Hi, Georgina -
I've often thought these religious folk tales should be collected. Some are well-known and "canonized" by the building of shrines, like the shrine of Loretto, Italy, location of the home of the Virgin Mary - angels flew it there, apparently from the Holy Land.

The one I heard in school that struck me most, was the story of the robbers who broke into a tabernacle and stole a consecrated host, and then stabbed it several times with a knife. The stabbed host started bleeding, says the story. I recall it as a story we laughed at when I was in grade school - but I was very upset when I learned that my son had heard the same story in second grade from a Spanish-born nun (I was a bit older when I heard the story). I suppose my kid didn't get hurt by the story, and he loved the teacher.

Then there were the stories of children who had a special relationship with the Lord since birth. They usually had the name "Little So-and-So," and people would make pilgrimages to visit these holy children, who were invariably invalids dressed in white and surrounded by flowers.

Then there were the little color booklets with one-page lives of the saints - many of the stories were really weird. I liked reading them when I was a kid, but I purged them from the parish religious education library in the 1980s because I thought the stories were so awful. I think I'm a little more hesitant about doing such purges nowadays, because I see that weird stuff as wonderful folklore.

But weird, still....

-Joe-