No one ever knew the cause of the deadly flood that hit St Ann's, Trinidad in 1993 - no one, that is, until a frightened boy named Jabari came stumbling out of the St Ann's hills with a legend given to him by Papa Bois, the king of the forest. Rescued from the clutches of Mama Dlo, the anaconda who is queen of the rivers, Jabari was given the task of telling people the real story of the flood.

This fascinating study reconstructs the tradition of the Legend of the True Cross in text and image, from its tentative beginnings in 4th-century Jerusalem to the culminating expression of its multi-layered cosmic content in 14th and 15th-century monumental cycles in Germany and Italy.