morality, severed the cords of restraint, neglected a sovereign's duties and became a vile slave to riotous living." Further, "(h)is idea of greatness was to collect fatteners of fowls, scullions, frying-pans, all kinds of factories for the palate and various connoisseurs in the art of roasting and spicing meats." A true warrior-king, we learn later, should be pleased to eat his rancid meat uncooked with his troops in the field. Ingel's main vice is, of course, that he hasn't avenged the death of his father.

We read about Starkather's agreeing to stand by a Prince Helgi, who has agreed to meet nine adversaries on the field the day after his wedding night. Starkather stands guard by the bridal chamber. At dawn he finds Helgi slumbering peacefully in the arms of his bride. Reluctant to awaken the prince, he rides out onto the snow-covered plain to meet the opponents. When the nine find him he is covered with snow up to his shoulder blades, apparently half naked because he had removed his cloak to pluck fleas. They ask him if he wants to take them on individually or all together. "Whenever a sorry pack of curs snarls at me ... I usually send them scampering off all together, not one by one." Spaghetti-western script writers, look and learn!

The old Starkather dispatches all nine, but not before he is wounded so severely that his innards are hanging out. A man on a cart stops to tend to the badly bloodied hero. When the latter learns that the man is a bailiff, "he was not content with rejecting him, but crushed him with abuse." Two more passersby stop, but are also rejected when our hero learns that the first has married a maidservant and is currently engaged in the process of buying her freedom. Be helped by one who has "accepted a slave's embrace"? The second, a slave herself, is sent "home (to) offer her teats to her squalling daughter, for he considered it utterly degrading to accept relief from a wretch of the lowest order."

Finally a farmer's son comes by in a wagon. His interview reveals that he has "a praiseworthy calling, in which folk sought their subsistence by a trade of honest labour and certainly realised no profit unless it were gained the sweat of their brows." How can you not love this guy?

Starkather's tirades are easily recognizable as Saxo's own scorn and derision, hurled at the courtly decadence of his contemporary Danish aristocracy.

This translation was first published in 1979 but has been unavailable in the American market for most of the past two decades. Buy this book and read it! We need more of these authentic histories.

This book is terrific. It is one in a series of 12 books. (I own the entire collection of 12!) Your son or daughter will love this book. It teaches kids that you CAN have more than one best friend. There is also a lot of excitment in each book. HIGHLY Recommended for all pre-teen girls!

Abraham Lincoln often stated that the Weems book on George Washington was his favorite book next to the Bible. Well, this is definitely my favorite book in the whole world, next to the Bible. I believe the motivations of the author and many others in this book are best expressed by the forward in another book from the same crisis, The White Rose. The forward in one its publications by a sister of one of the members of the White Rose expressed the general sentiment of that group. They had to do something even if it was hopeless, so that other countries and future generations would know that there were people in Germany who had true compassion for the innocent and were not themselves animals like the Nazis! A warning about reading this book: If you are anything like the author, Count Von Stauffenber, or a relative handful of others from Hitler's Germany, this will be a terribly hard book to read emotionly. I venture to say that it aged me ten years in the days that I obsorbed it (or was obsorbed by it, reading is definitey too shallow a term). If you can stand by and see the innocent put to death by the guilty and not be overwelmed by righteous indignation then don't waste the time on this book! I would like to add some more detail to this review at some point when I get some more time. I pray that with this short testimonial I have given the true heros of America who see this a hunger to pour themselves into this work of extreme pathos!

This book was awesome. It was involved and helps realize what went on during the Holocaust. The man in the book survived going through seven concentration camps and lived to write about everyone of them. His book is poingant and kept me interested. I would recommend this book to everyone to help realize how bad and how graphic the Holocaust was.

It has a real romance to it, even though it is through a christians view. It helps you understand that God might not have the plans that you planned on, but his plans always work out for good.

This a great book. This book gives simple cues that kids can understand. I use these cues everday when teaching physical education classes. These cues make teaching a lot easier. I have found that students learn better when I use these cues!!!!!!

Today, there are over 4.5 million children who are currently being raised by their grandparents. Ticklebelly Hill, a non-fiction work about grandparents raising their grandchildren will warm your heart and thrill your soul as you learn of the author's journeys and struggles while raising her grandchildren. The Southern tradition of story telling is reborn with the release of this work.

Take a break from your day-to-day trials and tribulations and take a journey through life by reading Ticklebelly Hill. This insightful author shares poignant moments of lifestyle changes and the realities of life and how she deals with the multitude of issues surrounding raising children.

This book is a must read!

i really liked this book. it was the first i read in the series and since i liked it so much i searched for the others and found them! they were also excellent! i recomend this to any tennage girl.

this is an awsome series. I would recomend it to any teen who wants to read a good book. I have this book and have read it like ten times. When ever i'm bored i read books and i read this often. I recomend any books by this author. read them then write a review so i know what u thought. Read it!