Librata
The story of Saint Librata (or Saint Wilgefortis) is that God allowed her to grow a beard in order to squash the amorous attentions of an unwanted suitor. She was then crucified for her belief. The theory of the development of this myth is that there was some confusion over depictions of Christ crucified wearing a robe, causing the figure to look like that of a bearded woman.As curious as all of that is, another oddity of this subject is that popular representations of the saint ignore every detail of the story, save the crucifixion. She is popular in the retablos of Latin America, but in these, not only does she not have a beard, but she doesn’t even appear to be adult. Instead, this saint is commonly depicted as a child in a crown of roses, strung to her cross by ribbons.
Having a fixation with crucified figures, I was drawn to the depiction of the crucified child. It was yet another matter of fascination to me that her story seems to have so little in common with this popular representation of her.