it would be possible to classify all the stories of the animal and saint tradition into two emotionally laden categories: those demonstrating power over nature, and those exemplifying empathy with animals. Clearly, this is a very crude dichotomy, but it is a style of thinking into which it is all to easy to slip when discussing this material. The traditional model of literate hagiography could combine the two poles in the Edenic model. The saint's rise to grace allows him, usually, to exercise power over nature, and as a consequence to reveal affective relationships within the hierarchy of man over animals. However, within those stories influenced or created by peasant folklore, the dichotomy of power against affection misses the dynamic altogether. These stories are concerned with human ability to mould and use nature, but the power of nature itself is present also. In the Otherworld motifs the wild requires negotiation, not simply thaumaturgy, and later can even be recognised anthropomorphically as having rights, once a Christian social hierarchy has come to dominate deep levels of rural life. In the stories of Farne, Finchale and elsewhere, there is neither a modern utilitarian attitude towards natural resources nor a sentimental regard for natural life as such. Eiderducks and their eggs were not hunted on the Inner Farne, but they were fair game on the other islands.