" But that was John up to the first time he became aware of the St Christopher effigies and medals. To the outside world he remained the same, but John knew that he was no longer the same. For now there was a battle raging inside him, a talking battle, and his opponent was a man in a long robe with a staff in his hand. This was the man who, up to a comparatively few years ago, had been an obscure saint, but who was now a power that was creating a mass superstition the like of which had not been known since the Dark Ages, or so reasoned John. "

― Catherine Cookson , Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger