|
Tales and Poems of Brigid=TheMary of The Gael with other Summary Accounts of her life.-
Check out our new reference book on the Saint the most complete reference O S. Brigits Countrey, Parents, Birth, and many vertues and especially of her charithy to the pooreAbridged out of what Cogitosus her owne nepheu, and Ioannes Capgravivs have written... 1625
1.The glorious virgin S. Brigit, who descended of the ancient, and honorable family of Etech in the kingdom of Ireland, was born at Fochart, a village a mile distant from Dundalke in the couhtry of Louth. Her father was a noble man of Leinster named Dubacus, who falling in love with a handmaid of his named Brocseca, a wiman indued with singular beauty, and admirable colines, he got her with child of this sacred virgin, which when his own wife perceive,being in great trouble thereat and taking the matter very greefuly, she said unto him; cast out this handmayd fearing her posterity surpasse mine. Dubtacus constrained through his wives importunty mand sale of her to a certain Magitian, in whose house falling in travaile, she was safe delivered of the holy child; such as were present at her birth, saw the cloath wherewith her tender head was covered, to burne with a flame of fire, wherupon hastning to quench it, they found no fire at all. 2. So much did the holy virgin loath to feed of the Magitians meats, that she was constrayned everyd day to cast up what she ate. The Magitian considering attentitivly the cause thereof, said: I am unclean and this holy virgin (full of the spirit of God) cannot taste of my meat, choosing out therefore a white melch cow, he bestowed it upon her to live by her milk. The holy virgin increased in vertue no less than in years;for she exceled in all kinds of holy conversation and sanctity of life and became very conspicuous for her modeste harithy and temperence, but above all her charity to the poore is most remarkable. 3.The sacred virgin being deputed by the Magitian to keepe his cowes,gave all the butter and milk she chould gather to relieve the present wants, and necessities of the poore. When the Magitian saw but a small quantitiy of butter in a great vessel, wherin the butter was to be kept, he cahfed extremely. The Saint seeing what passion he was in, offered her pure prayers up to God, and so by divine bertue, filled the vessell with butter even up to the top: wherat the Magitian was so much astonished and moved, that he believed in Christ, settting both her and her mother at liberty. 4. In regard she gave to the poore, all whatsoever she could lay handes upon, and among other things, her Fathers sword he proposed to sell her for which end bringing her where the King was. He requested him that he would be pleased to by his daughter. Th whom the Kinge spoke in this manner what made you to give away your fathers sword to the poore man? To whome she answered I have given it to Christ, and sir if my God did aske your magesty, and my father too of me, I would bestow you both, and whatsoever eles you have upon him, if it lay in my power. The King turning to her fater sayd to him; this your daughter is of too great worth to be bought by me and of farre greater to be sold by yhou, so giving her another to give to her fathere, he dismissed her. Of S. Brigites singular chastity and of some miracles wrought in approbation thereof and also of other stupendious signs....Chapter II.1. When this sacred spouse of Christ saw herselfe pressed, and importuned by her friends to marry, she prayed to God, that he would be pleased to disfigure her body with some deformity, to this end that men should cease from making further love unto her; and without delay her eye burst, and melted in her head; then taking three other maydes in her company, she repayred to a holy Bishop, called Machella, S. Patricks Disciple, to be vayled at his handes: the holy Bishop saw a piller of fire appeare over her head , and contemplating moreover her ernest and ardent love of virginall integrity, he gave her the holy vayle of chastity: at which time as she fell prostrate before the venerable Prelate to offer herselfe a holy, cleane and impolluted host to her heavenly spouse, she touched the alter poste, which incontinently budded forth a fresh with leaves and so continueth greene and florishing to this day: Beiong vayled with the sacred cognizance of chastity, her bursten eye was restored again to perfect health. 2. Against Easter the sacred virgin made beer of one onely measure or pecke of malt, sending part thereof to eighteen Churches that were round about, and besides during all the octave, that small quatity sufficed aboundantly, and served to satisf all those who would, and were desirous to taste thereof. At the same time a Leaper came to the holy virgin, requesting her to help him to a cow, but she havin none said to him; Will you that we pray God to deliver you from your sickness? Who answered, that he preferred his own before all other guiftes; whereupon she aaving blessed water, sprinkled the leaper therewith, and immediately he became cleane: in like manner tow sicke virgins taking water, which the holy Virgin had blessed, recovered their perfect health. 3.Two blind men being Brittons, or English men by birth with a leaper who was their guide, came to her Church door, and besought the sacred Virgin to help them to their bodily health; She intreated them to have patience a little and to enter into the lodging to refresh their selves, and that she would in the mean time pray to God in their behalfe; which delay they took so impatiently , that with great indignation they replied; you heal the diseased of your own nation but as for us being strangers you neglect to cure us for Christs sake. The holy virgin receiving this reproach, went forth unto them, and casting holy water upon them she cleansed the leaper, and restored the blind men to their sight. 4. A certaine woman brought some apples to the Saint, at which time there came some leapers to beg alms of her: the said Saint delat these apples among them. The Woman hearing it, covayed her apples away saying; I brought those apples for your selfe, and your virgins and not to be given to leapers; whereat the Saint being not a little offended, she answere: You have done very ill in hindering us to give almes, therefore your trees will never more produce any fruit. The woman going forth into her orchard, which she flef full of apples, found none at all, and so it remayned fruitless always after. Of Saint Brigites great austerity, and of many admirable miracles wrought by her..
Of the obedience that unreasonable creatures exhibited to Saint BrigetChapter V.
2. A simple country man comming to the Kinges court, saw there a Fox, who being taught for that purpose, made the King great recreation with his many sleightes, and trickes, and thinking it was not tame or familiar, he killed it in presence of all the multitude, for which being repreended and cast into fetters, he was brought fast bound to the King, who commanded that he should be put to death, unles he procured him another Foxe like unto the former in all conditions, and subtill feates, and that his wife and children should be made slaves. S. Brigit hearing thereof, prayed very earnestly to God for the release of the poore man; by and by another Fox entering into her coach, sat quietly ,and familiarly by her side, whome when she had presented to the King, and that he saw it to play trickes, and pranks, and in all thinges to be comformable to the other Fox, his wrath appeared therewith, he set the poore man at liberty, S. Brigit returning to her monastery, and the Fox remaining as yet amongst the presse of people, fled backe againe into his denne : all those who saw what had passed, wondered much at the miracle, and honoured noe less the Saint by whose meanes it was wrought. 3. As the sacred Virgin sat with her virgins in her coach, she saw a man, with his wife, family, and oxen, toyled very much with carrying hevy, and cumbersome burdens, even in the extreame heat of the sunne, and taking compassion of them, she gave them her owne coach horse to helpe, and ease them of their insupportable paynes. In the meane thype she sat downe by the way side, and spoke to some of her virgins, bidding them to digge under the adioyning earth, to the end that water might spring forth, where with such as were drye might quench their thirst. Upon the digging up of the ground, there gushed out a cleare, and faire river. Within a little time after, there came a certain Captaine to the place , who hearing of what S. Brigit had done with the horses, he bestowed upon her wilde, and madd horses, which became without delay forme and gentle, as if they had beene alwayes wont to draw a coach. There came leapers sometymes to Saint Brigit, who begged her coach of her, which she gave them without delay, and her horses likewise. 4. A certain Queene came to visit S. Brigit, bringing with her many rich presents,amongst the rest a very fayre silver chayne, which her maydes took away, hiding it, the Saint bestowing the rest upon the poore. Not long after when a poore man cried to the Saint for almes, having nothing, she tooke the chaine, and gave it him. The maydes seeing it, sayd, you are the cause that we loose all that God sends us, for you give all to the poore, leaving us poore and needy. To whome she answered, seeke the chains in the place, where I am wont to pray in the Churche, and peraduenture you shall find it there: they finding the chayne, showed it to many, and kept it ever after, as an evident testimony of her sanctimony and vertue. How S. Briget protected, and assisted such as invocated her in their distresse and dangers. CHAP. VI Saint Brigit came one time, being intreated thereunto by her father, to the King saying, let me have your sword for my Father, and release me one of your slaves. To whome the king answeared, what will you give me for these two great petitions. She replied, if you will, the life everlasting and that your seed shall reign for e ver after you. The king answeared againe; I covet not a life, which I doe not see, neither am i sollcitous in behalfe of my children, that shall live after me: two otherr thinges I desire, and covet, the first is, that I may enjoy this life, which I love; and the second is, that in all places and conflictes, I get the upper hand over mine enemies. These two thinges, said the Blessed virgin, shall be granted you. Not long after, with a few in his company, he went to fight with a great multitude, and invocating S. Brigits helpe nad assistance, he saw her goe before him, and a piller of fire to burne all vpeuen to the skies, soe the King having defeated his ennemies, he returned homewardes, magnifying the glory, and the name of the most sacred virgin. 2. A virgin that suffreed shipwracke by invocating S. Brigetts helpe, walked drie foote, upon the liquid waves, escaping by that meanes the danger of death. Some of Saint Brigitts maydes having received from a certaine rich man, many measures of meale, could not passe over a water that was in the way, being therefore destitute of all humane helpe, and assistance, they invocated the powerfull suffrages of their most holy mistris, and they were suddainly transported to the further side. A man that prohibited S. Brigits coach to passe through his feildes, and stroake at her horses, fell downe to the ground, and yeilded up his ghost suddainly. 3. A gentleman who was in the countryu, loved dishonestly a certaine woman and contriving with himself how to compasse his filthy delights, he gave her in custody a rich silver pynne, which he stole away privily at unawaeres from her, and cast it into the sea, thinking that when she could not restore it, she should become his slave, and so should glut his wanton desires: all which wicked plot he put in practise, neither could he be contented otherwise, then either by getting againe the silver pin, or by her bondage. The chast woman being driven to this pinche, fled to S. Brigit, as to a cittie of refuge. As the holy virgin was musing with her selfe what to doe in this matter, behold one brought home fish taken out of the neighbour river, and they unbowelling the fishes, the silver pin was found in one of their bellies, so brining the pin with her, she went to the assembly, where the matter was to be determined, where she did show the pin, and it being knowne by many that saw it, to be the selfe same he cast into the sea, she freed the vertuous woman from her cruell tyrants handes, who afterwardes acknowledging his fault, and guiltines, submitted himselfe to S. Brigits pleasure, who having wrought this great miracle, returned backe againe to her monastery. 4. It fell out that the King called together an assembly of his subjectes, to make a borade and fayre h igh waye in a deep and impassible marsh, through which a great river ranne. The people meeting by their family, and kindreds, they divided the worke, alloting to every family his own share of that laborious taske, that part wher the river ran was most difficult, and fell to one of the families, who being potent and strong forced S. Brigits kinsefolkes being weaker to change with them. They in this their distresse, falling prostrate before the Saint, bemoaned their worng to her. To whome she answeared, Departe in peace, it is the will of God, that the river passe from that place, where you are put to such heavy workes, to the other which they have made choice of. The next morning, when the multitude rose to begin the work, the river was found to have left its ancient channel, where S. Brigits family was constrayned to worke, and to be transfered into the part of the potent, and proude men, who unjustly oppressed the weaker company : in proofe whereof, the ancient channell where the river tooke its course in former tymes, appeares drye without any waters to this very day. Of many miraculous cures, wrought by gthe merits, and interssion
of the Saint.
The sacred virgin having delivered many leapers, cripples, and obsessed persons, from their infirmities, there came two leapers with teares in their eyes, begin the cure of their disease. The the Saint praying and blessing water, she commanded them to washe one another in that water. One being washed by his companion, became cleane: to whome the Saint said, wash now your fellow; who seeing himselfe cleane, and boasting of his health, would not touch the others ulcers, which pride of his God did chastice, for immediately after he said: I feele sparkles of fire upon my shoulders, and instantly all his body ( his companion being cleansed) was covered over with leprosy. 2. A certaine woman commiting of devotion, to visit S. Vrigit, brought her daughter with her, who was dumbe. S.Brigit seeing the yong mayden, said unto her. Are you content to be a virgin? (but not knowing that she was dumbe) The maid answeared incontinently, I will willing do, what you will command me, and so dedicating her virginity to God. she to her dying day remayned most elequent. A blind virgin named Daria, spoake to S. brigit saying. Blesse mine eyes, to the end that I may see the world according unto my desire: her eyes being opened without delay, she sad, shut mine eyes againe, for the more that one is a bsent from the world, so much the nearer, is that party to god, then S. Brigit shut her eyes as she requested. 3. One of Saint Brigits, virgins burnt in the concupiseence of a certaine man, to whome she promised to steale forth in in the night: after Saint Brigit betooke her to her rest, the virgin rose according to her promise, being inflamed with the fire of sesuality (fefuality?) , and likwise vexed with the torment of conscience, she knew not what to do, but fearing God, and S. brigit, prayed her earnestly, that she would vouchsafe to helpe nad assist her being indistresse. At last she resouved with her selfe to make a fire, putting her selfe thereinto, so by that meanes, with fire she quenched fire, and with payne, overcame payne, which S. Brigit knewe by divine revelation, yet nevertheles kept it secret, to see the event and issue of the virgins combat. The next morning the virgin acknowledged her sin to Saint Brigit, who sayed to her, because in fighting couragiously this night, thou hast urnt thy selfe, the fire of fornication shall never annoye thee in this life, nor the fire of hel burne thee in the next, then the holy virgin did heale her feete, so that no marke of the burning did appearin them. 4. Neither ought we to omit the great miracle, which this blessed Saint wrought in imitation of our Saviour, by opening the enyes of a man who was blind from his nativity. A certaine Queen that had no children, b y the holy Virgins intercession obtayned issue. And as Almighty God for her sake and merits, did help others in their necessityes, so did he not fayle to assist her selfe in her wantes, for upon a certaine time the holy virgin being in great necessity, besought God to help her to some hoony, and what she fought for, she found it in great plenty, upon the pavement of her house. How the holy Virgin for the releaf of the poore, wrought many
admirable signes.
Saint Brigit said to a certain virgin who begged almes of her, I heare that there are many afflicted with sickness in your country, take therove my girdle, and with it steaped in water you shal in the name of our Saviour Jesues Christ deliver them of their infirmityes, and they will give you both meate and cloathes, who taking the girdle, as the Saint commanded, she cured diseases, getting thereby great gaynes, and becomming very rich, she her selfe afterwardes, dealt great almes to the needy. Another time she converted water into good beere to give to leapers who called her for it. In like manner did she for the comfort of a needy person, convert a stone into salt. She likewise devided one garment between two poore men, and by divine vertue each part became an entire garment. 2. Among the many stupendous miracles she wrought, this is not to be accounted the least, nor the least to be admired. To three leapers who besought her to bestow some charity of them she gave a silver vessell, and fearing it should be an occasion of debate, or discord amongst them if they devided it themselves, she spoke to the gold smith to devided it equally amongst them. But he making his excuse, that he could not devide it into three equal partes, the most holy virgin her selfe tooke it into her hand, and stroke it against a stone, and soe devided it into three equall parcells, in so much that afterwardes being put in scales to be weighed, neither part did overweigh the other, not so much as one drame so equal were the devisions, and so the leapers departed away joyfully with their shares, and with out cause either to envy, or any injury. 3. According to the example of holy job, she never permitted the poore to depart from her with empty handes, for she gave them very pretious, and rich gramentes, which a holy Bishop named Conleath, used to weare in saying the divine mysteries of the Masse, upon the higher feastes of our Lord, and the Apostles. Now when the time came, that the venerable Prelate should according to his wonted manner, use the aforesaid episcopall robes, the holy virgin, who had given them to Christ in his needy members, receaved other such robes fully resembling the former, as well in the wearing, or texture, as in colour, which were brought her in a waggon of two horses, even at the same houre that she liberally gave the others to the poore. 4. So large and liberall was her charity to the poore that none
ever had a repulse hat her handes, as it is cleare and evident by this
ensuing narration. For one time being abroad in the feildes feeding
of her flocke, one who was well acquainted with the tendernes of her hart,
and largeness of her hand, came to her seaven times in one day begging
of almes, and every time she gave him a weather, and when evening approaching
she drove home the sheep, yet being tould over twice or thrice, the flocke
was found entire, and complete, not one being missing to the great wonder
of those who knew what chaunced. It is also recorded of her, that
after prayer made for that intent, she got miraculously a summe of money,
with which she ransommed a gulty person, whome the King appointed to be
put to death.
How the holy virgin declared the innocency of Bishop Broom Saint
Patrickes disciple, by making a young suckling to speake, and of other
no lesse remarkable miracles.
A Certayne malitious woman, withouit regard of conscience or feare of God, slandered most wickedly a venerable Bioshop of Saint Patrickes disciples named Broom, by fathering upon him a child, which she had gotten by another. The Bishop standing upon denial of the fact St. Brigit calling the woman sayd, Who is the father of your child ? She answered, Bishop Broom, With that S. Brigit signed the womans mouth with the figure of Christs banner, and instantly her head swelled up with a great tumour, after she blessedthe young infants tongue, saying to him, Who is your Father? The child made answer, Bishop Broom is not my Father, but that wild and deformed man, who sitteth last among the people. Then all the assembly rendering many thankes, and prayses to God, constrained the lewed woman to do pennance for her folly. 2. There was a certaine man named Linguidinus, who was indued with such admirable strength, and surpassing vigour of body, that he himselfe alone could do so much worke as twelve men, and who moreover was so great a devourer of meate, as to eate at once so much , mig ht well serve twelve men, for as in working he did countervaile twelve men, so likewise in eating did he match that number. This man came to S. Brigit, beseeching her to obtaine of god, that he would vouchsafe to temper, and bridle the immoderate appetite of hiss devouring, and ravenous stomack, without diminishing or mayning the strength of his body. The holy Virgin gave him her blessing, and offered up her prayers to God in behalfe of his just petition, which he obtayned by her merits, and intercession, for nevr after did he take more , then was avble to satisfy one man, being nevertheless able to perform so much worke as he was before, when he did eate most of all. 3. The sacred virgin sent for many uorkemen and reapers to cut downe her corne and having agreed with them for their pay, and appointed a day when they should come to performe their worke, it happened that the day appointed proved very rayny, in so m uch that the cloudes powred forth showers in great aboundance over all the province, exceptiong on S. Brigits fields which were not wet at all, the rayne falling thicke upon every side, so that where all the workemen in the country were constrayned to give over their worke, by reason of the wet, and moistey season, S. Brigets workemen continued from morning withoiut intermission or impediment, cutting downe of her corne, not without the admirariton of all who saw, and heard of that wonderful miracle. 4. Another miracle no lesse stupendious wherein the Reader may conteplate the purity of her hart, the perfection of her soule, the eminency of her merits, and the perogatiue of her vertues we are to recount, which was this. As what time this sacred virgin f ed her flocke in a wide and open playne, farre from any shelter, showres of rayne fell downe so thicke, that she was wet to the skin, who comming home with her cloathes all full of water she saw a suinne became pearcing in thorough a chinke, that illuminating the roome, and taking it for a pearch (the quickness of her eyes being hindered, or somewhat blunted) she cast hereon here wet mantle, or upper garmente whereupon it hung being supported by it, as well as by a beame, or post, to the great astonishment of all the neighbours, who could not sufficiently admire the merits, and vertues of this holy virgin. Of S. Brigits happy departure ot of this life, and how she knew thereof
by divine revelation, and of some miracles wrought after hear death by
her intercession and merits.
2. The overseer of Saint Brigits great and famous monasterhy, sent workemen, and stonehewers to provide a millstone, they neither reflecting ujpon the difficulty of the way, nor yet regarding that there was no meanes of getting downe the stone, went up to the topp of a most high and craggy mountayne, where they hewed out a great stone forming it into a mill stone, the Oversseer came with oxen and horses to carry it away, but seeing it impossible with oxen and horses to go where it was, in regard of the steepe and graggfy ascent, all begune to dispaire of ever getting it downe, and so were ready to depart. But the prudent Overseer said, Not so, but let us in the name of god and S. Brigit (to whome nothing is impossible) rowle it downe, and so conc eaving a firm faith of the holie virgins asistance, they cast it downe, and loe the stone rowling amongst the rocky, and stony crages, trundled downe without any detriment from the mountaine, and thence was carried to the mill. to which mill a certain pagan sent his corne by an ignorant and simple man to be ground . when the corne was laid between the stones the aforesaid stone being the uppermost stood iremoveable, neither could the violent currents of the great river, or yet the paynfull industry of men, wheel it about. at last knowing that the corne belonged to a pagan Magitian, and therefore S. Brigits mill would not grinde it they removed and put it away, powring other graine instede thereof, and then the stone without any impediment, kept its ordinary and wonted course in grinding. 3. It hapned within a while after that the mill by some chance or other took fire which consumed the house and the other stone to that was joined to this but as for this stone that was particularly dedicated to s. Briget, the fire did not presume to touch, neither was it branded with any figne, or marke of burning which made them to bring the stone away, and to place it neare to St. Briogets churc doore, where a many diseased meeting, by the only touch of this stone were delivered from their maladies. Here our author by occasion of this infsueing miracle, enlargeth himself in describing the magnificence of Saint Brigits church, the sumptuousnes of the oratories, the curiosity of anticke workes, and variety of curious portratures, with many other remarkable particulers, worthy the reading, which we to continue our intended course of brevity, do wittingly pase over, and will content our selves with the bare and succinct relation of the mariacle it selfe, which was this. 4. The gate of Saint Brigits oratory, thourough which she, and her holy virgins passed, when they went to receave the deliciouis viand of our Saviours face and pure body being broken downe and made ider, the carpenters setting the former doore upon the hinges which was found, was lesse by a fourth part , or quarter whereupon they resolved, either to add another peece to the ould doore, or to make another al of new, and as they were debating the busines, the principall worke master sayd. Wee ought this next night to watch and pray at S. Brigits monument, to the end that she may direct us in the morning, what is best to be done in this matter, so passing all the night over at her shrine and rising the next morning after, saying some prayers, setting the ould doore upon the hinges, it fitted all the gate so iust that it nether wanted, nor yet ecceeded any thing in conuenient bignes and in this manner was the doore by the meritis of Saint Brigit, exteneded to an equally commensurative proportion with the gate of the church. Who can expresse ( sayth our author here) the admirable beauty of this Church, or how can we declare the maruciles of this Citty? Or who may recount the innumerable thronges, and infinit multitudes of people flocking thither from all countryes? Some came to delight themselves with plentifully diversity of banquets, some to solace themselves with viriety of pleasant showes, and spectacles, others to obtayne the cure of thir diseases, and others with rich, and great donaryes to solemnise Saint Brigits natiall feast, which falleth upon the first of February, upon which day in the year of Christ 518 as we have touched about in the first paragraffe of this present chapter, the holy virgin passed from the miseries of thi mortal life, to the immortall joyes of paradise. Whither God of his infinit grace conduct us all to him, to his all immaculate m other, and to the two glorious patrones of Ireland, Saint Patricke, and Saint Brigit, be all honour, glory and prayse, world without end. Amen FINIS.
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit PagesFrom the Matins lessons of the Sarum Breviary, St. Hilarion Press
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
From Lady Gregory
Now as to Brigit she was born at sunrise on the first day of the spring,of a bondwoman of Connacht. And it was angels that baptized her and that gave her the name of Brigit, that is a Fiery Arrow. She grew up to be a serving girl the same as her mother. And all the food she used was the milk of a white red-eared cow that was set apart for her by a druid. And everything she put her hand to used to increase, and it was she wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland, and she put the white threads in the loom that have a power of healing in them to this day. She bettered the sheep and she satisfied the birds and she fed the poor. Brigit in Her Father's House: And when she grew to be strong and to have good courage she went to her father Dubthach's house in Munster and stopped with him there. And one time there came some high person to the house, and food was made ready for him and for his people; and five pieces of bacon were given to Brigit, to boil them. But there came into the house a very hungry miserable hound, and she gave him out of pity a piece of the bacon. And when the hound was not satisfied with that she gave him another piece. Then Dubthach came and he asked Brigit were the pieces of bacon ready; and she bade him count them and he counted them , and the whole of the five pieces were there, not one of them missing. But the high guest that was there that Brigit had thought to be asleep had seen all, and he told her father all that happened. And he and the people that were with him did not eat that meat, for they were not worthy of it, but it was given to the poor and to the wretched. She Minds the Dairy: After that Brigit went to visit her mother that was in bondage to a druid of Connacht. And it is the way she was at that time, at a grass-farm of the mountains having on it twelve cows, and she gathering butter. And there was sickness on her, and Brigit cared her and took charge of the whole place. And the churning she made, she used to divide it first into twelve parts in honour of the twelve apostles of our lord; and the thirteenth part she would make bigger than the rest, to the honour of Christ, and that part she would give to strangers and to the poor. And the serving boy wondered to see her doing that, but it is what she used to say:"It is in the name of Christ I feed the poor; for Christ is in the body of every poor man"' She Fills The Vessels: One time the serving boy went to the druid's house and they asked was the girl minding the dairy well. And he said"I am thankful, and the calves are fat;" for he dared not say anything against the girl, and she not there. But the druid got word of what she was doing and he came to visit the farm, and his wife along with him; and the cows were doing well, and the calves were fat. Then they went into the dairy, having with them a vessel eighteen hands in height. And Brigit bade them welcome and washed their feet, and made ready food for them, and after that they bade her fill up the vessel with butter. And she had but a churning and a half for them, and she went into the kitchen where it was stored and it is what she said: "O my High Prince who can do all these things, this is not a forbidden asking; bless my kitchen with thy right hand! "My kitchen, the kitchen of the white Lord;a kitchen that was blessed by my king; a kitchen where there is butter. "My Friend is coming, the Son of Mary; it is he blessed my kitchen; the Prince of the world comes to this place;that there may be plenty with him" After she had made that hymn she brought the half of the churning from the place where it was stored and the druid's wife mocked at her and said"It is good filling for a large vessel this much is!""Fill your vessel" said Brigit, "and God will add something to it." And she was going back to her kitchen and bringing half a churning every time and saying every time a verse of those verses. And if all the vessels of the men of Munster had been brought to her she would have filled the whole of them. The Man That had lost his Wife's Love: Brigit would give herself to no man in marriage but she took the veil and after that she did great wonders. There came to her one time a man making his complaint that his wife would not sleep with him but was leaving him, and he came asking a spell from Brigit that would bring back her love. And Brigit blessed water for him and it was what she said:" Bring that water into your house, and put it in the food and in the drink and on the bed." And after he had done that, his wife gave him great love, so that she could not be as far as the other side of the house from him, but was always at his hand. And one day he set out on a journey, leaving the wife in her sleep, and as soon as she awoke from her sleep she rose up and followed after her man till she saw him, and there was a strip of the sea between them. And she called out to him it is what she said, that if he would not come back to her, she would go into the sea that was between them. The Drying of Brigit's Cloak: One time Brennain, the saint of the Gael, came from the west to Brigit, to the plain of the Life, for he wondered at the great name she had for doing miracles and wonders. And Brigit came in from her sheep to welcome him, and as she came into the house she laid her cloak that was wet on the rays of the sun, and they held it up the same as hooks. Then Brennain bade his serving lad to put his cloak on the sun rays in the same way, and he put it on them, but twice it fell from them. Then Brennain himself put it on them the third time, and there was anger on him, and that time it stopped on the rays. The King of Leinster's Fox: One time there was a man of her household cutting firing, and it chanced to him to kill a pet fox belonging to the King of Leinster, and the King had him bake prisoner. But Brigit called the fox out of the wood, and he came and was at his tricks and his games for the King and his people at Brigit's bidding. And when he had done his tricks he went away safe through the wood, and the army of Leinster, footmen and horsemen and hounds, after him. Brigit Spreads Her Cloak: When she was a poor girl she was minding her cow one time at the Curragh of Life/e and she had no place to feed it but the side of the road. And a rich man that owned the land came by and saw her and he said:"How much land would it take to give grass to the cow?" "As much as my cloak would cover" said she. "I will give that" said the rich man. She laid down her cloak then, and it was spreading out miles and miles on every side. But there was a silly old woman passing by and she said "if that cloak goes on spreading, all Ireland will be free; and with that the cloak stopped and spread no more. And Brigit held that land through her lifetime, and it never had rent on it since, but the English Government have taken it now and have put barracks upon it. It is a pity the old woman spoke that time. She did not know Brigit to be better than any other one. The leper who would be a King: A leper came one time to Brigit, asking a cow. And Brigit said "Would you sooner have a cow or be healed of your disease?" "I would sooner be healed" he said "than to have the sway over the whole world. For every sound man is a king" he said. Then Brigit prayed to God; and the leper was healed, and served her afterwards. The Lake of Milk: The Seven Bishops came to her in a place she had in the north of Kildare, and she asked her cook Blathnet had she any food, and she said she had not. And Brigit was ashamed, being as she was without food before those holy men, and she prayed hard to the Lord. Then angels came and bade her to milk the cows for the third time that day. So she milked them herself, and they filled the pails with the milk, and the whole of Leinster. And the milk overflowed the vessels till it made a lake that is called the Lake of Milk to this day. The Things Brigit Wished For: These were the wishes of Brigit: "I would wish a great lake of ale for the King of Kings; I would wish
the family of Heaven to be drinking it through life and time. "I would
wish the men of Heaven in my own house; I would wish vessels of peace to
be giving to them.
The Son of Reading: One time she was minding her sheep on the Curragh, and she saw a son of reading running past her. "What is it makes you so uneasy?" she said "and what is it you are looking for?" "It is to Heaven I am running, woman of the veil" said he scholar. "The Virgin's son knows he is happy that makes that journey" said Brigit. "And pray to God to make it easy for myself to go there" she said. "I have no time" said he; "for the gates of Heaven are open now, and I am in dread they might be shut against me. And as you are hindering me" he said "pray to the Master to make it easy for me to go there and I will pray him to make it easy for you" Then they said "Our Father" together, and he was religious from that out, and it was he gave her absolution at the last. And it is by reason of him that the whole of the sons of learning of the world are with Brigit. The Fishes Honour Her: Brennain came to Brigit one time to ask why was it the beasts of the sea gave honour to her more than to the rest of the saints. Then they made their confession to each other, and Brennain said after that " In my opinion, girl, it is right the beasts are when they honour you above ourselves". A Hymn Made for Brigit by Brennain or Another: " Brigit, excellent woman; sudden flame; may the bright fiery sun bring
us to the lasting kingdom.
The First of February: And from that time to this the housekeepers have a rhyme to say on Saint Brigit's day, bidding them to bring out a firkin of butter and to divide it among the working boys. For she was good always, and it was her desire to feed the poor, to do away with every hardship, to be gentle to every misery, And it is on her day the first of the birds begin to make their nests, and the blessed Crosses are mad with straw and are put up in the thatch; for the death of the year is don with and the birthday of the year is come. And it is what the Gael of Scotland say in a averse: " Brigit, but her finger in the river on the feast day of Brigit and away went the hatching-mother of the cold. "She washed the palms of her hands in the river on the day of the feast of Patrick, and away went the birth-mother of the cold." A Hymn Brocan Made for Brigit: Victorious Brigit did not love the world; the spending of the world was not dear to her; a wonderful ladder for the people to climb to the kingdom of the Son of Mary. "A wild boar came among her swine; he hunted the wild pigs to the north; Brigit blessed him with her staff, that he made his dwelling with her own herd. "She was open in all her doings; she was only Mother of the great King's Son; she blessed the frightened bird till she played with it in her hand. "Before going with angels to the battle let us go running to the church; to remember the Lord is better than any poem. Victorious Brigit did not lover the world" Her Care for Leinster: On the day of the battle of Almhuin, Brigit was seen over the men of Leinster, and Columcille was seen over the Ua Neill; and it was the men of Leinster won that battle. And a long time after that again, when Strongbow that had brought great trouble into Ireland and that was promised the kingdom of Leinster was near his end, he cried out from his bed that he saw Brigit of the Gael, and that it was she herself was bringing him to his death. She Remembers the Poor: But if Brigit belonged to the east, it is not in the west she is forgotten, and the people of Burren and of Corcomruadh and Kinvara go every year to her blessed well that is near the sea, praying and remembering her. And in that well there is a little fish that is seen every seven years, and whoever sees that fish is cured of every disease. And there is a woman living yet that is poor and old and that saw that blessed fish, and this is the way she tells the story:" I had a pearl in my eye one time, and I went to Saint Brigit;s well on the cliffs.Scores of people there were in it, looking for cures, and some got them and some did not get them. And I went down the four steps to the well and I was looking into it, and I saw a little fish no longer than your finger coming from a stone under the water. Three spots it had on the one side and three on the other side, red spots and a little green with the red, and it was very civil coming hither to me and very pleasant wagging its tail. And it stopped and looked up at me and gave three wags of its back, and walked off again and went under the stone."And I said to a woman what was near me that I saw the little fish, and she began to call out and to say there were many coming with cars and with horses for a month past and none of them saw it at all. And she proved me, asking had it spots, and I said it had, tree on the one side and three on the other side. That is it she said. And within three days I had the sight of my eye again. It was surely Saint Brigit I saw that time; who else would it be? And you would know by the look of it that it was no common fish. Very civil it was, and nice and loughy, and no one else saw it at all. Did I say more prayers than the rest? Not a prayer. I was young in those days. I suppose she took a liking to me, maybe because of my name being Brigit the same as her own." The Boy that Dreamed He Would Get His Health: There was a beggar boy used to be in Burren, that was very simple like and had no health, and if he would walk as much as a few perches it is likely he would fall on the road. And he dreamed twice that he went to Saint Brigit's blessed well upon the cliffs and that he found his health there. So he set out to go to the well, and when he came to it he fell in and he was drowned. Very simple he was and innocent and without sin. It is likely it is in heaven he is at this time. The Water of the Well: And there is a woman in Burren now is grateful to Saint Brigit, for "I brought my little girl that was not four years old " she says " to saint Brigit's well on the cliffs, where she was ailing and pining away. I brought her as far as the doctors in Gort and they could do nothing for her and then I promised to go to Saint Brigit's well, and from the time I made that promise she got better. And I saw the little fish when I brought her there; and she grew to be as strong a girl as ever went to America. I made a promise to go to the well ever year after that, and so I do, of a Garlic Sunday, that is the last Sunday in July. And I brought a bottle of water from it last year and it is as cold as amber yet" The Binding: And when the people are covering up a red sod under the ashes in the night time to spare the seed of the fire for the morning, they think upon brigit the fiery Arrow and it is what they do be saying:"I save this fire as Christ saved every one; Brigit beneath it, the Son of Mary within it; let the three angels having most power in the court of grace be keeping this house and the people of this house and sheltering them until the dawn of day." For it is what Brigit had a mind for; lasting goodness that was not hidden;minding sheep and rising early; hospitality towards good men. It is she keeps everyone that is in straits and in dangers; it is she puts down sickeness; it is she quiets the voice of the waves and the anger of the great sea. She is the queen of the south; she is the mother of the flocks; she is the Mary of the Gael. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Source: A Book of Saints and Wonders Put down here by Lady Gregory According to the Old Writings and the Memory of the People of Ireland.,Lady Augusta Gregory, London, John Murray,Albermarle St, M MVII Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages To go to the top of this page click here
Sit thou safely enthroned, triumphant Brigit, upon the side of Liffey far as the strand of the ebbing sea! Thou art the sovereign lady with banded hosts that presides over the Children of Cath/air the Great.God's counsel at every time concerning Virgin Erin is greater than can be told: though glittering Liffey is thine today, it has been the land of others in their turn. When from its side I gaze upon the fair Curragh....The lot that has fallen to every king causes awe at each wreck Logaire was king as far as the sea,--Ailill `Ane, a mighty fate: the Curragh with its glitter remains-- none of the kings remains that lived thereon. Perfect Labraid Longsech lives no more, having trodden under foot his fair thirty years: since in Dinn Rig--`twas a wonted abode--he dealt doom to Cobthach the Slender. Lore's grandson, Oengus of R`oiriu, seized the rule of Erin,....sway; Maistiu of the freckled neck, son of Mug Airt, through princes across their graves. Fair-famed Alenn! Delightful knowledge! Many a prince is under its girth: it is greater than can be fathomed when Crimthan the Victorious was seen in its bosom. The shout of triumph heard there after each victory around a shock of swords, a mettlesome mass; the strength of its warrior-bands against the dark blue battle-array; the sound of its horns above hundreds of heads. The tuneful ring of its even-colored bent anvils, the sound of songs heard there from the tongues of bards; the ardour of its men at the glorious contest; the beauty of its women at the stately gathering. Drinking of mead there in every home-stead;its noble steeds, many tribes; the jingle of chains unto kings of men under blades of five-edged bloody spears. The sweet strains heard there at every hour' its wine-barque upon the purple flood; its shower of silver of great splendor; its torques of gold from the lands of the Gaul. Far as the sea of Britain the high renown of each king has sped like a meteor: delightful Alenn with its might has made sport of every law. Bresal Bree was king over Elg, Fiachra Fobree with a fierce band of warriors; Ferus of the Sea, Finn son of Roth they loved to dwell in lofty Alenn. Worship of auguries is not worth listening to, nor of spells and auspices that betoken death; all is vain when it is probed, since Alenn is a deserted doom. Briget is the smile that smiles on you from the plain...of Core's land; of each generation which it reared in turn Liffey of Lore has made ashes. The Currah of Liffey to the brink of the main, the Curragh of S`etna, a land of peace as far as the sea,--many is the king whom the Curragh of Carbre Nia-fer has overthrown. Cath`air the Great-- he was the choicest of shapes --ruled Erin of many hues: though you cry upon him at his rath, his prowess of many weapons has vanished. Fiachna of Fomuin, glorious Bresal ruled the sea with showers of spears: thirty great kings to the edge of the sea seized land around Tara of Bregia. The Peaks of Iuchna, delightful place, around which many graves have settled behold in lofty Allen the abode of Tadg, son of Nuada Necht! The apparel of Feradach-- a goodly diadem--around whom crested bands would move; his blue-speckled helmet, his shining mantle,--many a king he overthrew. Dunlang of Fornochta, he was generous, a prince who routed battles against the sons of Niall: though one were to tell the tale to all, this is not the world that was once. Illann with his tribe launched thirty battles against every king, Enna's grandson, a rock against terror, it was not a host without a king's rule. Ailill was a king that would bestow favour, against whom a fierce blood-dark battle-host would rise: Cormac, Carbre, Colman the Great, Brandub, a barque in which were hosts. Faelan the Fair was a track of princeship, Fianamail with....; Braiin, son of Conall with many deeds, he was the wave over every cliff. Oh Brigit whose land I behold, on which each one in turn has moved about, thy fame has outshone the fame of the king--thou art over them all. Thou hast everlasting rule with the king apart from the land wherein
is thy cemetery. Grand-child of Bresal son of Dian, sit thou safely enthroned,
triumphant Brigit!
Sources: Kuno Meyer Trans. Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages To go to the top of this page click here
Genealogy of the holy maiden BrideLasair dhealraich oir,muime
I will not be put in cell,I will not be wounded,
Click
here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
To go to the top of this page click here
Briget References:From : The Martyrology of Donegal., A Calendar of the Saints of Ireland,
Trans. John O`Donovan,Dublin,The Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society,
1864.(Original: Michael O'Clery,Compiler,Donegal,April 19,1630)
Brighit,Virgin, abbess of Cill-dara. She was of the race of Eochaidh Finnfuathairt,
son of Feidhlijidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachmhar, monarch of Erinn.
Broiccseach, daughter of Dallbronach, son of Aedh Meamhair, was her mother,
and she was the sister of Ultan of Ard-Breccain , and it was Ultan that
collected the virtues, and miracles of Brighit together and who commanded
his disciple Brogann to put them into poetry as is evident in the Book
of Hymns, i.e., The victorious Brighit did not love, etc.
Another Version: 1. I). KALENDIS FEBRUARII.
1. 1 The Victorious. This is the first line of thi- metrical
Life of St. Brigid, published from 2.Borumha. The tribute of oxen See O'Donovan ; Fraient« of
Annals, pp. 77. 89. (T.) the poem whose beginning is,
" Patrick of the fort of Macha
- The Martyrology of Donegal, A CALENDAR OF THE SAINTS OF IRELAND, , Trans: John O'Donovan,1864 pg.35-37 Feast of the Translation of the Relics Article II.—Feast Of The Translation Of The Relics Of St. Patrick, St. Columba, And St. Brigid, Chief Patrons Of Ireland. Far distant from each other lay the sacred relics of the great Apostle of Ireland St. Patrick, of the renowned Virgin St. Brigid, and of the illustrious St. Columkille, for many generations after their respective dates of departure from this life. The former, first in order of time, was deposed at Downpatrick,1 and according to a long-preserved tradition, in a very deep earth-pit,3 without the site of that cathedral.3 After the lapse of years, the body of the Irish Apos- 831 See Thomas D'Arcy McGee's " Popu- quse caput est omnium civitatum."—Rev. lar History of Ireland," vol. i., book i.. Dr. Reeves' Adamnan's "Life of St. Co- chap, v., p. 36. lumba," lib. in., cap. 23, p. 241, and nn. 8ja This was the incorrect notion then (e, f), ibid. entertained by Adamnan. §3° See Apoc. xxii., 14. 833 The following account seems to have *37 See ib\d., xiv., 4. been received : "Hispania universa ten arum Article II.—' The reader is referred to situ trigona."—I'omponius Mela, "Cosmo- what has been already written on this sub- graphia," p. 729. Editio Lugd. Bat. A.D. ject, in the Life of St. Patrick, at the i;th 1722. of March, in the Third Volume of this work, 834 Both of these words have a Celtic Art. i., chap. xxvi. origin. The Irish word cenn sometimes as- * See Colgan's " Trias Thaumaturgo," sumes the form of bean or bin, which Sexta Vita S. Patricii, cap. cxcvi., p. 108, appears in Welsh as/m« ; while ailp is an and Septima Vita S. Patricii, lib. iii., cap. Irish word, denoting " a great mass." See cviii., p. 169. Rev. Dr. O'Brien's English-Irish Dictionary, 3 At the present time, the people there Preface, p. 28. point to St. Patrick's grave, and this tradi- 835 " Ipsam quoqtie Romanam civitatem lion appears to have continued from time tie seems to have been drawn from that position/ and it was probably enshrined or entombed within the church. In the century succeeding that of St. Patrick died St. Brigid.s and her remains appear to have been deposited within the church at Kildare, attached to her convent. They rested in a shrine, at one side of the high altar,6 and they were held in great veneration by the people, especially on the day of her chief festival, when multitudes flocked thither for devotional purposes. Many miracles were wrought there through her intercession. The body of St Brigid remained in Kildare, until the beginning of the ninth century. The magnificent shrine in which her relics were encased invited the cupidity of the Scandinavian invaders, and as Kildare was greatly exposed to their ravages, it was deemed more desirable to have St. Brigid's relics removed to Downpatrick, where they should be in a more defensible position, and more secure from plunder or profanation.7 When the happy soul of St. Cohimba departed from the tenement of his body after his useful missionary career in Scotland had terminated,8 and until the time of Adamnan,' the place where his sacred bones reposed was well known and reverenced. Frequently did his monks resort thither, less to offer prayers for the loved and lamented Father of their institute, than to prefer their own petitions for his powerful patronage. Visited by the holy angels,and illumined in a miraculous manner by heavenly light, was that grave, which for many long years succeeding his decease had been exposed to the winds, that played freely over the ancient cemetery at lona. Those visions were clearly manifested, but only to a select few.10 It would appear from the words of Adamnan," which are borrowed from the earlier work of Cummian," that at least a century was allowed to elapse, before the remains of St. Columba were disinterred.'3 In the course of the eighth century, it seems probable, that the bones of St. Columba had been removed, and that they had been deposited in a shrine or shrines.1* Afterwards, they must have been transferred to the church of the monastery in lona, where they were religiously preserved, so long as it was deemed safe to keep them in that venerated spot. Ireland is said to have been selected as a country best suiting such a purpose, when the occasion arose, which demanded their removal. Towards the close of the eighth century, the Scandinavian sea-rovers began to sail southwards, in quest of new settlements and bent upon plunder. The appearance of the Northman invaders on the Hebridean coasts gave warning to conceal the precious shrine, in which, doubtless, the relics of St. Columba had been encased. But such a temporary expedient could not long save it from their cupidity and profanation. Tlie accounts contained in our Irish Annals state, that the remains '5 of St. Columba had been brought to Erin, after his death, and on more than one occasion. A belief seems to have existed, at the close of the eighth century, that his relics had been brought to Ireland from Britain, and that they had been deposited in Saul. Another mediaeval tradition sets forth Downpatrick, as having been his resting place. These contradictory accounts may be reconciled, however, by supposing a translation from Saul, when it became a subordinate church, and on the erection of Downpatrick into a Bishop's See. Another thoroughly legendary account of a still later date gives us to understand, that when Manderus, son to a Danish king, and chief of the Northman piratical fleet, ravaged the northern parts of Britain with fire and sword, he also came to lona, and there he profaned the sanctuary, while digging in the earth for treasures he thought to be concealed. Amongother impieties, he opened the sarcophagus or case, in which lay the body of St. Columba. This he is said to have carried with him to that vessel, in which immemorial. It is customary (o take away earth from the spot, and a hallowed efficacy is attributed to iu possession. Not alone the Catholic people of Downpatrick, but those from the most distant parts of the world, eager!) seek to obtain some of this clay, which is thought to preserve the owner from accident through fire or water. It is believed to be efficacious, also, in curing diseases. In 1874, when the writer visited that place, he saw a peasant engaged in taking some to his home, and as he said to cure some member of his family, suffering from a distemper. 4 According to the " Annals of Ulster," in the year 552, when the Irish Apostle was about sixty years dead, St. Columba exhumed his relics. 5 See the Second Volume of this work, for the Life of this venerable Abbess, at the 1st of February, Art.!., chap. xiv. * On the other side were those of St. Con- laeth. Sir James Ware writes : "Ossaejus in capsulam deauratam, gemmisque ornatam, translata ferunt anno 001."—'" De Praesvli- bvs Laginiae, sive Provincial Dvbliniensis," Episcopi Darensis, p. 42. ' At the 9th of June, in the Calendar compiled by himself, the Rev. William Reeves has a festival for St. Brigid, at Downpatrick. It is to be presumed, that he has reference to St. Brigid of Kildare, whose remains had been translated to Downpatrick, where they repose with those of St. Patrick and St. Columkille. See " Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore," Appendix LL, p. 379. 8At the 9th of J une, in Dempster's " Meno- logium Scotorum," we read: "In Insulis Scoticis Columbse presbyteri admirabilis vitse viri, qui Hibernus ortu in Scotia xxx. annis haesit, regibus lamiliaris, officia pieta- tis, quae Scotis Apostolis suis Hibernia de- bebat, indefesse rependens."—Bishop Forbes' "Kalendars of Scottish Saints,'1 p. 202. 9 See Rev. Dr. Reeves' A hmnan's " Life of St. Columba," lib. iii., cap. 23, p. 241. 10 For a more detailed account of his death and burial, the reader is referred to the Life of St. Columkille, given in the Article immediately preceding, chap. xvii. " Speaking of that stone which served either as the bed or pillow for our saint, it is further remarked, " qui hodieque quasi quidam juxta sepulcrum ejus titulus stat monumenti." " See Colgan's "Trias Thaumaturga," Secunda Vita S. Columbze, cap. xxxix., P- 33°- 13 See Rev. Dr. Reeves' Adamnan's " Life of St. Columba," lib. iii., cap. 23, and n. (p), pp. 233, 234. 14 About this period, also, it became customary to prepare costly shrines for the relics of saints in the Irish churches. 15 Perhaps, however, we are not to confound those relics mentioned with the body of St. Columba, in all cases. 16 The early cathedral of Downpatrick has long since disappeared, but upon itssile had been erected a medieval church, with pointed Gothic windows, and beside it stood a Round Tower. A representation of both may be seen in the Third Volume of this work, in the Life of St. Patrick, chap, xxvi., at the 17th of March, Art. i. These objects have been removed, since the year 1790, and another Protestant cathedral has been erected, at the same spot. The accompanying illustration of the latter is from a photograph, and it has been drawn by William F. Wakcmnn on ihe wood, engraved by Mrs. Millanl. 17 This account is attributed to St. Brr- clian, by Piince O Donnell, See Colgan's "Trias Tliaumatuiga," Quinta Vita S. Co- lumliEe, lib. iii., cap. Ixxviii., p. 446. 18 Tlius in Glastonbury, England, we find it stated, that her relics were held in veneration. " Hiberniensibus mo5 inolitus fuit ad osculandas Patroni reliquias locum fre- quentare: unde et sanctum Indrahtum et beatam Krigidam (Hibernios nnn obscuras incolas) hue olim commeasse celeberrimum . . est. Brigida relictis quibusdam suis insignibus (monili pera, et textrilibus armis) qua; ad hue pro sanctitatis memoria osculan- tur et morbis diversis medentur utrum domum reversa, an ibi acceperit pausam, incertum."—Sir Henry Spelman's "Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Constitutiones in Ke Ecclesiarum Orbis Britanici, tomus i., Apparatus, de Kxordio Christiana Religionis in Britanniis," p. 19. London edition 1639, fol. 19 See an account of their glorious triumph, in the First Volume of this work, at the 191'! of January, Art. i. K He seems to have been Abbot from A.d. 815 to the year subsequent to 831. " The Irish word minnA signifies articles held in veneration and belonging to a saint, such as a bachal, books, or vestments, &c., upon which oaths in afler time used to be administered. " See "Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots, and other early Memorials of Scottish History," edited by William F. Skene, LL. D., p. 77. 33 Tighernach is the only annalist, who briefly notices this transaction. a< See Dr. O'Donovan's "Annals of the Four Masters," vol. ii., pp. 1026, 1027. 35 This is expressed in a Latin Epitaph :— " Hi tres in uno tumulo tumulantur in
Duno
Pius." " Three Saints one Urn in Down's Cathedral fill, Patrick and Bridget too, with Colum- kille." he sailed for Ireland ; but, on opening the ches t, in which he found only bones and ashes, he threw it overboard. Then it miraculously floated on the waves, until it was wafted to the innermost part of Strangford Lough, near to Down- patrick.'6 There, it is related, that the Abbot had a Divine revelation, regarding the sacred deposit it contained. Accordingly, he extracted the relics, and placed them with the lifsantz of Saints Patrick and Brigid." We Downpatrick Cathedral. need not attach the slightest credit to the foregoing account; for, it may be observed, that the earliest recorded descent of the Northmen on lona was in 802, nor does it seem likely, that the body of St. Brigid had been removed from Kildare to Downpatrick, at so early a date. However, it cannot have been very long after this year, when the relics of St. Brigid were removed from Kildare to Down. There, it seems probable, they had been kept in their own distinctive shrine, which was a costly work of art. Elsewhere, too, some other relics of this holy Patroness of Ireland had been preserved.'8 Moreover, in the year 825, when the Scandinavians again visited the Island of lona, St. Columba's shrine adorned with precious metals was there, and to prevent desecration it was hidden > * This is in a small and rare l8mo Tract, containing only 64 pages, but giving other Irish offices, and among them one of St. Columba, Abbot. At p. I, it commences with " Die Nona Junii, Translatio SS. Patricii, Columbse et Brigidse, trium com- munium Hiberniae Patronorum, Duplex I. Classis, cum Octava peruniversam Insulam, cujus sequitur Omcium approbatum a Vi- \iano Cardinale tituli S. Stephani in Ccelio Monte, quem ad Solemnitatem Transla- tionis, An. 1186, Apostolicum Legatum demandavit Urbanus III." There is not a title page, at least in the copy, the property of Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J., and that used by the writer. Theoffice has a First Vespers, with proper Antiphons, Capitulum, and Prayer. The Invitatorium of Matins is proper, with all the Antiphons and Six Lessons, the remaining three being from the Common of Evangelists, with proper Versicles and Responses. The Lauds, Hours and second Vespers are of a mixed character. Afterwards follows a proper Mass. by St. Blaithmac and by the monks, who suffered martyrdom on that occasion. '9 It is probable, that some of the monks who escaped had knowledge of that place where it had been concealed, and that returning soon afterwards to lona, the shrine was again replaced in their church. In 829, Diarmait,** Abbot of Hy, went to Alba, with the minna 2I of St. Columkille, and in 831 he returned with them to Ireland. Again, in the year 878, the shrine and all St. Columba's minna were transferred to Ireland, the better to secure them from the Danes. In 976, there is an account of the shrine of St. Columkille having been plundered by Donald Mac Murchada." There is noaccountof what shrine this had been, however, or where it had been kept.'s In the year 1127, the Danes of Dublin carried off St. Columba's shrine, but they restored it at the end of a month,'* probably stripped of its precious metals and ornaments. It seems strange, that while the relics of the three great Irish Patrons had been kept with such religious veneration in the Cathedral Church of Down- patrick, fora long lapse of ages, that in the twelfth century the place of their deposition within it was forgotten. It would appear, that the Northmen frequently attacked, plundered, and burned that town. It is probable, that the sacred remains had been buried in the earth, to preserve them from profanation, and that the secret place of their deposition had been confided to only a few of the ecclesiastics, who perished through violence, or who had not been able to return afterwards, to indicate that exact spot, in which they had been laid. For a long time, the bishops, clergy and people of Down lamented this loss, until about the year 1185, when Malachy III. was bishop over that See. This pious prelate had been accustomed to offer earnest prayers to the Almighty, that the eagerly desired discovery might be made. One night, while engaged at prayer within the cathedral, Malachy observed a supernatural light, resembling a sunbeam, passing through the church and settling over a certain spot. This astonished the bishop, who prayed that the light might remain, until implements should be procured to dig beneath it. Accordingly, these being procured, beneath that illuminated place, the bodies of the three great saints were found; the body of St. Patrick occupied a central compartment, while the remains of St. Brigid and of St. Columba were placed on either side. With great rejoicing, he disinterred the bodies of those illustrious saints, and he placed them in three separate coffins. He then had them deposited in the same spot, whence they had been taken, and he took care to have the site exactly noted. In fine, the bones of St. Columkille were buried with great honour and veneration, in the one place with those of St. Patrick and of St. Brigid, within Dun-da-lethgles or Downpatrick cathedral, in Ulster.2' About this time, the celebrated John De Courcy had procured possessions, in that part of the province; and to him, Bishop Malachy reported all the circumstances, connected with the miraculous discovery of the relics. Taking counsel together, it was resolved, that application should be made to the Pope at Rome, for permission to remove the sacred remains, to a more conspicuous and honourable position in the cathedral. At this time, Urban III. presided over the Universal Church. Supplication was made to him, that the relics of those saints should be translated in a solemn manner. Not alone was his sanction obtained, but the Pope nominated Cardinal Vivian, as his Legate for Ireland, with a commission to direct the undertaking. Accordingly, on the gth of June, 1186, this public Translation of the remains was solemnized. No less than fifteen Bishops were present, besides many abbots *> His election to the papacy took place, eleven months. See 1'Abbd Fleury's " His- on the 25th of November, A.d. 1185. He toire Ecclesiastique," tome xv., liv. Uxiv., lived afterwards only one year and nearly sect, i., p. 476. and high dignitaries, with a great concourse of the clergy and laity, the Car- dina! Legate himself assisting. An office,26 which is said to date back to the twelfth century, has been attributed to the approval of Cardinal Vivian, who assisted in the time of Pope Urban III.,"' at this solemn Translation of the Relics of St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Brigid, in Downpatrick. This was a Double of the First Class, with an Octave. The Bollandists have fallen into an error, in placing the Finding of the Relics of Saints Patrick, Brigid and Columba,38 at this date, which should rather be called that for their Translation. ** See " Acia Sanctorum," tomus ii., period. Seethe Rev. Dr. Reeves'Adam- Junii ix. Among the pretermilted feasts, nan's " Life of St. Columba." Additional p. 147. Notes O, Chronicon Hyense, pp. 369 to Article Hi.—' Such is the encomium 413. of Dalian Forgaill, in that ancient Tract, s In " Vitae Sanctorum," ex Codice Inis- called Amhra Lholuim-chille. ensi, pp. 27 to 31. ' According to the statement of Prince ° Among the BurgunHian Library Manu- O'Donnell. See Colgan's "Trias Thau- scripts, vol. xxii., at fol. 2OI. maturga," QuintaViia S. Columbre, lib.iii., » It is classed, vol. iv., Nos. 2324-2340, cap. Ivi., p. 441. in the Catalogue, at fol. 6. 3 See Kev. John Smith's " Life of St. 8 " Catulogus Actuum Sanctorum (jure Columba," Appendix, pp. 161, 162. MS. habentur, Ordine Mensium et Die- 4 At that time, the Danes and Norwe- rum." gians invaded the Island, and often com- ' See " Trias Thaumaturga," Qiiarta Ap- mitted great ravages. When they had em- pendix ad Acta S. Columba;, cap. x., braced Christianity, the history of lona may p. 488. be traced in the Irish Annals to a much later '° See " Acta Sanctorum," tomus ii., Junii -Lives of the Irish Saints: With Special Festivals, and the Commemorations of Holy Persons, Compiled from Calenders, Martyrologies, and Various Sources, Relating to the Ancient Church History of Ireland., John O'Hanlon, Catholic Pub. Society, 1873, June 9, p.593.
Click
here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
To go to the top of this page click here
From: Miscellanea Hagiographica Hibernica.Carolus Plummer,Bruxelles,Societe Des Bollandists,1925
Shorter Tracts and Anecdotes:
From:The Sources for the Early History of Ireland An introduction and guide.By. James F. Kenney,Volume I Ecclesiastical,New York,Columbia University
Press,1929. P.356
To go to the top of this page click here
Click
here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
Saint Bridget was
To any soul
Her father's gold,
She could not quit.
An easy touch
Well, one must love her.
From the Martyrology of Saint
Oengus, Celi De
The dandelion lights its spark -Winifred Mary Letts
The Journal of the County Kildare
Archaeological Society (J.K.A.S.) Vol. I, (Dublin, 1891-1895), pp. 169-176.
“ST. BRIGID OF KILDARE.”
By THE REV. DENIS MURPHY, S.J., M.R.I.A.
THE name Brígíd, brigid [in old Irish in text] in Irish, as
we learn from Cormac Mac Cullenan’s ancient Glossary of the Irish tongue, was
given to the goddess of poetry in ancient times. Others will have it to mean a
fiery dart. So much for the name.
Her manner of life is summed up briefly in the Martyrology of Tallaght,which
says, “Brigid was following the manners and the life which holy Mary, mother
of Jesus, had.” And the Martyrology of Donegal,after quoting this
passage, goes on to say: “It was this Brigid too that did not take her mind or
her attention from the Lord for the space of one hour at any time, but was
constantly mentioning Him and ever thinking of Him, as is evident in her own
Life and in the Life of St. Brendan of Clonfert. She was
very hospitable and very charitable to guests and to needy people. She was
humble, and attended to the herding of sheep and early rising, as her Life
proves, and as Cuimin of Condure states. Thus he says:-
“The blessed Brigid loved
Constant piety, which was not prescribed,
Sheep-herding and early rising,
Hospitality towards men of virtues.”
She spent seventy-four years diligently serving the Lord, performing signs
and miracles, curing every disease and sickness in general, until she yielded
up her spirit.”
Whosoever wishes to know in greater detail the life of this Saint will find it
in the great work of Fr. John Colgan. He was of the Franciscan order, the same
which had convents at Clane, Kildare, Castledermot, and in several other
places of this county, as well as in nearly every other county in Ireland,
numbering in all about sixty in the middle of the 16th century. This great
man, not being able, for reasons which I need not enter into here, to find at
home the education which he needed, went in search of it to Spain. The greater
part of his life was passed in the Franciscan College of Louvain, founded in
1609 by the generosity of Philip III.,
and the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. There from 1626 to 1658, the
year of his death, he devoted himself to bringing together and illustrating
the Lives of Irish saints. He intended his work to extend over six
folio volumes. Unhappily, he lived to complete only two of these—one the
Lives of the Irish saints whose feast days occur in the three first
months of the year, and another volume, comprising the Lives of three
patrons of Ireland, Patrick, Columcille, and Brigid. Of the value set on
these books at the present day we may judge from the fact that Dr. Reeves’
copy of the first fetched, at a sale held a few weeks since in Dublin, £31;
and the other volume was bought a year or two ago from a Dublin bookseller for
£18, and by a lawyer too, who, I am sure, knew well what he was about and
thought his investment a safe one.
Of that second volume, containing the Lives of the three patrons, the
last of the three parts is taken up with the history of St. Brigid, and this
is the storehouse in which those who write of her find ample materials. It
extends from p. 513 to p. 649. It bears the title: The various Acts of St.
Brigid, the Virgin, Abbess of Kildare, founder of the Brigittine Order, and
common patron of all Ireland. Now these Acts comprise six different
Lives of the saints, all of them ancient, some of them from very remote
times.
The first of them is contained in a hymn in very ancient Irish, written by St.
Broegan Claen, abbot of Rosturk, in Ossory, on “The Titles and Miracles of the
Saint.” Side by side with the Irish hymn Colgan gives a Latin translation. As
is the custom in such Irish works of ancient date, it is prefaced by a few
lines telling when, where, and why it was written. “The place,” it says, “in
which this hymn was composed was Slieve Bloom, or Cluan St. Maedog, and it was
composed in the time of Lughaidh, son of Leoghaire, king of Ireland, when
Aelider, son of Dunlang, was king of Leinster; and the reason of its being
composed was that Ultan of Ardbraccan asked Broegan to describe in verse the
acts and virtues of Brigid. It begins thus:—
“ Brigid did not love the pride of life.”
And it goes on:—
“She was not querulous, not evil-minded;
She did not love fierce wrangling such as women practise,
She was not a venemous [venomous – sic] serpent or untruthful,
Nor did she sell the Son of God for things that fade.
She was not harsh to strangers,
She used to treat the wretched lepers kindly;
She built her dwelling on the plain
Which was frequented by vast crowds after her death.
There are two holy virgins in heaven,
Mary and holy Brigid;
May they protect me by their mighty help.”
And so for 53 stanzas of four lines each. Some think this Life was
written so far back as the sixth century. If it was written at the suggestion
of St. Ultan, we must take it to be a century later, i. e. eleven or
twelve hundred years ago.
The second Life is by Cogitosus. It is in Latin prose. Most probably
he was a monk of the monastery of Kildare that was under the rule of St.
Brigid in ancient times, for he describes, in great detail, the architecture,
ornaments, and arrangements of the church, as if lie had it before his eyes
every day. From his omitting all mention of the ravages of the Danes and of
some of the Irish chiefs in the early part of the ninth century, it has been
correctly inferred that he wrote before 835, the year when the foreigners
first plundered Kildare. “Cilldara,” say the Annals of the Four Masters,
“was plundered by the foreigners of Inver Dea, i.e. Wicklow, and
half the church was burned by them.” Cogitosus says, “Kildare was a sanctuary,
or place of refuge, where there could be no danger of the attack of an enemy.”
The Life begins thus: “You oblige me, brethren, to make an attempt to
set down in writing the virtues and deeds of Brigid of holy and blessed
memory, as if I were one of the learned. The burthen you lay on me, lowly and
weak as I am, ignorant too of the niceties of language, is to tell in a
fitting way of her who is the head of nearly all the churches of Ireland, and
the summit towering above all the monasteries of the Scoti; whose power
extends over the whole of Ireland, stretching from sea to sea; the abbess who
dwells in the plain of the Liffey, whom all the abbesses of the Scoti
venerate.” And he ends thus: “I ask pardon from the brethren, and from all who
may read this, for, urged on by obedience, not supported by any excellence of
learning, I have traversed this vast ocean of the virtues of St. Brigid, one
to be dreaded even by the bravest men.” This Life is published in the
Bollandist Acta Sanctorum for February 1st.
The third Life is by St. Ultan, of Ardbraccan, in Meath, the same who
induced St. Breogan to write the metrical Life already mentioned. The
manuscript from which this Life was printed was found by F. Stephen
White, S.J., in a monastery at Ratisbon; it was collated with another found in
the monastery of St. Albert, at Cambray. Though there may be some doubts
about the authorship, still that it is very ancient Colgan infers from the
fact that most of the manuscripts which contain it were admitted to be five
hundred years old, some of them seven hundred, in his time, i.e. in
the middle of the seventeenth century. This would take the composition of it
hack to the year 1000.
The 4th Life is by Anmchad, Latinized Animosus: it is in Latin metre.
Who this Anmchad was — whether he was Bishop of Kildare and died in 980, or
another — we have not sufficient grounds for saying with anything like
certainty. The work seems to be that of one well acquainted with Kildare and
its surroundings, and is more detailed than the others already mentioned. It
begins thus: “Brethren, my mind is disturbed by three things—by love, which
forces me to set down in writing the Life of St. Brigid, so that the great
virtues which she practised, and the wonders which she wrought, may not be
forgotten; next by shame, lest my uncouth and simple language may displease
the learned and wise men who may read, or hear read, what I am going to write.
But fear disturbs me still more, for I am too weak to undertake this work. I
fear the sneers of unjust critics, who will scrutinize this work of mine as
they do their food. But as the Lord ordered the poor among the people to offer
to Him things mean and worthless in themselves for the building of the
tabernacle, should not we too make an offering to build up His Church? And
what is it but the congregation of the just?”
The 5th Life is the work of Laurence of Durham, a Benedictine monk,
who lived about the year 1100. It was taken from a manuscript in the Irish
College of Salamanca, the same which the Marquis of Bute lately published in a
magnificent quarto volume, edited by the Bollandists.
Lastly, there is the Life by St. Caelan, a monk of Iniscealtra, in
the Shannon, near Scariff. It is in Latin hexameters. It was discovered by an
Irish Benedictine in the library of the mother-house of the Order, at Monte
Cassino. The author lived in the first half of the eighth century. Prefixed to
it is a beautiful poem on Ireland by St. Donatus, bishop of Fiesole, of whom
Miss Stokes has given an account in her last book, Six Months in the
Apennines, who lived a century later.
Besides, there are most valuable appendices:—
I. Offices to be said on the feast—one printed in Venice, in 1522; another in
Paris, in 1622; a third in Genoa, not dated; a fourth used by the Canons of
St. John of Lateran.
2. Extracts from the Lives of other saints relating to St. Brigid.
3. Accounts of her ancestors, death, her birthday, the number of years she
lived, her place of burial.
4. The devotion to the Saint in Ireland and in other countries.
5. The history of the church of Kildare, its bishops, and the ravages by the
Danes.
These are the Lives given by Colgan in the Trias. I should
weary you if I enumerated to you the others that are now known, not only those
written by her own countrymen, as that of Dr. Rothe, bishop of Ossory, On
Brigid, the Worker of Miracles, but by French, Italian, German, Flemish,
English, and Scottish writers. Even in our time her life has been written by
Rev. S. Baring-Gould and by Dr. Forbes, bishop of Brechin. I need hardly say
that no subject is oftener met with in our ancient Irish manuscripts than that
of St. Brigid’s life. Dr. Whitley Stokes has published an ancient Irish
Life of the Saint from the Book of Lismore. Those who wish to
know the Saint’s life in detail, and the literature connected with it, will
find all they can desire in the Rev. Canon O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish
Saints, ii. 1.
The pedigree of St. Brigid is given in the Book of Leinster. She was
the daughter of Dubtach, son of Demri, son of Bresil, son of Den, son of Conla,
son of Art Corb, son of Cairbre, son of Cormac, son of Enghus Mean, son of
Eochaidh Finn, son of Feidlimidh Rechtmar, who was ardrigh or chief monarch of
Ireland, A.D.111. Her father is said to
have been a great and mighty chief, Dux magnus et potens. Dr. Todd gives her
genealogy and that of St. Columba, and shows they were descended from a common
ancestor, Ugony Mor, supreme monarch of Ireland
A.M.4546. Her mother, Brotseach, is said to have been a slave; but it
is far more probable that she too was of noble birth, being the daughter of
Dallbronach of the Dail Concobair in South Bregia. The Martyrology of
Donegal says St. Ultan of Ardbraccan was her brother. Her birthplace was
Fochart Muirthemhne, now Fochart, which is three miles north-west of Dundalk;
the dun there was possibly the site of her father’s dwelling. There are
remains of an old church dedicated to her, and close by is a holy well bearing
her name, surmounted by a conical roof. Whether this building is of very
remote date I cannot say, not having yet seen it. A stone, too, is pointed out
in which it is said she was laid immediately after her birth. Such another
stone we find at Gartan, the birthplace of St. Columba. The people of Donegal
think that by lying on it before they set out for a foreign land, they will be
freed from all danger of home-sickness. St. Bernard, in his Life of St.
Malachy, makes mention of “the village of Fochart, which they say is the
birthplace of Brigid the virgin.” This is close to the spot where Edward Bruce
was slain in the year 1318.
Her parents wished to give her in marriage to a chief who sought her as wife.
But she desired to devote herself wholly to the service of God and the poor.
Other maidens followed her example, and joined her. They went to St. Macaille,
bishop of Hy Failge. One of his clerics told him who she was, and why she and
her companions had come to him. He placed the veil on her head, in token of
her consecration to God in the religions state. So St. Broegan Claen, in his
hymn:
Posuit bonis avibus Maccalleus velum
Super caput sanctae Brigidae,
Clarus est in ejus gestis.
It would seem that she founded a religious establishment first
near Uisneagh, in Westmeath. After a while she went, with her disciples, to
Connaught, and dwelt in Magh Aoi, a district between Elphin and Roscommon,
possibly at a place now bearing her name, called Killbride, in the parish of
Killacken. The people of Leinster, hearing of the wonders she wrought,
besought her to return to her native province, and she determined to establish
her monastery among them. She was welcomed by all. Drum Criadh seemed to her a
fit place for her purpose; a large oak spread its branches around. “This,”
Animosus tells us, “she loved very much, and she blessed it. Its stem and
roots remain to this day.” The date of her settling there is not certain; it
is presumed to have been 470; others say 480 and 484. This house, small and
mean at first, grew to a great size, and soon it became the head of some
hundreds of such houses, scattered throughout the country. Owing to her great
repute, Kildare was for a while the metropolitan see of Leinster
The precise date of her death is not known. We shall not be much astray if we
take that given by Colgan, namely, A.D.
523; nor is it known what her age was at her death. Colgan, who set down her
birth as 439, would,, consequently, make her more than fourscore, while others
say she died at the age of seventy.
Cogitosus says she was buried at Kildare. Indeed, he describes the shrines in
which her remains and those of St. Conlaeth, the first bishop of this See,
were preserved. He says they were ornamented with gold and silver, and
precious stones; and crosses of gold and silver were suspended close by, one
on the right side, the other on the left. He goes on to describe how the
church grew in size, its extent, and the different parts and divisions of it;
the door by which the priest, “cum regulari schola,” with his school of
religious, entered, that by which the men entered, and the third, by which the
women were admitted.
I am aware that some have held she was buried at Downpatrick immediately after
her death; but that can hardly be, from what I have said above. Except by the
fact of her relics being preserved at Kildare, it is impossible to account for
“the vast crowds, the numberless multitudes, that came there from all the
provinces of Ireland on her feast day, some for the plentiful banquets given
them; others who were sick and diseased, coming to get back their health;
others with gifts. All these came on the 1st of February, the day she cast off
the burthen of the flesh, and followed the Lamb of God to the heavenly
dwelling.” So Cogitosus. Later, very possibly to preserve her relics from the
devastations of the Danes, from which Kildare seemed to have suffered oftener
than any other place, they may have been removed to Down. Colgan thinks the
removal may have taken place in the ninth century; and so the words of the
distych would be verified—
Hi tres in Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno,
Brigida, Patricius, atque Columba pius.
Others will have it that John De Courcy got some of her relics transported
there, in order to increase the importance of Down, which was the capital of
his possessions. It would seem that the precise place where the bodies of the
three Saints were laid was somehow forgotten. It is said that it was revealed
to Bishop Malachy in 1189, and that the remains were transferred with great
solemnity into the interior of the church soon after. When the relics of these
Saints were destroyed, in the sixteenth century, during the deputyship of Lord
Leonard Gray, St. Brigid’s head was saved by some of the clergy, who carried
it to Neustadt, in Austria. In 1587 it was presented to the church of the
Society of Jesus at Lisbon by the Emperor Rudolph
II.
A few words in conclusion on the extent of the veneration shown to this saint.
“So famous is the renown of this holy virgin,” says Hector Boetius, “that the
Scots, the Picts, the Irish, and those who live near them, the English, put
her next after the Virgin Mother of God.” And Alanus Copus: “She is most
famous, not only among the Scots, the English, and the Irish, but churches are
named after her throughout the whole world.” “Her feast,” F. Stephen White
tells us, “was celebrated in every cathedral church from the Grisons to the
German Sea, for nearly a thousand years.” Cogitosus, in a passage given above,
speaks of the veneration in which she was held by all the abbesses of the
Scoti. The Book of Leinster gives a list of some thirty religious
houses of women which were under her obedience in ancient times. Here are some
places in the diocese of Dublin which still bear her name. We have Bride’s
Church, a parish church, Bride’s street, Bride’s alley, Bride’s hospital;
chapels dedicated to St. Brigid at Killosery, Swords, Ward, Tully, Tallaght,
Kilbride near Rathfarnham. In Kildare—Kildare itself, Rosenallis, Cloncurry,
Rathbride, Rathdrum. At Armagh there was a church and convent of women bearing
her name, of which Dr. Reeves speaks in his Ancient Churches of Armagh.
Wells bearing her name: Bride street, St. Margaret’s, Clondalkin, Swords,
Clonskeagh, Rosslare, Ballysadare, Ballintobber, Kilcock, Buttevant, Tuam,
Birchfield, near Ennistymon. Hospitals—Kilmainham, Carrickfergus, Dungarvan,
Kells, and Galway. In the Ordnance Survey list of Irish townlands there are
thirty-six Kilbrides. In Australia, America, wherever the Irish people are—and
where are they not?—will be found churches, and schools, and convents bearing
her name; no diocese without one at least; in some several, as in the diocese
of Boston, four churches. And if we go to the Continent of Europe, we shall
find her name wherever Irish missionaries have set foot—at Amiens, St. Omer,
Besancon, Tours, Cologne, Fulda, at Fossey, in the diocese of Namur, at
Seville, and Lisbon. An interesting fact bearing on what I have just said has
been told me by the parish priest of Kildare. Very lately he received a letter
from a parish priest in the neighbourhood of Aix-la-Chapelle, requesting of
him a relic, however small, of St. Brigid; his parish church was dedicated to
her, and on her feast, February 1st, there was a great concourse of the people
to it in her honour. Few things are more touching than the casual inscription
which one meets with at times on the margin of an old manuscript in St. Gall
or Milan, the work of an Irish scribe in a foreign land; his labour is tedious
and trying, working out these endless spirals and convolutions of the Opus
Hibernicum; or it may be that a feeling of home-sickness has suddenly come on
him, a fond longing to see once more “the fair hills of Eire,” and he stops
awhile, and instinctively turns his thoughts to her who is the pride and glory
of his race, “Margareta Hiberniae,” the pearl of Ireland, and its protectress,
and he writes: “St. Brigid, aid me in the laborious task which I have
undertaken,” or “St. Brigid, pray for us.”
To go to the top of this page click here THE BREEDOGE
The Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society (J.K.A.S.)
Vol. I, (Dublin, 1891-1895), p. 40.
Notes and Queries.
…
The Breedoge.—Can anyone inform me if the old custom of
carrying round “The Breedoge” on St. Bridget’s Eve or Day (the 1st of
February) is still kept up? Formerly, I am told, a figure was dressed up to
represent the patron saint of Kildare, St. Bridget. This figure was called
“The Breedoge” (Bride Oge), or “Young Bridget,” and carried round by the young
people from house to house asking for coppers, in the same way as the wren on
a holly hush is carried round on St. Stephen’s Day. The result of the day’s
round was spent in a jollification. I believe this was a local custom peculiar
to the neighbourhood of Kildare.—WALTER FITZ GERALD.
J.K.A.S. Vol. I, pp. 151-152.
Replies to Queries.
…
“The Breedoge” (JOURNAL, No. 1, p. 40).—In answer to my query
in the County Kildare Archaeological Journal, as to whether the custom of
carrying round the Breedoge was a local one or not, Ireceived a communication
from Dr. P. W. Joyce, M.R.I.A.,of the Educational Department, in which he says
he made inquiries among the pupils concerning it, with the result that he got
written descriptions of it in the counties of Kilkenny, Cork, Kerry,
Limerick, and Mayo, so that the custom is very general over Ireland. I have
given below two or three descriptions of this custom, which Ihave selected
from several sent to me by Dr. Joyce: —
One from the Co. Mayo.—The children dress up a figure, and decorate it with
ribbons and flowers. Then four or more of them carry it from house to house on
St. Bridget’s Day,* and ask the housewife to “honour the Breedoge.” One of the
girls hums a tune, and the others dance. It is thought a very niggardly thing
to refuse to honour the effigy. Eggs are taken where the housekeeper has no
coppers to give. There is a spokeswoman for the party, who has a short made-up
speech that she delivers at every house. The money and eggs collected are
evenly divided between the girls, who purchase sweets and cakes with the
proceeds. The girls usually choose the day for their rounds; then, at night,
the boys go round with what is ‘called “The Cross.” This is a cross made of
two ropes; a boy catches an end each, and then the four boys dance away to the
music of a flute; like the girls they, too, gather contributions from each
house they visit, and spend the result in a jollification.
Another from the Co. Kerry.—The Breedhogue is an image, supposed to be St
Bridget. It consists of a churn-dash, or broomstick, padded round with straw,
and covered with a woman’s dress, the head being formed of a bundle of hay,
rolled into the form of a ball; the hands are formed of furze branches, stuck
up in the sleeves. This figure is carried round from house to house by boys
and girls on St Bridget’s Eve. One boy starts a tune, and the others commence
dancing, after which they are given pennies, or more generally eggs, in honour
of the “Biddy.” No matter what the weather is, the Breedhogue is annually
carried round, though since moonlighting commenced in Kerry it had to be
discontinued for some time, owing to the fear of being mistaken for members of
that band.
A Co. Cork description.—In some parts of the county the boys dress up a female
figure in a white dress with gaudy ribbons, which they call “a Breedhoge.”
They are generally themselves queerly dressed and disguised. On St. Bridget’s
Eve they visit from house to house in the parish, particularly those houses
where there are young women who, they say, should get married during Shrove
time. If they are welcomed, and given money for a spree, then they will praise
up and recommend the girls to their male friends; but if not, they will warn
them to avoid them.—WALTER FITZ GERALD.
The practice alluded to by Lord Walter Fitz Gerald at p.40 exists in several
parts of Ireland. It is probably a remnant of the procession in honour of St
Brigid, when her statue would be carried about. The rude figure, if we can
call it such, goes by the name of Breedog, i.e. brigid óig, Brigid
the Virgin.—D. M.
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
NUMBER
20. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1840. VOLUME I.
SAINT BRIDGET’S SHAWL,
BY T. E., AUTHOR OF “DARBY DOYLE,” ETC.
AMONGST the many extraordinary characters with which this country abounds,
such as fools, madmen, onshochs, omadhauns, hair-brains, crack-brains, and
naturals, I have particularly taken notice of one. His character is rather
singular. He begs about Newbridge, county of Kildare: he will accept of any
thing offered him, except money—that he scornfully refuses; which fulfils the
old adage, “None but a fool will refuse money.” His habitation is the ruins of
an old fort or ancient stronghold called Walshe’s Castle, on the road to
Kilcullen, near Arthgarvan, and within a few yards of the river Liffey, far
away from any dwelling. There he lies on a bundle of straw, with no other
covering save the clothes he wears all day. Many is the evening I have seen
this poor crazy creature plod along the road to his desolate lodging. There
is another stamp of singularity on his character: his name is Pat Mowlds, but
who dare attempt to call him Pat? It must be Mr Mowlds, or he will not only be
offended himself, but will surely offend those who neglect this respect. In
general he is of a downcast, melancholy disposition, boasts of being very
learned, is much delighted when any one gives him a ballad or old newspaper.
Sometimes he gets into a very good humour, and will relate many anecdotes in a
droll style.
About two years ago, as I happened to be sauntering along the border of the
Curragh, I overtook this solitary being.
“A fine morning, Mr Mowlds,” was my address.
“Yes, sur, thank God, a very fine morning; shure iv we don’t have fine weather
in July, when will we have it ?“
“What a great space of ground this is to lie waste—what a quantity of
provisions it would produce—what a number of people it would employ and feed!”
said I.
“Oh, that’s very thrue, sur; but was it all sown in pittaties, what would
become ov the poor sheep? Shure we want mutton as well as pittaties—besides,
all the devarshin we have every year.—Why, thin, maybe ye have e’er an ould
newspaper or ballit about ye?“
I said I had not, but a couple of Penny Journals should be at his service
which I had in my pocket.
“Och, any thing at all that will keep a body amused, though I have got a great
many of them; but among them all I don’t see any pitcher or any account of the
round tower furninst ye; nor any account ov the fire Saint Bridget kept
in night an’ day for six hundred years; nor any thing about the raison why it
was put out; nor any thing about how Saint Bridget came by this piece ov
ground; nor any thing about the ould Earl ov Kildare, who rides round the
Curragh every seventh year with silver spurs and silver reins to his horse—God
bless ye, sur, have ye e’er a bit of tobacky?—there’s not a word about this
poor counthry at all.”
My senses were now driven to anxiety—I gave him some tobacco. He then
resumed:—
“Och, an’ faix it’s myself that can tell all about those things. Shure my
grandfather was brother to one of the ould anshint bards who left him all his
books, and he left them to my mother, who left them to me.”
“Well, Mr Mowlds,” I said, “you must have a perfect knowledge of those
things—let us hear something of their contents.”
“Why, thin, shure, sur, I can’t do less. Now, you see, sur, it’s my fashion
like the priests and ministhers goin’ to praich: they must give a bit ov a
text out ov some larned book, and that’s the way with me. So here goes—mind
the words:
“The seventeenth ov March, on King Dermot’s great table,
Where ninety-nine beeves were all roast at a time,
We dhrank to the memory, while we wor able,
Ov Pathrick, the saint ov our nation;
And gaily wor dhrinkin’, roarin’, shoutin’,
Cead mille faltha, acushla machree.
There was Cathleen so fair, an’ Elleen so rare!
With Pathrick an’ Nora,
An’ flauntin’ Queen Dorah!
On Pathrick’s day in the mornin’.
Whoo!!!
County Kildare an’ the sky over it!
Short grass for ever !”
He thus ended with a kick up of his heel which nearly touched the nape of his
neck, and a flourish of his stick at the same time. Then turning to me he
said,
“I am not going to tell you one word about the fire—I am going to tell you how
Saint Bridget got all this ground. Bad luck to Black Noll (a name
given to Cromwell) with his crew ov dirty Sasanachs that tore down the church;
and if they could have got on the tower, that would be down also. No matther—every
dog will have his day. Sit down on this hill till we have a shaugh ov the
dhudheen. In this hill lie buried all the bones ov the poor fellows that
Gefferds killed the time ov the throuble, peace an’ rest to their souls!”
“But to the story, Mr Mowlds,” I said, as I watched him with impatiencc while
he readied his pipe with a large pin.
“Well, sur, here goes. Bad luck to this touch, it’s damp: the rain blew into
my pocket t’other night an’ wetted it—ha, I have it.
Now, sur, you persave by the words ov my text that a great feast was kept up
every year at the palace of Castledermot on Saint Pathrick’s day. Nothing was
to be seen for many days before but slaughtering ov bullocks, skiverin’ ov
pullets, rowlin’ in ov barrels, an’ invitin’ all the quolity about the
counthry; nor did the roolocks and spalpeens lag behind—they never waited to
be axt; all came to lind a frindly hand at the feast; nor war the kings ov
those days above raisin’ the ax to slay a bullock. King O’Dermot was one ov
those slaughtherin’ kings who wouldn’t cringe at the blood ov any baste.
‘Twas on one ov those festival times that he sallied out with his ax in his
hand to show his dexterity in the killin’ way. The butchers brought him the
cattle one afther another, an’ he laid them down as fast as they could be
dhrained ov their blood.
Afther layin’ down ninety-nine, the last ov a hundhred was brought to him.
Just as he riz the ax to give it the clout, the ox with a sudden chuck drew
the stake from the ground, and away with him over hill an’ dale, with the
swingin’ block an’ a hundred spalpeens at his heels. At last he made into the
river just below Kilcullen, when a little gossoon thought to get on his back;
but his tail bein’ very long, gave a twitch an’ hitched itself in a black knot
round the chap’s body, and so towed him across the river.
Away with him then across the Curragh, ever till he came to where Saint
Bridget lived. He roared at the gate as if for marcy. Saint Bridget was just
at the door when she saw the ox with his horns thrust through the bars.
‘Arrah, what ails ye, poor baste?’ sez she, not seein’ the boy at his tail.
‘Och,’ sez the boy, makin’ answer for the ox, ‘for marcy sake let me in. I’m
the last ov a hundred that was goin’ to be kilt by King O’Dermot for his great
feast to.morrow; but he little knows who I am.’
Begor, when she heard the ox spake, she was startled; but rousin’ herself, she
said,
‘Why, thin, it ‘ud be fitther for King O’Dermot to give me a few ov yees, than
be feedin’ Budhavore: it’s well you come itself.’
‘Ah, but, shure, you won’t kill me, Biddy Darlin,’ sez the chap, takin’ the
hint, as it was nigh dark, and Biddy couldn’t see him with her odd eye; for
you must know, sur, that she was such a purty girl when she was young, that
the boys used to be runnin’ in dozens afther her. At last she prayed for
somethin’ to keep them from tormenting her. So you see, sur, she was seized
with the small-pox at one side ov her face, which blinded up her eye, and left
the whole side ov her face in furrows, while the other side remained as
beautiful as ever
‘In troth you needn’t fear me killin’ ye,’ sez she; ‘but where can I keep ye?’
‘Och,’ says the arch wag, ‘shure when I grow up to be a bull I can guard yer
ground.’
‘Ground, in yeagh,’ sez the saint; ‘shure I havn’t as much as would sow a
ridge ov pittaties, barrin’ the taste I have for the girls to walk on.’
‘And did you ax the king for nane?’ sed the supposed ox.
‘In troth I did, but the ould budhoch refused me twice’t.’
‘Well, Biddy honey,’ sez the chap, ‘the third offer’s lucky. Go to-morrow,
when he’s at dinner, and you may come at the soft side ov him. But won’t you
give some refreshment to this poor boy that I picked up on the road? I fear he
is dead or smothered hanging at my tail.’
Well, to be sure, the chap hung his head (moryeah) when he sed this.
Out St Bridget called a dozen ov nuns, who untied the knot, and afther wipin’
the chap as clean as a new pin, brought him into the kitchen, and crammed him
with the best of aitin’ and drinkin’; but while they wor doing this, away
legged the ox. St Bridget went out to ax him some questions consarnin’ the
king, but he was gone.
“Pon my sowkins,’ sed she, ‘but that was a mighty odd thing entirely. Faix, an
it’s myself that will be off to Castledermot to-morrow, hit or miss.’
Well, sur, the next day she gother together about three dozen nuns.
‘Toss on yer mantles,’ sez she, ‘an’ let us be off to Castledermot.’
‘With all harts,’ sez they.
‘Come here, Norah,’ sez she to the sarvint maid. ‘Slack down the fire,’ sez
she, ‘and be sure you have the kittle on. I couldn’t go to bed without my tay,
was it ever so late.’
So afther givin’ her ordhers off they started.
Well, behould ye, sur, when she got within two miles ov the palace, word was
brought to the king that St Bridget and above five hundred nuns were on the
road, comin’ to dine with him.
‘O tundheranounthers,’ roared the king, ‘what’ll I do for their dinner? Why
the dhoul didn’t she come an hour sooner, or sent word yestherday? Such a time
for visithers! Do ye hear me, Paudeen Roorke?’ sez he, turnin’ to his chief
butler: ‘run afther Rory Condaugh, and ax him did he give away the two hind
quarthers that I sed was a little rare.’
‘Och, yer honor,’ sed Paudeen Roorke, ‘shure he gev them to a parcel of
boccochs at the gate.’
‘The dhoul do them good with it! Oh, fire and faggots! what’ll become ov me?—shure
she will say I have no hospitality, an’ lave me her curse. But, cooger,
Paudeen: did the roolocks overtake the ox that ran away yestherday?’
‘Och, the dhoul a haugh ov him ever was got, yer honor.’
‘Well, it’s no matther; that’ll be a good excuse; do you go and meet her; I
lave it all to you to get me out ov this hobble.’
‘Naboclish,’ said Paudeen Roorke, cracking his fingers, an’out he started.
Just as he got to the door he met her going to come in. Well
become the king, but he shlipt behind the door to hear what ud be sed. ‘Bedhahusth,’
he roared to the guests that wor going to dhrink his health while his back was
turned.
‘God save yer reverence!’ said St Bridget to the butler, takin’ him for the
king’s chaplain, he had such a grummoch face on him; ‘can I see the king?’
‘God save you kindly!’ sed Paudeen, ‘to be shure ye can.
Who will I say wants him?’ eyeing the black army at her heels.
‘Tell him St Bridget called with a few friends to take pot luck.’
‘Oh, murther!’ sed Paudeen, ‘why didn’t you come an hour sooner? I’m afraid
the meat is all cowld, we waited so long for ye.’
‘Och, don’t make any bones about it,’ sed St Bridget: ‘it’s a cowld
stummock can’t warm its own mait.’
‘In troth that’s thrue enough,’ sed Paudeen; ‘but I fear there isn’t enough
for so many.
‘Why, ye set of cormorals,’ sed she, ‘have ye swallied the whole
ninety-nine oxen that ye kilt yestherday?’
‘Oh, blessed hour!’ groaned the king to himself, ‘how did she know that? Och,
I suppose she knows I’m here too.’
‘Oh, bad scran to me!’ said Paudeen, ‘but we had the best and fattest keepin’
for you, but he ran away.’
‘In troth you needn’t tell me that,’ sez she; ‘I know all about yer doings. If
I’m sent away without my dinner itself, I must see the king.’
Just as she sed this, a hiccup seized the king, so loud that it reached the
great hall. The guests, who war all silent by the king’s order, thought he sed
hip, hip!—so. Such a shout, my jewel as nearly frightened the saint away.
‘In troth,’ ses she, ‘I’d be very sorry to venthur among such a set of
riff-raff, any way. But who’s this behind the door?’ sez she, cockin’ her eye.
‘Oh, I beg pardon!—I hope no inthrusion—there ye are—ye’ll save me the trouble
ov goin’ in.’
‘Oh,’ sed the king (hic), ‘I tuck a little sick in my stummock, and came down
to get fresh air. I beg pardon. Why didn’t you come in time to dinner?’
‘I want no dinner,’ said she; ‘I came to speak on affairs ov state.’
‘Why, thin,’ said the king, ‘before ye state them, ye must come in and take a
bit in yer fingers, at any rate.’
‘In troth,’ sez she, ‘I was always used to full and plenty, and not any
scrageen bits; and to think ov a king’s table not having a flaugooloch meal,
is all nonsense: that’s like the taste ov ground I axt ye for some time ago.’
Begor, sur, when she sed that, she gev him such a start that the hiccough left
him.
‘Ah, Biddy, honey,’ sez he, ‘shure ye wor only passin a joke to cure me: say
no more—it’s all gone.’
Just as he sed this, he heard a great shout at a distance: out he pulled his
specks, an’ put them on his nose; when to his joy he saw a whole crowd ov
spalpeens dhrivin’ the ox before them. The king, forgettin’ who he was
spaikin’ to, took off his caubeen, and began to wave it, as he ran off to meet
them.
‘Oh! mahurpendhoul, but ye’re brave fellows,’ sez he; ‘whoever it was that
cotch him shall have a commission in my life guards. I never wanted a
joint more. Galong, every mother’s son ov yees, and borry all the gridirons
and frying-pans ye can get. Hand me the axe, till I have some steaks tost up
for a few friends.’
So, my jewel, while ye’d say thrap-stick, the ox was down, an’ on the
gridirons before the life was half out ov him.
Well, to be shure, St Bridget got mighty hungry, as she had walked a long way.
She then tould the king that the gentlemen should lave the room, as she could
not sit with any one not in ordhers, and they being a little out ov ordher.
So, to make themselves agreeable to her ordhers, they quit the hall, and went
out to play at hurdles.
When the king recollected who he was goin’ to give dinner to, sez he to
himself, ‘Shure no king ought to be above sarvin’ a saint.’ So over he goes to
his wife the queen.
‘Dorah,’ sez he,’ do ye know who’s within?’ ‘Why, to be shure I do,’ sez she;
‘ain’t it Bridheen na Keogue?’
‘Ye’re right,’ sez he, ‘and you know she’s a saint; an’ I think it will be-
for the good ov our sowls that she kem here to-day. Come, peel off yer
muslins, and help me up wid the dinner.’
‘In troth I’ll not,’ sez the queen; ‘shure ye know I’m a black Prospitarian,
an’ bleeve nun ov yer saints.’
‘Arrah, nun ov yer quare ways,’ sez he: ‘don’t you wish my sowl happy, any
how?—an’ if you help me, you will be only helpin’ my sowl to heaven.’
‘Oh, in that case,’ sez she, ‘here’s at ye: and the sooner the betther. But
one charge I’d give ye: take care how ye open your claub about
ground: ye know she thought to come round ye twice before.
So in the twinklin’ ov an eye she went down to the kitchen, an’ put on a
prashkeen, an’ was first dish at the table.
The king saw every one lashin’ away at their dinner except Bridget.
‘Arrah, Biddy, honey,’ sez he, ‘why don’t ye help yerself?’
‘Why, thin,’ sez she, ‘the dhoul a bit, bite or sup, I’ll take undher yer roof
until ye grant me one favour.’
‘And what is that?’ sez the king; ‘shure ye know a king must stand to his word
was it half his kingdom, and how do I know but ye want to chouse me out ov it:
let me know first what ye want.’
‘Well, thin, Mr King O’Dermot,’ sez she, ‘all I want is a taste ov ground to
sow a few pays in.’
‘Well, an’ how much do ye want, yer reverence,’ sez he, all over ov a thrimble,
betune his wife’s dark looks, and the curse he expected from Bridget if he
refused.
‘Not much,’ sez she, ‘for the present. You don’t know how I’m situated. All
the pilgrims going to Lough Dhearg are sent to me to put the pays in their
brogues, an’ ye know I havn’t as much ground as would sow a pint; but if ye
only give me about fifty acres, I’ll be contint.’
‘Fifty acres!’ roared the king, stretching his neck like a goose.
‘Fifty acres!’ roared the queen, knitting her brows; ‘shure that much ground
would fill their pockets as well as their brogues.’
‘There ye’re out ov it,’ said the saint; ‘why, it would’nt be half enough if
they got their dhue according to their sins; but I’ll lave it to yerself.’
‘How much will ye give?’ ‘Not an acre,’ said the queen.
‘Oh, Dorah,’ sed the king, ‘let me give the crathur some.’
‘Not an inch,’ sed the queen, ‘if I’m to be misthress here.’
‘Oh, I beg pardon,’ sez the saint; ‘so, Mr King O’Dermot, you are undher
petticoat government I see; but maybe I won’t match ye for all that. Now, take
my word, you shall go on penance to Lough Dhearg before nine days is about;
and instead ov pays ye shall have pebble stones and swan shot in yer brogues.
But it’s well for you, Mrs Queen, that ye’re out ov my reach, or I’d send you
there barefooted, with nothing on hut yer stockings.’
When the king heard this, he fell all ov a thrimble. ‘Oh, Dorah,’ sez he,
‘give the crathur a little taste ov ground to satisfy her.’
‘No, not as much as she could play ninepins on,’ sez she, shakin’ her fist and
grindin’ her teeth together; ‘and I hope she may send you to Lough Dhearg, as
she sed she would.’
‘Why, thin, have ye no feeling for one ov yer own sex?’ sez the saint. ‘I’ll
go my way this minit, iv ye only give me as much as my shawl will cover.’
‘Oh, that’s a horse ov another colour,’ sez the queen; ‘you may have that,
with a heart and a half. But you know very well if I didn’t watch that fool ov
a man, he’d give the very nose off his face if a girl only axt him how he
was.’
Well, sur, when the king heard this, he grew as merry as a cricket. ‘Come,
Biddy,’ sez he, ‘we mustn’t have a dhry bargain, any how.’
‘Oh, ye’ll excuse me, Mr King O’Dermot,’ sez she; ‘I never drink stronger nor
wather.’
‘Oh, son ov Fingal,’ exclaimed the king, ‘do ye hear this, and it Pathrick’s
day!’
‘Oh, I intirely forgot that,’ sez she. ‘Well, then, for fear ye’d say I was a
bad fellow, I’ll just taste. Shedhurdh.’
Well, sur, after the dhough-an-dheris she went home very well pleased that she
was to get ever a taste ov ground at all, and she promised the king to make
his pinance light, and that she would boil the pays for him, as she did with
young men ov tendher conshinses; but as to ould hardened sinners, she’d keep
the pays till they’d be as stale as a sailor’s bisket.
Well, to be shure, when she got home she set upwards ov a hundhred nuns at
work to make her shawl, during which time she was never heard of. At last,
afther six months’ hard labour, they got it finished.
‘Now, sez she, ‘it’s time I should go see the king, that he may come and see
that I take no more than my right. So, taking no one with her barrin’
herself and one nun, off she set.
The king and queen were just sitting down to tay at the parlour window when
she got there.
‘Whoo! talk of the dhoul and he’ll appear,’ sez he. ‘Why, thin, Biddy honey,
it’s an age since we saw ye. Sit down; we’re just on the first cup. Dorah and
myself were afther talkin’ about ye, an’ thought ye forgot us intirely. Well,
did ye take that bit ov ground?’
‘Indeed I’d be very sorry to do the likes behind any one’s back. You must come
to-morrow and see it measured.’
‘Not I, ‘pon my sowkins,’ sed the king: ‘do ye think me so mane as to doubt
yer word?’
‘Pho! pho!’ sed the queen, ‘such a taste is not worth talkin’ ov; but, just to
honour ye, we shall attind in state to-morrow. Sit down.’
She took up her station betune the king an’ queen: the purty side ov her face
was next the king, an’ the ugly side next the queen.
‘I can’t be jealous ov you, at any rate,’ sod the queen to herself, as she
never saw her veil off before.
‘Oh, murther!’ sez the king, ‘what a pity ye’re a saint, and Dorah to be
alive. Such a beauty!’
Just as he was starin’, the queen happened to look over at a looking-glass, in
which she saw Biddys pretty side.
‘Hem!’ sez she, sippin’ her cup. ‘Dermot,’ sez she, ‘it’s very much out ov
manners to be stuck with ladies at their tay. Go take a shaugh ov the dhudheen,
while we talk over some affairs ov state.’
Begor, sur, the king was glad ov the excuse to lave them together,
in the hopes St Bridget would convart his wife.
Well, sur, whatever discoorse they had, I disremember, but the queen came down
in great humour to wish the saint good night, an’ promised to be on the road
the next day to Kildare.
‘Faix,’ sez the saint, ‘I was nigh forgettin’ my gentility to wish the king
good night. Where is he?’
‘Augh, and shure myself doesn’t know, barrin’ he’s in the kitchen.’
‘In the kitchen!’ exclaimed the saint; ‘oh fie!’
‘Ay, indeed, just cock yer eye,’ sez the queen, ‘to the a key-hole: that
dhudheen is his excuse. I can’t keep a maid for him.’
‘Oh! is that the way with him?.—never fear: I’ll make his pinance purty sharp
for that. At any rate call him out an’ let us part in friends.’
So, sur, afther all the compliments wor passed, the king sed he should go see
her a bit ov the road, as it was late: so off he went. The moon had just got
up, an’ he walked alongside the saint at the ugly side; but when he looked
round to praise her, an’ pay her a little compliment, he got sich a fright
that he’d take his oath it wasn’t her at all, so he was glad to get back to
the queen.
Well, sur, next morning the queen ordhered
the long car to be got ready, with plenty ov clean straw in it, as in those
times they had no coaches; then regulated her life guards, twelve to ride
before and twelve behind, the king at one side and the chief butler at the
other, for without the butler she couldn’t do at all, as every mile she had to
stop the whole retinue till she’d get refreshment. In the meantime, St
Bridget placed her nuns twenty-one miles round the Curragh. At last the
thrumpet sounded, which gave notice that the king was coming. As soon as they
halted, six men lifted the queen up on the throne, which they brought with
them on the long car. The king ov coorse got up by her side.
‘Well, Dorah,’ sez he in a whisper, ‘what a laugh we’ll have at Biddy, with
her shawl!’
‘I don’t know that neither,’ sez the queen. ‘It looks as thick as Finmocool’s
boulsther, as it hangs over her shoulder.’
‘God save yer highness,’ sed the saint, as she kem up to them. ‘Why, ye sted
mighty long. I had a snack ready for ye at one o’clock.’
‘Och, it’s no matther,’ sez the queen; ‘measure yer bit ov ground, and we then
can have it in comfort.’
So with that St Bridget threw down her shawl, which she had cunningly folded
up.
Now, sur, this shawl was made ov fine sewin’ silk, all network, each mesh six
feet square, and tuck thirty-six pounds ov silk, and employed six hundred and
sixty nuns for three months making it.
Well, sur, as I sed afore, she threw it on the ground.
‘Here, Judy Conway, run to Biddy Conroy with this corner, an’ let her make aff
in the direckshin ov Kildare, an’ be shure she runs the corner into the
mon’stery. Here, you, Nelly Murphy, make off to Kilcullen; an’ you, Katty
Farrel, away with you to Ballysax; an’ you, Nelly Doye, away to Arthgarvan;
an’ you, Rose Regan, in the direckshin of Connell; an’ you, Ellen Fogarty,
away in the road to Maddenstown an’you, Jenny Purcel, away to Airfield. Just
hand it from one to t’other.’
So givin’ three claps ov her hand, off they set like hounds, an’ in a minnit
ye’d think a haul ov nuns wor cotched in the net.
‘Oh, millia murther!’ sez the queen, ‘she’s stretchin’ it over my daughter’s
ground.’
‘Oh, blud-an’-turf!’ sez the king, ‘now she’s stretchin’ it over my son’s
ground. Galong, ye set ov thaulabawns,’ sed he to his life-guards;
‘galong, I say, an’ stop her, else she’ll cover all my dominions.’
“Oh fie, yer honour,’ sez the chief butler; ‘if you break yer word, I’m not
shure ov my wages.’
Well behould ye, sur, in less than two hours Saint Bridget had the whole
Curragh covered.
‘Now see what a purty kittle of fish you’ve made ov it!’ sez the queen.
‘No, but it’s you, Mrs Queen O’Derrnot, ‘twas you agreed to this.’
‘Ger out, ye ould bosthoon,’ sez the queen, ‘ye desarve it all: ye might aisy
guess that she’d chouse ye. Shure iv ye had a grain ov sinse, ye might
recollect how yer cousin King O’Toole was choused by Saint Kavin out ov all
his ground, by the saint stuffin’ a lump ov a crow into the belly ov the ould
goose.’
‘Well, Dorah, never mind; if she makes a hole, I have a peg for it. Now,
Biddy,’ sez he, ‘though I gave ye the ground, I forgot to tell ye that I only
give it for a certain time. I now tell ye from this day forward you shall only
have it while ye keep yer fire in.’”
Here I lost the remainder of his discourse by my ill manners. I got so
familiar with Mr Mowlds, and so interested with his story, that I forgot my
politeness.
“And what about the fire, PAT ?” said I, without consideration.
Before I could recollect the offence, he turned on me with the eyes of a
maniac—
“The dhoul whishper nollege into your ear. Pat! — (hum)
—Pat!—Pat!—this is freedom, with all my heart.”
So saying, he strode away, muttering something between his teeth. However, I
hope again to meet him, when I shall be little more cautious in my address.
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
Biography from Dictionary of Saintly Women St. Brigid ('!), Feb. 1, born about the middle of the 5th century, died in or before 525 (breeyith, Bhide, Bridget, Brighit, Brigida, Briid, Bkitta, Bryde, Brydock ; in France, Bhigitte ; in Holland, Brie, Brighe ; the Mary of Ireland), the "Fiery Dart." Patron of Ireland, Leinster, Kildare, of the family of Douglas, and of cattle and dairies. The dedications in her name are very numerous in Ireland and on the western side of Great Britain. Represented (1) with flames playing round her head; (2) with a cow and a large bowl. The greatest of all the Irish saints, except St. Patrick. Founder of the first nunnery in Ireland, and chief over many monasteries for both sexes. Bishop Conlaeth, or Conlian, at the time head of the bishops and abbots, attended to the spiritual interests of her nuns and the services of her church. Montalembert says that Ireland was evangelized by two slaves, Patrick and Bridgid; that Brigid was twice sold, was flogged, insulted, and subjected to the hardest labour required of a female slave in those days; she learnt mercy in the school of suffering and oppression; she became a nun, but by no means a recluse; she travelled all over Ireland, and had frequent and important intercourse with all sorts and conditions of persons, but always in the interest of souls, or with a view to helping the- unfortunate. She was honoured with the friendship and confidence of the holiest and most learned Irishmen of her time, among whom tradition places St. Ere, bishop of Slane, St. Mel of Ardagh, Cailaet, bishop of Kildare, St. Ailbe of Emly, St. Brendan of Clonfert, St. Gildas, who sent her a small bell cast by himself. St. Finnian was also, her contemporary, and once preached before her and her nuns at Kildare. She is believed to have been contemporary with St. Patrick, although much younger. There is considerable uncertainty as to her dates, and still more ns to his. She died, upwards of seventy, in or before 525. In an old Life of St. Patrick, it is said that she fell asleep while he was preaching, and that he made her tell her dream, which he interpreted as referring to the fnture history of Ireland. One legend says that he taught her to play on the harp, and that she embroidered a shroud for him at his- own request, and took it to him at the monastery of Saball; he then charged her to bless Ireland for thirty years after his death. Here are some of the countless traditions concerning St. Brigid. She was the daughter of Dubtach, a nobleman of Leinster, who was descended from Eochard, brother of King Conn of the Hundred Battles; her mother was Broet- seach or Brocessa O'Connor, his slave. Dubtach's wife had several sons, but no daughter, and her jealousy of Brocessa was increased by the prophecy that Brocessa would give birth to a daughter who should be very illustrious. She insisted that Brocessa should be sent away. So Dubtach sold her to a magician or bard at Faugher, near Dun- dalk, with the condition that her child should be returned to him. The night that she arrived in her new home, a holy man came begging for hospitality. He passed the whole night in prayer, and in the morning told his host he had seen a globe of fire resting over the place where the servant slept. One day the bard iavited his king and qneen to supper, bnt the queen could not come because she was hourly expecting to have a child. The friends and servants of the king inquired of the bard what sort of child the qneen would have, and when it wonld be born. He told them that it would have no equal in Ireland if it were born at sunrise, neither in the house nor ont of the house. At midnight the queen gave birth to a son. Very early in the morning, Brocessa went and milked the cows as usual. She returned with a large pail of milk. As she entered her master's door, having one foot in the house and one foot out, she fell down on the threshold, and there, at the moment of sunrise, she was delivered of a daughter, Brigid, whose infancy was illustrated by prodigies, and who was evidently under the immediate protection of Heaven. Flames often filled her room or surrounded her head, but did not hart her or destroy anything. No food was found to suit her until the magician set apart a beautiful white cow for her use, and got a Christian woman to milk it. According to agreement, the bard cent the child Brigid to her father. Once she went to help her mother, who was making butter and taking care of the cows some distance from her master's house. As fast as the butter was made, Brigid, who said, " Every guest is Christ," gave it all away to beggars and travellers. After a time the magician and his wife came to the farm to fetch the butter. When Brigid saw what a large cask they had brought to carry it away in, she was much embarrassed, knowing she had only the supply of one day and a half; however, she received them cheerfully, washed their feet, and gave them. food. She then went to her own cell and prayed, and afterwards brought the butter she had to the bard's wife, who laughed at her and said, " Is that all the butter yon have made in so many days?" Brigid said, "Fill the cask: you shall have butter enough." The woman began putting the butter into her large receptacle out of Brigid's little one, and very soon it was quite full. When the magician saw that miracle, ho said to Brigid, " You shall have all the butter for yourself, and the twelve cows which you have milked shall be yours also." Brigid said, " Keep your cows, and give me my mother's freedom." The magician answered, " The cows and the butter and your mother are yours." Then he believed in Christ and was baptized, and Brigid gave all his gifts to the poor, and returned to Dubtach with her mother. Her father offered to sell her to tho king, saying that he wished to get rid of her because she gave to the poor everything she could lay her hands upon. While they were in the house discussing the matter, Brigid was left in the carriage at the door. A beggar asked her for alms, and as she had no money she gave him her father's sword, which was a gift from the king. When he came back, she said that what she gave to the poor she gave to Christ, that her father and the king ought to be glad that the sword was so honoured, and that if she could, she would give them both, and everything that belonged to them, to Christ. The king then gave her a new sword for her father. Some Christians, travelling through the country, were taken by Dubtach's followers. As they could not give a satisfactory account of themselves, they were condemned to death as rogues and spies. Brigid said they were minstrels, and bade them play on her harp. " Alas," said the strangers, " we have never learnt music." " Fear not," replied Brigid, " play." And she blessed their hands, laying her own upon them ; whorenpou the strangers played and sang more beautifully than any minstrels that had ever been heard in that hall. When she was sixteen, her wisdom and beauty wore praised throughout the land. Her father, who had no other daughter, wished her to make nu advantageous marriage; but Brigid, being determined to consecrate her life to the service of God and to works of mercy, prayed that some deformity might come upon her to deliver her from liability to marriage. Immediately one of her eyes burst in her head, thus destroying all her beauty. Dubtach then permitted her to take the veil. As she knelt to receive it, the wood of the altar became green at her touch, and for years afterwards effected miraculous cures. At the same time, her lost eye was restored, and a pillar of fire appeared above her head. Her enthusiasm soon led other women to join her. At first they lived together at Kilbrighde, or Kilbude, near the sea. There are many places of this name in Ireland, but this is supposed to be the one in the county Waterford. After a time, Brigid built herself a cell under a goodly oak, and added a church and other buildings for her nuns. This was Kildare, Kil Dara, the cell or chapel of the oak. There were already communities of men, and there were churches and Christian schools, but this was the first convent of women in Ireland. The dwellings of the nuns were probably a number of huts or cells close to the church. The church was divided into three parts, ono for monks, one for nuns, and one for the people. Brigid always showed a deep and tender sympathy for slaves and captives, whose troubles she knew by experience. Once she went to ask for the liberty of a captive; the master was absent, but she made friends with his foster-father and brothers by teaching them to play the harp, and had already a strong party in her favour when the chief came home. Charmed by her music, he begged her blessing, which was granted on condition of his setting his prisoner at liberty. She took a great interest in young persons, and delighted to encourage them in virtue and piety. Ono day, as she was standing outside the monastery with some of her nuns, she saw a young man, named Nennidh, running very fast. " Bring that youth to me," commanded the abbess. He came with apparent reluctance. " Whither so fast ? " asked Brigid. Nennidh answered, with a laugh, that he was running to the kingdom of heaven. " I wish," said Brigid, " that I were worthy to run there with you to-day. Pray for me, that I may arrive there." The young man, touched by her words, begged her to pray for him, and resolved to embrace a religions life. Brigid then foretold that ho was. the person from whom sho should receive the holy viaticum on the day of her death. Ho took great pains to keep his hand worthy of so great an honour, and was called Nennidh, the clean-handed. He wrote a hymn in honour of St. Brigid, preserved in Colgan's Acts of the Saints, Jan. 18. He is numbered among the saints, but is not the great St. Nennidh, surnamed Laobh-deare, the one-eyed, or squinting. Many of the stories of the life of St. Brigid relate to the journeys and eicur- sions she used to make in her carriage. On one of these journeys she saw a poor family carrying heavy burdens of wood, and with her usual kindness gave them her horses. She and her sisters sat down by the wayside, and she told them to dig there for water. As soon as they did so, a fountain sprang from the earth, and presently a chieftain passed by and gave his horses to Brigid. Another time she happened to be alone in a friend's house when some persona camo begging for bread. She looked about for any of tho household, but could see no ono except a boy lying on the ground. He was deaf and paralytic, but Brigid did not know it She said to him, " Boy, thou knowost where the keys are ? " He said, " Yes, I know." The holy woman then told him to go and serve these poor persons, which he did, and hail his faculties ever after. In a time of famine she went with some of her nuns and asked for provisions from Bishop Ybar. He had no bread, so he set before her a stone with some lard. The stone became bread, and Brigid and the bishop were satisfied to make a meal of it, but two of the virgins, desiring to eat flesh, hid it, and they fonnd it turned into serpents. Brigid rebuked them, and on their repentance the serpents again became bread. She had power over wild beasts. Once when a wolf had killed a sheep-dog, she made him take the place of his victim, and drive the sheep without frightening them. Cows, calves, milk, and butter figure largely in the legends of this saint. A number of strangers arrived at her home, and as she had nothing to give them but what she could get from one cow, she milked it throe times, and it gave as much as three cows. It is in allusion to this legend that she appears in some pictures holding a large bowl. She seems to have shown severity or inflicted punishment only when the objects of her anger wore guilty of un- kindness. For instance, when a woman refused to wash a leper whom Brigid intended to heal, she transferred the leprosy to the unkind one, but afterwards prayed for her, and thereby healed her. One day two lepers came begging, and she gave them a calf Ono of them said he did not want half a calf, and did not care to have it unless be might have it all to himself. Brigid bode him take the animal, and said to the other, "Wait with me a little while, and see if God will send you anything to make up for your share of the calf." She procured another calf for him, and he went and overtook the ungrateful leper. They soon came to a great rivor, and the good leper and his calf arrived safely at the other side, but the thankless one and his calf were washed away and drowned. Her hospitality and charity were unbounded. The fame of her holiness, her miracles, and her prophetic powers extended to Scotland. It is said that King Nectan, being driven ont of Scotland, went to Ireland, and there visited Brigid, and asked for her prayers. She promised that if he went back to his own country God would have mercy upon him, and he should possess the kingdom of the Picts in peace. She was upwards of seventy when she died. She was buried at Kildare, and translated to Downpatriok, where she was laid beside St. Patrick and St. Columba. It is a mistake to identify her with St. Bbigid Of Glastonbury or St. Brigid Of Abernethy. Several other saints of the same name, contemporary with her, or nearly so, are mentioned hy Colgan. She is honoured in many places and calendars on the Continent, but is perhaps not so universally known there as St. Brigid op Sweden. After her death, the sacred fire, which she had kept perpetually burning, and which caused the church of Kildare to be called tho house of fire, was kept up on her tomb until 122(1, when sundry accusations of superstition and heathenism having arisen against the custom, Henry London, archbishop of Dublin, ordered it to be put out to avert scandal. It was relighted and kept burning until the time of Henry VIII., when the nuns were banished from Kildare, their goods confiscated, and the churches desecrated. Her Life was written immediately after her death by Brogan (called also Cloen). Another biography of her was written in the same century, another in the following, and so on. Five Lives are given in the Bollandist collection. E.M. Bede, Mart. Colgan, AA.SS. Hibernise. Forbes, Kalendars. Monta- lembert, Monks of the West. Butler. Cahier. -A Dictionary of Saintly Women.,Agnes Baillie Cunninghame Dunbar,Bell, 1904
To go to the top of this page click here Click
here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
OH Glorious St. Brigid, Mother of the Churches of Erin, patroness of our missionary race, wherever their lot may be cast I be thou our guide in the paths of virtue, protect us amid temptation, shield us from danger. Preserve to us the heritage of chastity and temperance ; keep ever brightly burning on the altar of our hearts the sacred Fire of Faith, Charity, and Hope, that thus we may emulate the ancient piety of Ireland's children, and the Church of Erin may shine with peerless glory as of old. Thou wert styled by our fathers " The Mary of Erin," secure for us by thy prayers the all-powerful protection of the Blessed Virgin, that we may be numbered here among her most fervent clients, and may hereafter merit a place together with Thee and the countless Saints of Ireland, in the ranks of her triumphant children in Paradise. Amen. -PAtrick F. Cardinal Moran. In St. Brigid, Patroness of Ireland.,Joseph A. Knowles,Browne and Nolan, 1907 -
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages Lady Gilbert
LADY GILBERT (ROSA MULHOLLAND) A Popular and gifted Irish poetess and novelist of the day, born in Belfast about fifty years ago. She has published one volume of delicate verse (vagrant Verses, 1886); all her other writings, which are numerous, being stories. In 1891 she married Mr. (afterwards Sir J. T.) Gilbert, the noted Irish archaeologist. A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue., Stopford Augustus Brooke, Thomas William Rolleston, Smith, Elder, 1900, pg. 408.
To go to the top of this page click here Click
here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
- Antar and Zara, an Eastern Romance: Inisfail and Other Poems, Meditative and Lyrical., Aubrey De Vere, Stephen Edward Spring-Rice,Henry S. King & Co, 1877,p.216 S. BRIDGET, V. ABSS.
S. Bridget, or Bride as she is called in England, is the Patroness of Ireland, and was famous throughout northern Europe. Leslie says, " She is held in so great honour by Picts, Britons, Angles, and Irish, that more churches are dedicated to God in her memory, than to any other of the saints;" and Hector Boece says, that she was regarded by Scots, Picts, and Irish as only second to the B. Virgin Mary. Unfortunately, little authentic is known of her. The lives extant are for the most part of late composition, and are collected from oral traditions of various value. One life is attributed, however, to Bishop Ultan Mac Concubar, d. circ. 662 ; another, a metrical one, is by the monk Chilian, circ. 740 ; another by one Cogitosus, is of uncertain date ; another is by Laurence, prior of Durham, d. 1154; and there is another, considered ancient, by an anonymous author.] Ireland was, of old, called the Isle of Saints, because of the great number of holy ones of both sexes who flourished there in former ages; or, who, coming thence, propagated the faith amongst other nations. Of this great number of saints the three most eminent, and who have therefore been honoured as the special patrons of the island, were S. Patrick their apostle, S. Columba, who converted the Picts, and S. Bridget, the virgin of Kildare, whose festival is marked in all the Martyrologies on the 1st day of February. This holy virgin was born about the middle of the fifth century, in the village of Fochard, in the diocese of Armagh. Her father was a nobleman, called Dubtach, descended from Eschaid, the brother of King Constantine of the Hundred Battles, as he is surnamed by the Irish historians. The legend of her origin is as follows, but it is not to be relied upon, as it is not given by Ultan, Cogitosus, or Chilian of Inis-Keltra.1 Dubtach had a young and beautiful slave- girl, whom he dearly loved, and she became pregnant by him, whereat his wife, in great jealousy and rage, gave him no peace till he had sold her to a bard, but Dubtach, though he sold the slave-girl, stipulated with the purchaser that the child should not go with the mother, but should be returned to him when he claimed it. Now one day, the king and queen visited the bard to ask an augury as to the child they expected shortly, and to be advised as to the place where the queen should be confined. Then the bard said, " Happy is the child that is born neither in the house nor out of the house!" Now it fell out that Brotseach, the slave-girl, was shortly after returning to the house with a pitcher of fresh warm milk from the cow, when she was seized with labour, and sank down on the threshold, and was delivered neither in the house nor out of the house, and the pitcher of warm sweet milk, falling, was poured over the little child. When Bridget grew up, her father reclaimed her, and treated her with the same tenderness that he showed to his legitimate children. She had a most compassionate heart, 1 Moreover it contradicts the positive statements of more reliable authors, that Bridget was the legitimate daughter of Brotseach, the wife of Dubtach. and gave to every beggar what he asked, whether it were hers or not . This rather annoyed her father, who took her one day with him to the king's court, and leaving her outside, in the chariot, went within to the king, and asked his majesty to buy his daughter, as she was too expensive for him to keep, owing to her excessive charity. The king asked to see the girl, and they went together to the door. In the meantime, a beggar had approached Bridget, and unable to resist his importunities, she had given him the only thing she could find, her father's sword, which was a present that had been made him by the king. When Dub- tach discovered this, he burst forth into angry abuse, and the king asked, " Why didst thou give away the royal sword, child ?" " If beggars assailed me," answered Bridget calmly, "and asked for my king and my father, I would give them both away also." "Ah !" said the king, " I cannot buy a girl who holds us so cheap." Her great beauty caused her to be sought in marriage by a young noble of the neighbourhood, but as she had already consecrated herself by vow to Jesus, the Spouse of virgins, she would not hear of this match. To rid herself of the importunity of her suitor, she prayed to God, that He would render her so deformed that no one might regard her. Her prayer was heard, and a distemper fell on one of her eyes, by which she lost that eye, and became so disagreeable to the sight, that no one thought of giving her any further molestation.1 Thus she easily gained her father's consent that she should consecrate her virginity to God, and become a nun. She took with her three other virgins of that country, and bidding farewell to her friends, went in 469 to the holy bishop Maccail, then at Usny hill, Westmeath; who gave the sacred veil to her and her companions, and received 1 But this legend is given very differently in another Life, and Cogitosus and the 6rst and fourth Lives do not say anything about it. their profession of perpetual virginity. S. Bridget was then only fourteen years old, as some authors assert . The Almighty was pleased on this occasion to declare how acceptable this sacrifice was, by restoring to Bridget the use of her eye, and her former beauty, and, what is still more remarkable, and is particularly celebrated, as well in the Roman, as in other ancient Martyrologies, was, that when the holy virgin, bowing her head, kissed the dry wood of the feet of the altar, it immediately grew green, in token of her purity and sanctity. The story is told of her, that when she was a little child, playing at holy things, she got a smooth slab of stone which she tried to set up as a little altar; then a beautiful angel joined in her play, and made wooden legs to the altar, and bored four holes in the stone, into which the legs might be driven, so as to make it stand. S. Bridget having consecrated herself to God, built a cell for her abode, under a goodly oak, thence called Kil-dare or the Cell of the Oak; and this foundation grew into a large community, for a great number of virgins resorted to her, attracted by her sanctity, and put themselves under her direction. And so great was the reputation of her virtues, and the place of her abode was so renowned and frequented on her account, that the many buildings erected in the neighbourhood during her lifetime formed a large town, which was soon made the seat of a bishop, and in process of time, the metropolitan see of the whole province. What the rule embraced by S. Bridget was, is not known, but it appears from her history, that the habit which she received at her profession from S. Maccail was white. Afterwards, she herself gave a rule to her nuns; so that she is justly numbered among the founders of religious Orders. This rule was followed for a long time by the greatest part of the monasteries of sacred virgins in Ireland; all acknowledging our Saint as their mother and mistress, and the monastery of Kildare as the headquarters of their Order. Moreover, Cogitosus informs us, in his prologue to her life, that not only did she rule nuns, but also a large community of men, who lived in a separate monastery. This obliged the Saint to call to her aid out of his solitude, the holy bishop S. Conlaeth, to be the director and father to her monks; and at the same time to be the bishop of the city. The church of Kildare, to suit the requirements of the double monastery and the laity, was divided by partitions into three parts, Cogitosus says, one for the monks, one for the nuns, and the third for the lay people. As S. Bridget was obliged to go long journeys, the bishop ordained her coachman priest, and the story is told that one day as she and a favourite nun sat in the chariot, the coachman preached to them the Word of God, turning his head over his shoulder. Then said the abbess, " Turn round, that we may hear better, and throw down the reins." So he cast the reins over the front of the chariot, and addressed his discourse to them with his back to the horses. Then one of the horses slipped its neck from the yoke, and ran free; and so engrossed were Bridget and her companion in the sermon of the priestly charioteer, that they did not observe that the horse was loose, and the carriage running all on one side. On another occasion she was being driven over a common near the Liffey, when they came to a long hedge, for a man had enclosed a portion of the common. Then the man shouted to them to go round, and Bridget bade her charioteer so do. But he, thinking that they had a right of way across the newly made field, drove straight at the hedge ; then the proprietor of the field ran forward, and the horses started, and the jolt of the chariot threw S. Bridget and the coachman out of the vehicle, and severely bruised them both. Then the abbess, picking herself up said, " Better to have gone round; short cuts bring broken bones." Once a family came to Kildare, leaving their house and cattle unguarded, that they might attend a festival in the church, and receive advice from S. Bridget. Whilst they were absent, some thieves stole their cows, and drove them away. They had to pass the Liffey, which was much swollen, consequently the thieves stripped, and tied their clothes to the horns of the cattle, intending to drive the cows into the river, and swim after them. But the cows ran away, carrying off with them the clothes of the robbers attached to their horns, and they did not stop till they reached the gates of the convent of S. Bridget, the nude thieves racing after them. The holy abbess restored to them their garments, and severely reprimanded them for their attempted robbery. Other strange miracles are attributed to her, of which it is impossible to relate a tithe. She is said, after a shower of rain, to have come hastily into a chamber, and cast her wet cloak over a sunbeam, mistaking it, in her hurry, for a beam of wood. And the cloak remained there, and the ray of sun did not move, till late at night one of her maidens ran to her, to tell her that the sunbeam waited its release, so she hasted, and removed her cloak, and the ray retired after the long departed sun. Once a rustic, seeing a wolf run about in proximity to the palace, killed it; not knowing that it was the tame creature of the king; and he brought the dead beast to the king, expecting a reward. Then the prince in anger ordered the man to be cast into prison and executed. Now when Bridget heard this, her spirit was stirred within her, and mounting her chariot, she drove to the court, to intercede for the life of the poor countryman. And on the way, there came a wolf over the bog racing towards her, and it leaped into the chariot, and allowed her to caress it. Then, when she reached the palace, she went before the king, with the wolf at her side, and said, " Sire ! I have brought thee a better wolf than that thou hast lost, spare therefore the life of the poor man who unwittingly slew thy beast." Then the king accepted her present with great joy, and ordered the prisoner to be released. One evening she sat with sister Dara, a holy nun, who was blind, as the sun went down ; and they talked of the love of Jesus Christ, and the joys of Paradise. Now their hearts were so full, that the night fled away whilst they spoke together, and neither knew that so many hours had sped. Then the sun came up from behind Wicklow mountains, and the pure white light made the face of earth bright and gay. Then Bridget sighed, when she saw how lovely were earth and sky, and knew that Dara's eyes were closed to all this beauty. So she bowed her head and prayed, and extended her hand and signed the dark orbs of the gentle sister. Then the darkness passed away from them, and Dara saw the golden ball in the east, and all the trees and flowers glittering with dew in the morning light. She looked a little while, and then, turning to the abbess, said, " Close my eyes again, dear mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is seen less clearly to the soul." So Bridget prayed once more, and Dara's eyes grew dark again. A madman, who troubled all the neighbourhood, came one day across the path of the holy abbess. Bridget arrested him, and said, " Preach to me the Word of God, and go thy way." Then he stood still and said, " O Bridget, I obey thee. Love God, and all will love thee. Honour God, and all will honour thee. Fear God, and all will fear thee." Then with a howl he ran away. Was there ever a better sermon preached in fewer words. A very remarkable prophesy of the heresies and false doctrines of later years must not be omitted. One day Bridget fell asleep whilst a sermon was being preached by S. Patrick, and when the sermon was over, she awoke. Then the preacher asked her, " O Bridget, why didst thou sleep, when the Word of Christ was spoken ? " She fell on her knees and asked pardon, saying, " Spare me, spare me, my father, for I have had a dream." Then said Patrick, "Relate thy vision to me." And Bridget said, "Thy hand-maiden saw, and behold the land was ploughed far and wide, and sowers went forth in white raiment, and sowed good seed. And it sprang up a white and goodly harvest. Then came other ploughers in black, and sowers in black, and they hacked, and tore up, and destroyed that beauteous harvest, and strewed tares far and wide. And after that, I looked, and behold, the island was full of sheep and swine, and dogs and wolves, striving with one another and rending one another." Then said S. Patrick, "Alas, my daughter! in the latter days will come false teachers having false doctrine; who shall lead away many, and the good harvest which has sprung up from the Gospel seed we have sown will be trodden under foot; and there shall be controversies in the faith between the faithful and the bringers-in of strange doctrine." Now when the time of her departure drew nigh, Bridget called to her a dear pupil, named Darlugdach and foretold the day on which she should die. Then Darlugdach wept bitterly, and besought her mother to suffer her to die with her. But the blessed Bridget said, "Nay, my daughter, thou shalt live a whole year after my departure ; and then shalt thou follow me." And so it came to pass. Having received the sacred viaticum from the hands of S. Nennidh, the bishop, the holy abbess exchanged her mortal life for a happy immortality, on February 1st, 525.' Her body was 1 As near as can be ascertained; see Lanigan, Eccl. Hist, of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 455. interred in the church of Kildare; where her nuns for some ages, to honour her memory, kept a fire always burning ; from which that convent was called the House of Fire, till Henry of London, Archbishop of Dublin, to take away all occasion of superstition, in 1220, ordered it to be extinguished. The body of the Saint was afterwards translated to Down- Patrick, where it was found in a triple vault, together with the bodies of S. Patrick and S. Columba, in the year 1185. These bodies were, with great solemnity, translated the following year by the Pope's legate, accompanied by fifteen bishops, in presence of an immense number of the clergy, nobility, and people, to a more honourable place of the cathedral of Down ; where they were kept, with due honour, till the time of Henry VIII., when the monument was destroyed by Leonard, Lord Grey, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. S. Bridget's head was saved by some of the clergy, who carried it to Neustadt, in Austria; and from thence, in 1587, it was taken to the church of the Jesuits at Lisbon, to whom the Emperor Rudolf II. gave it. In art, S. Bridget is usually represented with her perpetual flame as a symbol; sometimes with a column of fire, said to have been seen above her head when she took the veil. - The Lives of the Saints., Sabine Baring-Gould, J.C. Nimmo, 1897, Vol.2,p.14. To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
- The Poems of Richard D'Alton Williams: "Shamrock" of "The Nation." Richard D'Alton Williams, P. A. Sillard, James Duffy and Co., ltd., 1894,p.264.
- Feona McLeod, (William Sharp) -From the hills of dream: threnodies, songs and later poems, by Fiona Macleod: threnodies, songs and later poems, by Fiona Macleod By William Sharp Published by , 1907 p.77. To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages Oh, Baby Christ, so dear to me, Sang Bridget Bride: Heavy her body was with thee, Sit on my knee, Sang Bridget
Bride: None, none, My Lord, my Prince, I sing : -From the hills of dream: threnodies, songs and later poems, by Fiona Macleod., Fiona Macleod/William Sharp, 1907 p.78 To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
HYMN TO ST. BRIGID Cloister Song.
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages I have heard many names of St. Briget, most beloved of Gaelic saints, with whom the month of February is identified . . . the month of " Bride min, gentle St. Bride "... Brighid boidheach Muime Chriosd, Bride the Beautiful, Christ's Foster Mother . . . but there are three so less common that many even of my readers familiar with the Highland West may not know them. These are " the Fair Woman of February," " St. Bride of the Kindly Fire," and "St. Bride (or Briget) of the Shores." They are of the Isles, and may be heard in some of the sgeu- lachdan gaidhealach, or Gaelic tales, still told among seafaring and hill folk, where the curse of cheap ignoble periodicals is unknown and books are rare. True, in several of the isles . . . Colonsay, Tiree, the Outer Hebrides ..." St. Bride of the Shores " is not infrequent in songs and seasonal hymns, for when her signals are seen along the grey beaches, on the sandy machars, by the meadow path, the glen-track, the white shore-road, the islanders know that the new year is disclosed at last, that food, warmth, and gladness are coming out of the south. As " the Fair Woman of February," though whatever other designation St. Bride goes by, she is often revealed. Her humble yellow fires are lit among the grasses, on the shore-ways, during this month. Everywhere in the Gaelic lands " Candlemas-Queen" is honoured at this time. Am Fheill Bhride, the Festival of St. Briget, was till recently a festival of joy throughout the west, from the Highland Line to the last weedy shores of Barra or the Lews: in the isles and in the remote Highlands, still is. It is an old tale, this association of St. Briget with February. It goes further back than the days of the monkish chroniclers who first attempted to put the disguise of verbal Christian raiment on the most widely-loved and revered beings of the ancient Gaelic pantheon. Long before the maiden Brigida (whether of Ireland or Scotland matters little) made her fame as a " daughter of God "; long before to Colum in lona or to Patrick "the great Cleric" in Ireland "Holy St. Bride" revealed in a vision the service she had done to Mary and the Child in far-away Bethlehem in the East; before ever the first bell of Christ was heard by startled Druids coming across the hills and forest lands of Gaul, the Gaels worshipped a Brighde or Bride, goddess of women, of fire, of poetry. When, to-day, a Gaelic islesman alludes to Briget of the Songs, or when a woman of South Uist prays to Good St. Bride to bless the empty cradle that is soon to be filled, or when a shennachie or teller of tales speaks of an oath taken by Briget of the Flame, they refer, though probably unconsciously, to a far older Brighid than do they who speak with loving familiarity of Muime Chriosd, Christ's Foster Mother, or Brighid - nam - Bratta, St. Bride of the Mantle. They refer to one who in the dim, far-off days of the forgotten pagan world of our ancestors was a noble and great goddess. They refer to one to whom the women of the Gael went with offerings and prayers, as went the women of ancient Hellas to the temples of Aphrodite, as went the Syrian women to the altars of Astarte, as went the women of Egypt to the milk-fed shrines of Isis. They refer to one whom the Druids held in honour as a torch bearer of the eternal light, a Daughter of the Morning, who held sunrise in one hand as a little yellow flame, and in the other held the red flower of fire without which men would be as the beasts who live in caves and holes, or as the dark Fomor who have their habitations in cloud and wind and the wilderness. They refer to one whom the bards and singers revered as mistress of their craft, she whose breath was a flame, and that flame song: she whose secret name was fire and whose inmost soul was radiant air, she therefore who was the divine impersonation of the divine thing she stood for, Poetry. " St. Bride of the Kindly Fire," of whom one may hear to-day as " oh, just Bhrighde m\n Muim (gentle St. Bride the Foster Mother), she herself an' no other," is she, that ancient goddess, whom our ancestors saw lighting the torches of sunrise on the brows of hills, or thrusting the quenchless flame above the horizons of the sea: whom the Druids hailed with hymns at the turn of the year, when, in the season we call February, the firstcomers of the advancing Spring are to be seen on the grey land or on the grey wave or by the grey shores: whom every poet, from the humblest wandering singer to Oisin of the Songs, from Oisin of the Songs to Angus £)g on the rainbow or to Midir of the Under-world, blessed, because of the flame she put in the heart of poets as well as the red life she put in the flame that springs from wood and peat. None forgot that she was the daughter of the ancient God of the Earth, but greater than he, because in him there was but earth and water, whereas in her veins ran the elements of air and fire. Was she not born at sunrise? On the day she reached womanhood did not the house wherein she dwelled become wrapped in a flame which consumed it not, though the crown of that flame licked the high unburn- ing roof of Heaven? In that hour when, her ancient divinity relinquished and she reborn a Christian saint, she took the white veil, did not a column of golden light rise from her head till no eyes could follow it ? In that moment when she died from earth, having taken mortality upon her so as to know a divine resurrection to a new and still more enduring Country of the Immortal, were there not wings of fire seen flashing along all the shores of the west and upon the summits of all Gaelic hills? And how could one forget that at any time she had but to bend above the dead, and her breath would quicken, and a pulse would come back into the still heart, and what was dust would arise and be once more glad. The Fair Woman of February is still loved, still revered. Few remember the last fading traditions of her ancient greatness: few, even, know that she lived before the coming of the Cross: but all love her, because of her service to Mary in Her travail and to the newborn Child, and because she looks with eyes of love into every cradle and puts the hand of peace on the troubled hearts of women: and all delight in her return to the world after the ninety days of the winter-sleep, when her heralds are manifest. What, then, are the insignia of St. Briget of the Shores? They are simple. They are the dandelion, the lamb, and the sea-bird, popularly called the oyster-opener. From time immemorial, this humble, familiar yellow plant of the wayside has been identified with St. Bride. To this day shepherds, on Am Fheill Bhrighde, are wont to hear among the mists the crying of innumerable young lambs, and this without the bleating of ewes, and so by that token know that Holy St. Bride has passed by, coming earthward with her flock of the countless lambs soon to be born on all the hillsides and pastures of the world. Fisherfolk on the shores of the west and on the far isles have gladdened at the first prolonged repetitive whistle of the oyster opener, for its advent means that the hosts of the good fish are moving towards the welcoming coasts once more, that the wind of the south is unloosened, that greenness will creep to the grass, that birds will seek the bushes, that song will come to them, and that everywhere a new gladness will be abroad. By these signs is St. Briget of the Shores known. One, perhaps, must live in the remote places, and where wind and cloud, rain and tempest, great tides and uprising floods are the common companions of day and night, in order to realise the joy with which things so simple are welcomed. To see the bright sunsweet face of the dandelion once more— an dealan Dhe, the little flame of God, am bearnan Bhrighde, St. Bride's forerunner — what a joy this is. It comes into the grass like a sunray. Often before the new green is in the blade it flaunts its bright laughter in the sere bent. It will lie in ditches and stare at the sun. It will climb broken walls, and lean from nooks and corners. It will come close to the sands and rocks, sometimes will even join company with the sea- pink, though it cannot find footing where later the bind-weed and the horned poppy, those children of the seawind who love to be near and yet shrink from the spray of the salt wave, defy wind and rain. It is worthier the name " Traveller's Joy" than the wild clematis of the autumnal hedgerows: for its bright yellow leaps at one from the roadside like a smile, and its homeliness is pleasant as the gladness of playing children. It is a herald of Spring that precedes even the first loud flute-like calls of the missel- thrush. When snow is still on the track of the three winds of the north it is, by the wayside, a glad companion. Soon it will be everywhere. Before long the milk-white sheen of the daisy and the moon-daisy, the green-gold of the tansy, the pale gold of the gorse and the broom, the yellow of the primrose and wild colchicum, of the cowslip and buttercup, of the copse-loving celandine and meadow-rejoicing crowsfoot, all these yellows of first spring will soon be abroad: but the dandelion comes first. I have known days when, after midwinter, one could go a mile and catch never a glimpse of this bright comrade of the ways, and then suddenly see one or two or three, and rejoice forthwith as though at the first blossom on the blackthorn, at the first wild-roses, at the first swallow, at the first thrilling bells of the cuckoo. We are so apt to lose the old delight in familiar humble things. So apt to ignore what is by the way, just because it is by the way. I recall a dour old lowland gardener in a loch-and-hill-set region of Argyll, who, having listened to exclamations of delight at a rainbow, muttered, " Weel, I juist think naethin ava' o' thon rainbows ... ye can see one whenever ye tak the trouble to look for them hereaboots." He saw them daily, or so frequently that for him all beauty and strangeness had faded from these sudden evanescent Children of Beauty. Beauty has only to be perceptible to give an immediate joy, and it is no paradoxical extravagance to say that one may receive the thrilling communication from " the little flame of God" by the homely roadside as well as from these leaning towers built of air and water which a mysterious alchemy reveals to us on the cloudy deserts of heaven. " Man is surprised," Emerson says, " to find that things near and familiar are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote." Certainly no Gaelic lover of St. Bride's Flower, of the Flower of February, but rejoices to see its welcome face after the snow and sleet of winter have first sullenly receded, if only for a time, and to know that St. Bride of the Shores wears it at her breast, and that when she throws it broadcast the world is become a green place again and the quickening sunlight a gladsome reality. In these desolate far isles where life is so hard, where the grey winds from the north and east prevail for weeks at a time on the grey tempestuous seas, and where so much depends on such small things—a little driftwood, a few heaps of peat, a few shoal of fish now of one kind now of another, a few cartloads of seaweed, a rejoicing sound is that in truth when the Gille-Bhride is heard crying along the shores. Who that has heard its rapid whirling cry as it darts from haunt to haunt but will recognise its own testimony to being " Servant of Breed " (the common pronunciation of the Gaelic Brighid or Bride) —for does it not cry over and over again with swift incessant iterance, Gilly - breed, gilly-breed, gilly-breed, gilly-breed, gilly- breed. "White may my milking be, White as thee; Thy face is white, thy neck is
white, Yellow may my butter be, Firm, and round: Briget Sweet! Safe, St. Bride: May my kye come home at even, St. Bride thou Keepest tryst with God in heav'n,
Far and wide— Briget, Bride!" When the first lambs appear, many are the invocations among the Irish and Hebridean Gaels to good St. Bride. At the hearth-side, too, the women, carding wool, knitting, telling tales, singing songs, dreaming — these know her whether they name her in thought, or have forgotten what was dear wisdom to their mothers of old. She leans over cradles, and when babies smile they have seen her face. When the cra'thull swings in the twilight, the slow rhythm, which is music in the mother's ear, is the quiet clapping of her hushing hands. St. Bride, too, loves the byres or the pastures when the kye are milked, though now she is no longer " the Woman of February," but simply " good St. Bride of the yellow hair."
-The Silence of Amor [and] Where the Forest Murmurs: ., William Sharp,Duffield, 1910, p. 132.
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
To go to the top of this page click here Click here for the Main St. Brigit Pages
|