{"id":24765,"date":"2025-10-25T13:20:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=24765"},"modified":"2025-10-25T13:20:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:20:30","slug":"saki-the-saint-and-the-goblin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/saki-the-saint-and-the-goblin\/24765\/","title":{"rendered":"Saki: The Saint and the Goblin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: \u201cThe Saint and the Goblin\u201d is a short story by Saki, published in 1910 in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches<\/em>. In an old cathedral, a little stone saint and a goblin carved into the opposite wall converse every night. The saint worries about the poor mice that live in the church, while the goblin teases him with irony and a pragmatic view of the world. Between them unfolds a sharp, satirical dialogue about charity and the limits of goodness. An unexpected event will put the sincerity of their ideals to the test.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Saki<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Saint and the Goblin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Saki
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little stone Saint occupied a retired niche in a side aisle of the old cathedral.  No one quite remembered who he had been, but that in a way was a guarantee of respectability.  At least so the Goblin said.  The Goblin was a very fine specimen of quaint stone carving, and lived up in the corbel on the wall opposite the niche of the little Saint.  He was connected with some of the best cathedral folk, such as the queer carvings in the choir stalls and chancel screen, and even the gargoyles high up on the roof.  All the fantastic beasts and manikins that sprawled and twisted in wood or stone or lead overhead in the arches or away down in the crypt were in some way akin to him; consequently he was a person of recognised importance in the cathedral world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little stone Saint and the Goblin got on very well together, though they looked at most things from different points of view.  The Saint was a philanthropist in an old fashioned way; he thought the world, as he saw it, was good, but might be improved.  In particular he pitied the church mice, who were miserably poor.  The Goblin, on the other hand, was of opinion that the world, as he knew it, was bad, but had better be let alone.  It was the function of the church mice to be poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the same,\u201d said the Saint, \u201cI feel very sorry for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course you do,\u201d said the Goblin; \u201cit\u2019s your<\/em> function to feel sorry for them.  If they were to leave off being poor you couldn\u2019t fulfil your functions.  You\u2019d be a sinecure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He rather hoped that the Saint would ask him what a sinecure meant, but the latter took refuge in a stony silence.  The Goblin might be right, but still, he thought, he would like to do something for the church mice before winter came on; they were so very poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst he was thinking the matter over he was startled by something falling between his feet with a hard metallic clatter.  It was a bright new thaler; one of the cathedral jackdaws, who collected such things, had flown in with it to a stone cornice just above his niche, and the banging of the sacristy door had startled him into dropping it.  Since the invention of gunpowder the family nerves were not what they had been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat have you got there?\u201d asked the Goblin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA silver thaler,\u201d said the Saint.  \u201cReally,\u201d he continued, \u201cit is most fortunate; now I can do something for the church mice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow will you manage it?\u201d asked the Goblin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Saint considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will appear in a vision to the vergeress who sweeps the floors.  I will tell her that she will find a silver thaler between my feet, and that she must take it and buy a measure of corn and put it on my shrine.  When she finds the money she will know that it was a true dream, and she will take care to follow my directions.  Then the mice will have food all the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course you<\/em> can do that,\u201d observed the Goblin.  \u201cNow, I<\/em> can only appear to people after they have had a heavy supper of indigestible things.  My opportunities with the vergeress would be limited.  There is some advantage in being a saint after all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this while the coin was lying at the Saint\u2019s feet.  It was clean and glittering and had the Elector\u2019s arms beautifully stamped upon it.  The Saint began to reflect that such an opportunity was too rare to be hastily disposed of.  Perhaps indiscriminate charity might be harmful to the church mice.  After all, it was their function to be poor; the Goblin had said so, and the Goblin was generally right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking,\u201d he said to that personage, \u201cthat perhaps it would be really better if I ordered a thaler\u2019s worth of candles to be placed on my shrine instead of the corn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He often wished, for the look of the thing, that people would sometimes burn candles at his shrine; but as they had forgotten who he was it was not considered a profitable speculation to pay him that attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCandles would be more orthodox,\u201d said the Goblin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore orthodox, certainly,\u201d agreed the Saint, \u201cand the mice could have the ends to eat; candle-ends are most fattening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Goblin was too well bred to wink; besides, being a stone goblin, it was out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, if it ain\u2019t there, sure enough!\u201d said the vergeress next morning.  She took the shining coin down from the dusty niche and turned it over and over in her grimy hands.  Then she put it to her mouth and bit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe can\u2019t be going to eat it,\u201d thought the Saint, and fixed her with his stoniest stare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d said the woman, in a somewhat shriller key, \u201cwho\u2019d have thought it!  A saint, too!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she did an unaccountable thing.  She hunted an old piece of tape out of her pocket, and tied to crosswise, with a big loop, round the thaler, and hung it round the neck of the little Saint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she went away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only possible explanation,\u201d said the Goblin, \u201cis that it\u2019s a bad one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is that decoration your neighbour is wearing?\u201d asked a wyvern that was wrought into the capital of an adjacent pillar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Saint was ready to cry with mortification, only, being of stone, he couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a coin of \u2014 ahem! \u2014 fabulous value,\u201d replied the Goblin tactfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the news went round the Cathedral that the shrine of the little stone Saint had been enriched by a priceless offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter all, it\u2019s something to have the conscience of a goblin,\u201d said the Saint to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church mice were as poor as ever.  But that was their function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Saint and the Goblin\u201d is a short story by Saki, published in 1910 in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches. In an old cathedral, a little stone saint and a goblin carved into the opposite wall converse every night. The saint worries about the poor mice that live in the church, while the goblin teases him with irony and a pragmatic view of the world. Between them unfolds a sharp, satirical dialogue about charity and the limits of goodness. An unexpected event will put the sincerity of their ideals to the test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[573,597,772],"class_list":["post-24765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-fantasy","tag-saki-hector-hugh-munro-en","tag-united-kingdom","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":573,"label":"Fantasy"},{"value":597,"label":"Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)"},{"value":772,"label":"United Kingdom"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Saki-The-Saint-and-the-Goblin.webp",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":420,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":420,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":573,"name":"Fantasy","slug":"fantasy","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":573,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":89,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":597,"name":"Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)","slug":"saki-hector-hugh-munro-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":597,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":11,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":772,"name":"United Kingdom","slug":"united-kingdom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":772,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":93,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}