Saint Guinefort

Saint Guinefort was a legendary 13th-century French greyhound that received local veneration as a folk saint.

Legend

Guinefort's story is a variation on the well-travelled "dog defends master's child against animal assailant" motif, as indexed in the international classification system as B524ff, similar to the Welsh story of the dog Gelert.
In one of the earliest versions of the story, described by the Dominican friar Stephen of Bourbon in 1250, Guinefort the greyhound belonged to a knight who lived in a castle near Lyon. One day, the knight went hunting, leaving his infant son in the care of Guinefort. When he returned, he found the nursery in chaos – the cradle overturned, the child nowhere to be seen and Guinefort greeted his master with bloody jaws. Believing Guinefort to have devoured his son, the knight slew the dog. He then heard a child crying; he turned over the cradle and found his son lying there, safe and sound, along with the body of a viper bloody from dog bites. Guinefort had killed the snake and saved the child. On realizing the mistake the family dropped the dog down a well, covered it with stones and planted trees around it, setting up a shrine for Guinefort. Upon learning of the dog's martyrdom, the locals venerated the dog as a saint and visited his shrine of trees when they were in need, especially mothers with sick children.
The local peasants hearing of the dog's noble deed and innocent death, began to visit the place and honor the dog as a martyr in quest of help for their sicknesses and other needs.
As Protestant churches emerged in the 16th century, they "criticized the cult of Guinefort seeing in it an example of the abuses and enacted errors of the Catholic Church." The Catholic hierarchy adopted the continued critique, and sought to suppress Guinefort belief and practices, and ostracize practitioners. A fine for the practice was implemented.
The custom was regarded as harmful and superstitious by the church, which made efforts to eradicate it and enacted a fine for the continued practice. Community memory of the practices was still present in the 1970s, with the last known visit by someone to Saint Guinefort Wood to effect a cure for a sick child occurring around the 1940s.
Historian John Bossy used this canine folk saint to explore medieval attitudes to sanctity.