St Francis of Assisi and the Animals: The Stories Behind His Love for Creation

There were birds everywhere.

Francis of Assisi was travelling through the Spoleto Valley with some of his companions when, near Bevagna, he saw a great gathering of birds. There were birds of different kinds—among them doves, crows and daws.

Francis left his companions on the road and went towards them.

The birds did not fly away.

According to Thomas of Celano, Francis's earliest biographer, Francis was surprised and delighted. He greeted the birds and began to speak to them about God. He called them his brothers and reminded them of the gifts they had received: feathers, wings, the air in which they flew, and the food and protection of their Creator.¹

The birds remained around him. Celano says they stretched their necks, opened their wings and looked towards Francis while he walked among them. At last, he blessed them and gave them permission to fly away.¹

Francis continued along the road, but the encounter stayed with him. He wondered why he had never preached to birds before.

It was an unusual thought. Yet for Francis, it was becoming natural to see the world in an unusual way.

When Even the Swallows Were Asked to Listen

On another day Francis arrived at Alviano to preach to a crowd. The people became quiet, but a flock of swallows nesting nearby kept chattering so loudly that Francis could scarcely be heard.

He turned towards them.

“My sisters the swallows,” he said, before asking them to be quiet while he spoke.

Celano records that the birds fell silent and remained still until the preaching had ended. The people were astonished.¹

To Francis, however, birds were not decorations in the background of human life. He addressed them as creatures that belonged to the same world he did. “Brother” and “sister” were words that began to reach far beyond his fellow friars.

And sometimes the creatures that caught his attention were much smaller and more helpless than a flock of birds.

The Hare That Would Not Leave

At Greccio, one of the brothers brought Francis a wild hare that had been caught in a trap.

Francis pitied it. He called it “Brother hare” and had it released.

Instead of escaping, the animal ran to Francis and settled in his lap. Francis stroked it gently and then placed it on the ground so that it could return to the wild.

The hare came back.

Again it was put down. Again it returned to him.

Finally Francis asked the brothers to carry it away to a nearby forest where it could be free. Celano tells of a similar incident with a rabbit on an island in Lake Perugia.¹

Fish received the same tenderness. When Francis had an opportunity, his biographer says, he returned caught fish to the water. Once, near Lake Rieti, a fisherman gave him a large tench. Francis called the fish “brother,” placed it back in the lake and began to pray. The story says the fish remained near the boat until Francis finished praying and sent it away.¹

There was no creature too ordinary to escape his notice.

In a later biography, Celano remembered Francis bending down to pick up worms from a road and moving them to safety so that travellers would not tread on them. He also wrote of Francis wanting bees to be provided with food in winter.²

Anyone could notice a soaring bird. Francis also noticed what could easily be crushed underfoot.

A Wolf Outside the Walls

Years after Francis's death, another animal story was written down and became one of the most famous Franciscan tales of all. It appears in The Little Flowers of St Francis, a collection from the later Franciscan tradition.³

The story begins at Gubbio.

A fierce wolf was terrifying the countryside. It attacked animals and, according to the tale, people too. Fear spread through the town. Those who went beyond the walls carried weapons.

Francis decided to meet the wolf.

People warned him not to go, but he left the city with some companions. As they drew nearer to the place where the wolf was said to roam, the others hesitated. Francis went forward.

The wolf came running towards him with its mouth open.

Francis made the sign of the cross. He addressed the animal as “Brother wolf” and commanded it in Christ's name not to harm him or anyone else.

Then, the story says, something extraordinary happened.

The wolf stopped. It closed its mouth and approached Francis quietly.

Francis did not treat the wolf simply as an enemy to be destroyed. He spoke of the harm it had done, but he also offered peace. If the wolf stopped attacking, Francis promised that the people of Gubbio would feed it so that hunger would no longer drive it to kill.

The wolf bowed its head. Then it lifted a paw and placed it in Francis's hand as a pledge.

Francis led the animal into Gubbio.

Imagine the townspeople watching the creature they had feared walking beside the friar.

In the town square Francis repeated the agreement. The people promised to feed the wolf. The wolf again placed its paw in Francis's hand.

The Little Flowers says that the animal then lived peacefully among the people of Gubbio for two years. It went from door to door and was fed by the townspeople. When it eventually died of old age, they mourned it.³

The Wolf of Gubbio comes from a later source than the stories recorded by Celano, so it cannot be treated as equally early historical testimony. But the tale survived for centuries because the Francis at its centre was recognisable: a man who met fear without hatred and sought peace where others expected violence.

A World Filled With Brothers and Sisters

Long before the wolf story was written down, Francis had left behind words of his own that show how widely his sense of kinship reached.

Near the end of his life, when illness had weakened him and his eyesight had badly deteriorated, he composed the Canticle of the Creatures.⁴

He praised God with “Brother Sun.” He spoke of “Sister Moon,” “Brother Wind,” “Sister Water” and “Brother Fire.” He called the earth “our Sister Mother Earth.”⁴

The song did not come from a young man walking comfortably through beautiful countryside. Francis was seriously ill when its first part was composed. Yet his world had not become empty or ugly. Sun, moon, wind, water, fire and earth still gave him reasons to praise.

The birds near Bevagna, the hare in his lap, the fish returned to the lake and even the worm on the road now seem to belong to the same story.

Francis did not see creation merely as a collection of things available for human use. He saw gifts. He saw fellow creatures. And because he loved the Creator, he learned to look with tenderness at what the Creator had made.

Centuries later, this part of Francis's life would be remembered in a new way. In 1979, Pope John Paul II proclaimed him the heavenly patron of those who promote ecology. Churches in many places also came to mark his feast on 4 October by holding a Blessing of Animals, often inviting families to bring the animals they care for.⁵⁶

Dogs may stand beside cats. Birds arrive in cages. Some communities welcome rabbits, farm animals and other creatures. A medieval friar who once stopped beside a flock of birds is remembered as people pause to thank God for the lives entrusted to their care.

A modern animal blessing associated with the Franciscan tradition begins by praising God as the maker of living creatures. It remembers Francis calling creatures his brothers and sisters and asks God's blessing upon the animal being cared for. It ends with praise for God's beauty in creation.⁷

The prayer is modern; it is not a prayer written by St Francis. But its spirit leads back to the road near Bevagna, where a man stopped walking because he had noticed some birds.

What Francis's Love for Creation Leaves With Us

Most of us will never preach to a flock of birds or walk out to meet a wolf. But every day we meet living things that depend, in some measure, on the choices human beings make.

A thirsty animal needs water. A trapped creature may need to be freed safely. A pet needs patient care, not only when it is playful but when it is old or sick. Streets, rivers, fields and gardens can be protected or polluted. Even something small beneath our feet can be noticed—or ignored.

Francis began by noticing.

He noticed the birds that others might have passed. He noticed the hare someone had trapped. He noticed fish taken from the water. He noticed worms on a road. And in his final years, when his own sight was failing, he could still sing of the sun, the moon, water, fire and earth.

Perhaps that is why the stories have lasted.

They invite us to slow down long enough to see that the world around us is not just scenery. It is alive with gifts we did not create and cannot replace once carelessly destroyed.