page_title: Dunstan
section_title: In literature
hierarchical_section_title: Dunstan / Legacy / In literature
caption_attribution_description: en:Dunstan and the Devil - en:Project Gutenberg eText 13978 - http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/9/7/13978/13978-h/13978-h.htm -
context_page_description: Dunstan was an English bishop. He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised as a saint. His work restored monastic life in England and reformed the English Church. His 11th-century biographer Osbern, himself an artist and scribe, states that Dunstan was skilled in "making a picture and forming letters", as were other clergy of his age who reached senior rank.
  Dunstan served as an important minister of state to several English kings. He was the most popular saint in England for nearly two centuries, having gained fame for the many stories of his greatness, not least among which were those concerning his famed cunning in defeating the devil.
context_section_description: English literature contains many references to him, for example in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and in this folk rhyme: 
  St Dunstan, as the story goes,
  
  Once pull'd the devil by the nose
  
  With red-hot tongs, which made him roar,
  
  That he was heard three miles or more.
  This folk story is already shown in an initial in the Life of Dunstan in the Canterbury Passionale, from the second quarter of the 12th century (British Library, Harley MS 315, f. 15v.), and the tongs have become a symbol of St Dunstan.
  Daniel Anlezark has tentatively suggested that Dunstan may be the medieval author of Solomon and Saturn citing the style, word choice, and Hiberno-Latin used in the texts. However, Clive Tolley examines this claim from a linguistic point-of-view and disagrees with Anlezark's claim.
  Another story relates how Dunstan nailed a horseshoe to the Devil's foot when he was asked to re-shoe the Devil's cloven hoof. This caused the Devil great pain, and Dunstan only agreed to remove the shoe and release the Devil after he promised never to enter a place where a horseshoe is over the door. This is claimed as the origin of the lucky horseshoe.
  At various passages in "The Deptford Trilogy" by the Canadian writer Robertson Davies, the character Dunstan Ramsay is compared with the saint of the same name, and in particular some stormy events in the character's love-life are rather humorously compared to Saint Dunstan's famous struggle with Satan.
  A fictionalised account of his life is told in the 2017 historical novel Dunstan by Conn Iggulden.
caption: Dunstan shoeing the Devil's hoof, as illustrated by George Cruikshank
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