Tekle Haymanot - Later Traditions

Later Traditions

Tekle Haymanot is frequently represented as an old man with wings on his back and only one leg visible. There are a number of explanations for this popular image. C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford recount one story, that the saint "having stood too long, one of his legs broke, whereupon he stood on one foot for seven years." Paul B. Henze describes his missing leg as appearing as a "severed leg ... in the lower left corner discreetly wrapped in a cloth." The traveller Thomas Pakenham learned from the Prior of Debre Damo how Tekle Haymanot received his wings:

One day he said he would go to Jerusalem to see the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill of blood that is called Golgotha. But Shaitan (Satan) planned to stop Teklahaimanot going on his journey to the Holy Land, and he cut the rope which led from the rock to the ground just as Teklahaimanot started to climb down. Then God gave Teklahaimanot six wings and he flew down to the valley below ... and from that day onwards Teklahaimanot would fly back and forth to Jerusalem above the clouds like an airplane.

Many traditions hold that Tekle Haymanot played a significant role in Yekuno Amlak's ascension as the restored monarch of the Solomonic dynasty, following two centuries of rule by the Zagwe dynasty, although historians like Taddesse Tamrat believe these are later inventions. (A few older traditions credit Iyasus Mo'a with this honor) Another tradition credits Tekle Haymanot as the only Abuna born in Ethiopia until the church was granted autocephaly in the 1950s.

A number of gadlat or hagiography of this saint have been written. G.W.B. Huntingford mentions two different gadlat: "one written by Abba Samuel of Waldiba in the first quarter of the 15th century and the other by one Gibra Maskel of Debre Libanos early in the 16th century". E.A. Wallis Budge has translated a third one, entitled The Life of Täklä Haymanot, which is attributed to one Täklä S'ion. Tesfaye Gebre Mariam adds to these another version popular at the monastery of Debre Libanos version and containing far more details of the saint's life than is in any other version of the gadla, and which Tesfaye confirmed was written by Ichege Yohannis Kema.