THE
LIBRARY
Tales
and
Poems of Brigid=The Mary
of The Gael with other
Summary Accounts of Her Life
Image left anon from
1517
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O S. Brigits Countrey, Parents, Birth,
and many vertues and especially
of her charithy to the poore
Abridged 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.
.
Chapter III
One night the season being frosty and cold when all
had taken themselves
to their rest and were safe asleep, the holy virgin
went to a deepe poole,
wherin she stood all night long weeping and praying,
firmly purposing with
herself to observe the same custome every night but
our deare Saviour out
of the aboundance of his infinite mercy, would not
have her to continue
it any longer, for the next night following, she found
the poole dry without
any water, and comming to see it the next morning, she
saw it as full as
it was before- the same happened to her the second
night, which was a sufficient
reason that she forbore that austere exercise of
mortification.
2. Upon a time that some venerable Bishops came to
seek lodging at
her house she being unprovided of all provision, the
divine munificence
relieved her wants by miracle- for thrice in one day
did she milke one
cow that she had which yielded so much milke, as the
three best cowes would.
Another time a Dog did fawne upon her for meate, the
holy virgin, with
whom mercy grew even from her infancy, having nothing
but flesh, that was
boiling for some guests that were to come drew it out
of the pot, and gave
the doge a piece therof. When the flesh was laid upon
the table, it appeared
so entire as if nothing had been cut off, which
excited the beholders to
great admiration of the miracle, and verneration of
the Saint.
3. The blessed virgin laboured very earnestly to
reclaim nine men from
fulfilling their nefarious vow made of killing a man
in the kalendes of
July, yet for nothing that she could either say or do
would they relent
from their wicked design. Betaking her selfe therefore
to prayer for the
desparate wretches loe there appeared before their
eyes a figure resembling
to the ful the man whom they intended to kill who they
incontinently asayled
with their swords and lances and after as it were
insulting by way of triumph
over their slain enemy came back immediately to the
Saint with their weapons
all imbrued in blood, where learning the truth of the
matter they did pennance
for their cruel intent.
4. Upon a time that a certain farmer came with all his
family to celebrate
some soleme feast with Saint Briget he being there his
Cowes were stolen
away by thieves who in their way came to a river which
they found to swolne
up with water that they could not pass over, tying
therefore their garments
and armes to the cowes harness they made them enter
into the water but
they returning back with great violence came and ran
directly to Saint
Briget's abode and the men being starke naked
following them doing afterwards
pennance for their heinous act in the Saints
monastery.
5. The holy vergin being once benighted in a spacious
field in Meath,
declined to a certain poor woman's ouse with whom she
lodged all night,
and albeit the woman received her with great joy,
rendering God many thanks
for the happy and safe arrival of the most holy
virgin, hyet her poverty
was such that she wanted wherewithall to entertain so
worthy a guest but
nonetheless of reverence to theSaint she broke down a
frame she used to
weave in boyled therewith the calfe of one only cow
which she had. Supper
being ended, and after resting her self all night, the
next morning to
the end that the charitable woman should not sustain
any dammage or detriment,
by the entertainment or reflection of the Saint, she
found another calfe
like her owne with her cow and found likewise a
weaving frame in form and
greatness alike to her own that she had burnt.
Chapter IIII
When a certain person tormented with malignant spirit,
knew that he
was to be led to Saint Brigit he fell down to the
ground saying You shall
not carry me thither. Do you know said they where she
lives? Yes said he
and I will not go by any meanes. And when they could
not remove him from
the place, they sent for the saint intreating her to
come thither when
the Devil saw the sacred virgin comming a fear of
being terrifyed he departed
from the man out of their fright.
2. Another obsessed person who by reason of strange
fits of fury and
rage, wherewith he was vexed, bred great annoy and
trouble to many, was
brought to the Saint,to whome she sayd Preach to me
the word of our Savior
Jesus Christ and he answered. O most holy Virgin
Brigit, I am compelled
against my will to obey your comandment, saying Love
God then ,ad all men
will love thee: Honor God, and all men will honour
thee: fear God, and
all men will feare thee, this being said, the devil
fled away with a loud
cry.
3. As Saint Brigit sat at the table with a certin
vergin whom she had
invited, she saw a Devil sitting hard by her, the
other virgin said I would
fayne see him, if it were possible. It is not
impossible quoth Saint Brigit
but first sign your eyes, that they may be able to
sustaine his sight,
and contemplate his face: having signed her eyes, she
saw the enemy in
a most ugly and blacke shape, with a gterrible great
head,exhaling forth
at his nostrals smoke, and flames of fire. Speake to
us Devil, said Saint
Briget. To whom he answered, O most holy virgin , I
cannot speak to you,
neither yet can I contemne your comandments, since you
contemne not Godes
holy ordinances and are so affable to his poore and
little ones. Wherefore
camest thou hither? said the Blessed Virgin. I remaine
with this virgin,
said he and in regard of her slugishness , I have
gotten a place in her.
Behold then said she the holy vergin (turning to the
other virgin) whom
you have interrayned these many years? And from that
day forwards, the
virgin was delivered from the Devil.
4. There assembled together a great multitude of men
with oxen and
engines to draw a way a great tree, which was cut down
that was to be used
in some building but all in vaine for neither the
multitude of men the
strength of the oxen nor yet the variety of engines
could prevaile any
thing towards the removing thereof. The men were
almost ready to depatrt,
thinking it impossible to stir it out of its place at
last by the help
of the Saint Brigets prayers together with her
pregnant faith like to a
mustard seed by which faith as our Saviour sayth
Mountains are transfered
they carried away that three without the asistance of
any human help and
found no difficulty bringing it to the palce whither
the Saint appoined
them to carry it.
Of the obedience that unreasonable creatures exhibited
to Saint Briget
Chapter V.
One day as the Saint saw Ducks sometimes swimming in
the waters, and
other times flying in the air, she commanded them to
come to her. They
as if they had been trained up under hujan discipline,
flew in great haste
with prompt obedience to the Saint. The blessed virgin
touched them gently
and embrased them sweetly, which doing for a pritty
space permitted them
after to fly away. Another time a great whild bore
being pursued bvery
eaerly came in great haste to Saint Briget's heard of
swine she beholding
the boar among her swine gave him her blessing and he
remained familiar
and without any fear ever afterward her heard. By this
and the other precident
example it is clear and evident that the folwes of the
air and beasts of
the earth were subject to her command and obeyed her
will and pleasure
as we may further gather from these ensuing acidents.
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.
CHAP. VII
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.
CHAP VIII
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.
CHAP. IX
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.
CHAP X
The sacred virgin having run out the course of her
mortall dayes, in
the exercise of all kind of sanctimony, and innocency
of life, the time
of the resouletion of her terrene tabernacle drew
neere at hand, whose
desposition, as her selfe knew by revelation,
and foretould to one
of her virgins, were not farre off. The holy
virgin gave up her soule,
to her heavenly spouse about the yeare of our
redemption 518. Her
venerable body, was placed in a sumptuous monument of
gould, and silver,
adorned with jewells, and pretious stones, and was
first interred in her
owne monasterie at Kildare, together with the sacred
body of the holy Boishop
Conleath, afterwards it was translated (whereof we
have an authentical
record) to the citty of Dune in Ulster where it lyes
together with the
venerable bodies of S. Patriocke, and S. Columbe, the
other two glorious
patrons of Ireland. At Kildare and other places,
many mirracles have
been wrought by the merits of Saint Brigit, we
will content our selves
with the relation of some few, fearing to cloy the
Reader with too much
tediousnes.
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
Lesson 1: The holy Brigid, therefore, whom God
foreknew, and predestined to
eternal glory, was born of good and very prudent Irish
stock, offspring of
her father Dubhtach and her mother Brocca. From her
youth she grew up in
studies of the good things. For this maiden was chosen
by the Lord, and grew
always into the better things, being full of the
principles of sobriety and
modesty. And who is able to fully tell the story of
her deeds and wonders,
which she wrought even at this age? Yet for the sake
of example we have
taken care to set before you these few deeds from
amongst the innumerable.
When therefore she had come to maturity, she was sent
by her mother to the
work of milking, that from milking the cows butter
might be made from milk,
that just as other women usually laboured at this
task, she also might
accomplish it in equal measure. But Thou.
Lesson 2: And when at the appropriate time the other
women were making the
accustomed milking of the cows and the measured weight
of butter as
commanded, they yielded quite fully the amount of
butter customary for use,
but she, a virgin very beautiful and hospitable in her
conduct, wishing to
obey God rather than men, distributed the milk and
butter to the poor and
travellers, generously. And when according to custom
the right time came for
all to yield up the fruit of the cows, it was now her
turn. And once her
co-labouring maids had showed their completed work, it
was asked of the
aforesaid virgin that she also should show her share
of the work. And she,
anxious with fear of her mother, seeing she had
nothing she could show,
because she had bestowed it all upon the poor, she
(not obtaining a stay
till the next day), being steadfast and enkindled with
a great and
inextinguishable flame of faith, betaking herself to
the Lord, prayed.
Without delay, the Lord was with her, hearing the
virgin's voice and her
prayers (seeing that He is our helper in our
necessities) through the
generosity of His Divine gift. And He restored the
butter overflowingly to
His virgin trusting in Him. But Thou.
Lesson 3: And behold, not long afterwards, when her
parents wished to
betrothe her to a husband after the way of men, she
--being inspired from
heaven--wishing to show herself a chaste virgin to
God, made her way to the
most holy Bishop Machille of blessed memory. Seeing
her heavenly desire and
purity, and the love of such chastity in the virgin,
he placed upon her
venerable head a white veil and a shining white
garment. She humbly bowing
her knees before God and the Bishop and the altar, and
offering her virginal
crown unto the almighty Lord, touched with her hand
the wooden base
wherewith the altar was upheld, which wood, in
remembrance of its pristine
powers, sprouted forth with greenery (as it does even
to the present day),
becoming green, as if it had not been cut and planed,
but as if it were
fixed in place by its roots. And even until this day,
it driveth sickness
and diseases from many of the faithful. And who is
able to count up the
diverse multitudes and numberless peoples from all
provinces of Ireland that
flowed together to her? They came together for the
solemn feast of the
nativity of the holy Brigid, some because of the
abundance of the banquets,
others because of their healings from their diseases,
others coming together
with great gifts and donations. For that is when she,
on the kalends of the
month of February, cast off the heaviness of the
flesh, falling asleep in
security, and when she followed after the Lamb of God
into the mansions of
heaven. But Thou.
From the Matins lessons of the Sarum Breviary,
St. Hilarion Press
(The Sarum rite is used within parts of the Russian
Orthodox Church Outside
of Russia and of the Milan Synod
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.
I would wish vessels full of alms
to be giving
away; I would wish ridges of mercy for
peacemaking.
I would wish joy to be in their
drinking;I would wish
Jesus to be here among them.
I would wish the three Marys of
great name;
I would wish the people of Heaven
from every side.
I would wish to be a rent-payer to
the Prince; the way
if I was in trouble he would give me a good
blessing.
Whatever, now, Brigit would ask of the Lord, he would
give it to
her on the moment And it is what her desire was, to
satisfy the poor, to
banish every hardship, and to save every sorrowful
man.
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.
"May Brigit save us beyond troups of demons;
"May she break before us the battles of every death.
"May she do away with the rent sin has put on us; the
blossomed branch;
the Mother of Jesus; the dear young woman greatly
looked up to. That I
may be safe in every place with my saint of Leinster.
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
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!
Lasair dhealraich oir,muime
Radiant flame of gold, foster-mother
chorr Criosda.
over Christ.
Bride nighinn Dughaill duinn,
Bride the daughter of Dougall the brown,
Mhic Aoidh, mhic Airt,mhic Cuinn,
Son of Aoidh, son of Airt, son of Cuinn,
Mhic Crearair, mhic Cis, mhic
Son of Crearair, son of Cis, son of Carmaig,
mhic Carruinn.
son of Carruinn.
Gach la agus gach oidhche
Each day and each night
Ni mi sloinntireachd air Bride,
I will say the genealogy of Bride,
Cha mharbhar mi,cha spuillear mi,
I will not be killed,I will not be harried,
Cha charcar mi,cha chiurar mi,
I will not be put in cell,I will not be wounded,
Cha mhu dh'fhagas Chriosd an dearmad mi.
Neither will Christ leave me in forgetfullness
Cha loisg teine,grian, no gealach mi,
No fire,no sun, no moon will burn me
Cha bhath luin, no sala mi.
No lake, no water, no sea shall drown me,
Cha reub saighid sithich,no sibhich mi,
No dart of fairy nor arrow of fay will wound me,
Is mi fo chomaraig mo naomh Muire
And I under the protection of my holy mother Mary,
Is i fo chaomh mhuime Bride
And her under her foster-mother Bride.
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)
P.35. Kalendis FebruarII 1.
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.
When Moling was returning from the king of Erinn after
obtaining the
remission of he Borumha(the tribute of oxen) from
Fionnachta, king of Erinn,
the people of the king were seized with regret, and
they followed him to
kill him. When Moling saw this he had recourse to the
protection of the
saints, and he implored Brighit first, and said: O
Brighit, bless our path,
etc...
A very ancient old book of vellum, in which is found
the Martyrology
of Maelruain of Tamhlach and the saints of the same
name, and the names
of many of the mothers of the saints, states that
Brighit was following
the manners and the life which the holy Mary,mother of
Jesus had.
It was this Brighit, 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 constantly thinking of Him,
as evident in her
own life, and also in the life of Saint Brenainn,
bishop of Cluain-fearta.
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 Coindeire states
in the poem whose
beginning is, Patrick of the fort of Macha loved,
etc.. Thus he says:---
The blessed Brighit loved Constant piety, which was
not prescribed:
Sheep-Herding and early rising Hospitality towards men
of virtues. She
spent indeed 74 years diligently serving the Lord,
performing signs and
miracles, curing every disease, and sickness in
general as evident in her
own life, until she yielded her spirit, after having
completed seventy-four
years as we have said before, A.D. 525, ( A.D. 525.
The more recent hand
has corrected this date to 522, adding in the margin
this note: ex. Ii.
Binarlo numero fecit quinariam literam transcriptoris
error; i.e., the
transcriber mistook xxii for xxxv) and she was buried
at D/un in one tomb
with Patrick, where Colum Cille was afterwards
interred. The life of Ciaran
of Cluain states, chapt. 47, that the Order of Brighit
was one of the eight
Orders that were in Erinn.
Another Version:
1.
I). KALENDIS FEBRUARII. 1.
BRÎGHIT, Virgin, abbess of C'ill-dara. She was of
the race of
Eochaidh Finnfuathairt, son of Feidhlimidli
Reachtmhar, son of
Tuathal Teachtmliar, monarch of Eriim. Broiccseach,
daughter
of Dallbronach, son of Aedh Meamhair, was lier
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 Brogan to put them into
poetry, as is
evident in the Book of Hymns, i.e., "The victorious1
Brighit
did not love," &c.
When Moling was returning from the king of Erinn,
after
obtaining the remission of the Borumha2 from
Fionnachta, king
of Erinn, the people of the king were seized with
regret, and
they followed him to kill him. When Moling saw this
he had
recourse to the protection of the saints, and he
implored Brighit
first, and said : " 0 Brighit, bless our path,"
&c.
A very ancient old book of vellum, in which is found
the
Martyrology of Maelruain of Tamhlacht and the saints
of the
same name, and the names of many of the mothers of
the saints,
states that Brighit was following the manners and
the life
which the holy Mary, mother of Jesus had.
It was this Brighit, 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
constantly thinking
of Him, as is evident in her own life, and also in
the life of
Saint Brenainn, bishop of Cluain-fearta. 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
Coindeire states in
1 The Victorious. This is the first
line of thi- metrical Life of St. Brigid, published
from
tin- Book of Hymns, by Colgan., p. 515. (T.)
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
loved," &c. Thus he says :— "
The blessed Brighit loved
Constant piety, which was not prescribed ;
Sheep-herding and early rising—
Hospitality towards men of virtues."
She spent indeed 74 years diligently serving the
Lord, performing
signs and miracles, curing every disease, and
sickness in
general, as is evident in her own life, until she
yielded her
spirit, after having completed seventy-four years,
as we have
said before, A.D. 525,1 and she was buried at Dun,
in one tomb
with Patrick, where Coluin Cille was afterwards
interred. The
life of Ciaran of Cluain states, chap. 47, that the
Order of Brighit
was [one] of the eight Orders that were in Erinn.
- The Martyrology
of Donegal, A CALENDAR OF THE SAINTS OF IRELAND, , Trans: John O'Donovan,1864
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
Patricius, Brigida, atque Columba
Pius."
Thus rendered into English rhythm :—
" 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,
Carolus Plummer,Bruxelles,Societe Des
Bollandists,1925
p.181
11. Brigit, abbess of Cell Dara, Feb. 1. First Irish
Life.
MSS.
1.L.Br., pp.61-66
2. Book of Lismore,ff 11-17.
Paris, ff 76-81.
4. O'Cleary 1, ff 24-30. (A later heading notes that
the Life is imperfect:
Betha Brighde gan beth criochnuigthe.) 5. O'Clearyu 2,
ff. 6-30. This is
headed:"A small fragment of the Life and Miracles of
St. Brigit; the first
part of the Life was copied from the Book of Brian
O'Naillgusa, and the
remainder from the vellum book written by the
community of Cianan" (i.e.
Duleek). It omits the Latin text,but the Irish incipit
is the same as in
the other MSS. Expl. a llo mordala bratha, "in the day
of the great asize
of dooom", It is evidently a conflate Life.
2 and 3 are a longer recension than 1.
Edd. By Whitley Stokes from 1 in Three Middle-Irish
Homililies,Calacutta,
1877. By the same from 2 in Lismore Lives of Saints,
pp.34-53. 182-200.
Inc. Hic sunt qui sequuntur Annum. Exlp.. a l. Ailiom
trocaire 7c
12. Second Irish Life.
MS 1 Rawl. B 512, ff. 31-36
Imperfect at beginning:...miracula uulgata sunt. Laae
nand isuidiu
luid in Broiscech do bleogan. Expl.Vita: pluuiam et
uentum sedauit, f.
35. Then follows an appendix of anecdotes almost
idendical with those in
the notes to Broccan's Hymn: "Ni car Brigit", Liber
Hymnorum,i. 112ff.;
Thes.ii.327. The Life is a mixture of Latin and Irish,
lthe Irish prevailing.
Considerable extracts from it are quoted by Stokes in
Lismore Lives, pp319-331.
13. Third Irish Life.
MSS
1. Kings' Inns, Dublin, No. 19,pp.493-514.
2.R.I.A. Hodges and Smith No. 168, f. 116 v.
3. ib. ib. No 12,pp.479-505.
After a preface stating that it was taken from
Capgrave's abridgement
of Cogitosus, Inc. Ase. ionad a rugad an oig
bennaigthi glomar, Brigid,
a bFochard. Expl. mar a ttr`eorchaidh Dia l`e a
ghr`assibh dochriochnuighthe
sinn uile; cf Capgrave, Ed. Horstman,i. 153-9; for
Cogitosus, cf. Trias
Thaum., pp.518-26.
Shorter Tracts and Anecdotes:
86.Brigit
Stories of, appended to the second Irish life;above
No. 12. These stories
are stated to be from another source from that from
which the Life itself
was derived: slicht sain inso budesta.
MS 1 Rawl. B. 512, ff. 36-6
a. The King of Leinster's Brooch; cf. Lib. Hymn. i.
123; Thes.ii 345.
Inc. Delg dorat ri Laigen a ngill.
b. The ingot of silver; cf. L.H. i. 124; Thes. ii.
346. Inc. triar
brathar dia tart a nathir tinni argait.
c. the three"huynger-men"; cf. L.H. i. 125; Thes. ii.
347. Inc. Triar
trenfer ro batar oc denum cluid.
d. Water turned into mead; cf. L.H. i 125; Thes. ii.
347. Ed. by Whitley
Stokes, Lismore Lives, p. 331. Inc. Lind ro dlecht ri
Laigen.
e. Brigit and her craftsman bp. Condla(Conlaed), of
cell dara, Man
3. Cf.L.H. i 125; Thes.ii.456-7; also in notes to
F/eire,F/el. p.LXXIII;F/el.p.128.
Inc. Condla,ceerd Brigte ro triall du Ruaim.
f. Brigit, Brendan, and the sea-monsters, and the cowl
hung on a sunbeam;
i cf. L.H. i 118, Thes. ii. 335-6; cf. supra No.83.
Inc. Brenaind in mara,
secht mbliadna d/o for ler. Brigit, Short stgories of.
BR> The young clerk who had lost his confessor.
MSS
1.LL.283-4
2. Liber Flau. Ferg. vol. I.Part Iv, f. 6; cf
Gwynn,L.F.F. p.28.
Inc. Mac clerech do muntir Ferna M/oire.
b. The leper who asked for the best cow and the best
calf. Cf. Cogitosus,
16
MS 1 Edinb. Aadv. Libr. XXVI f 2 Inc. Clamh taing co
Brigidh do chungi
b/bo fuirraidh.
c. Effacy of Brigit's prayers.
MSS. 1. R.I.A. Book of Lecan. f. 166.
2. King's Inns, Dublin, No.14, f.3. d. Brigit and her
mother's sister,
Fainche. MS. 1 L.L. p.367, top margin.
Ed. Whitley Stokes, Lismore Lives p. 335. Inc.
F....siur mathar Brigthe,...bai
dano F. i nambriti.
88. Brigit
Story of three of her monks and the poison.
Preface to Ultan' s Hymn: Briugit B/e bith-maith, Lib.
Hymn. i. 107-8;
Tghes. ii. 323-4.
Hymns From the Liber Hymnorum
202. Ultan, bp., of Ard Brecain, Sept. 4 Hyumn in
honour of Brigit
-attributed in the Preface also to Broccan Claen, cf.
Mart. Don p. 236,
to Colum Cille, three of Brigit's monks, and to
Brendan.- EDD. Liber Hymn.
i 107-1111; Thes. ii. 323-6. Inc. Brigit bithmaith.
203. Broccan Claen. Hymn to Brigit. Edd. Lib. Hymn. i.
112=127; Thes.
ii. 327349. Inc. Ni c Brigit buadach bith.
Latin Lives of Irish Saints
Brigida, abbatissa de Cill dara, Feb 1.
I have little to add to the Catalogue in B.H.L.
i.217-8, except that
the Life in R. f. 62 R. f. 184 is identical with
Colgan Vita Tertia, Trias
Thaum pp.327-42, -B.H.L. No.1456-, ending with
Colgan's c 120, which is
somewhat differently phrased.Expl. quaod ut ipse
uidit, mox penetentiam
egit, et cum suis solutus, et puellam uirginitatem
suam. Deo seruare permisit.
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
IV. Cell-Dara (Kildare) and St. Brigit
147. Life of Brigit by Cogitosus s VII Prologue-
Cogitis me, fratres,
ut sanctae et beatae memoriae Brfigidae...Vita- Sancta
itaque Brigida,quan
Deus praescivit...veniam peto a fratibus et lectoribus
haec legentibus...Orate
pro me Cogitoso nepote culpabilli haedo..pacem
evangelicam sectantes exaudiat.
MSS; Very numerous: see the lists, whti descriptive
matter given by
Esposito op. Cit. Infra; also Bibl. Hag. Lat of the
Bollandists I 217.
Almost all of the codices are large collections of
vitae sanctorum-- in
which the Life of Brigit forms one--from continental
monastaries. None
is of Irish origin . Eds: Bonimus Mombritius
Sanctuarium seu Vitae sanctorum
-Milan c. 1480- I ff. 144-46; and ed. (Paris 1910) I
257-61, cf. Pp. X,633
(abridgment.) --Canisius Antiquae lectionis
(Ingolstadt 1604) Vii 623-41;
and ed by basnage (Antwerp-Amsterdam 1725) I
413-24--Surius De probatis
sanctorum historiis (4th ed Cologne 1618) II
21-25--Messingham Florilegium
(Paris 1624) 189-200 (text of Canisius), --Colgan Tr.
Thaum 518-26.--AA.SS.
Boll. Feb. I (1685)135-41 (best ed.) .--Migne PL LXXII
775-90 reprint of
Basnage). Comm: Trans RIA XX 195-205.--Mario Esposito
On the Earliest Latin
Life of St. Brigid of Kildare Proc. RIA XXX C (1912)
307-26 (a valuable
study).
148. Brocc/ans Hymn Ni car Brigit Ni car Brigit
buadach bith...fora
f/oessam d/un linaib. 53 stanzas; the original ending
was at he 47th.,
with a repetition of the opening words. (Antiphon)
Sanctae Brigtae uirgo
sacratissima in Christo domino fuid fidelissima Amen.
MSS : LH (T)ff. 17-9.--Lh(F)pp.39-42. Eds: Colgan Tr.
Thaum. 515-20
(with Lat. Trans.).--WS Goidilica (Calacutta 1866);
and ed Goidelica (London
1872) I (1880) 25-49, 322-4 (text, with illustrative
extracts from Cogitosus
and the LBr Life).--LH (1898) 112-28, II pp. I-IV
40-46, 189-205,(text,
trans, notes).--Thes. Pal. II (1903) pp. XXXVIII sq,
327-49 (collated text,
trans.).
149. Poem in praise of Brigit- Brigit
b/uadach...bethad be/o. 2 stanzas
probably incomplete.
Mss: LL p. 38; BB;TCD 1308 (H. 212 no.8). Quotation in
the treatise
on versification having the title Do aistib ind
aircetail I coitchinn indso.
Eds: RTh IT III (1891) 71--KM Bruchstucke der altern
Lyrik Irlands, Ahhandl.d.preuss.
Akd. D. Wissensch. 1919 phil. Hist. Kl.vii (verlin
1919) 23 no. Li (with
erm. Trans).
150. List of tnuns of Brigit
Brigitae sanctae subiectae erant omnes hae virgines
sanctae, quarum
ioca et nomina enumer abinus Cainer ingen
Chruthech/ain...Cellan I n-Achud
Aeda
MS: LL 353 col. 2 Ed: Lis. Lives 336. A list of nuns
subject to Briget
151. Later lives of Brigit in Latin: Life in verse
attributed to Chillienus
or Coelan MS: Monte Cassino 283 s X. Eds: Colgan Tr.
Thaum 582-99--AA/SS.
Boll. Feb I 141-55.--Bandinius Bibl. Leopoldina
Laurentiana I 567-8 (prologue
by Donatus). Cf. Boll Bibl hagiographica latina nos
1458,1459, and Supplementium;
Margaret Stokes Six months in the Apenines (London
1892) 237-8 (trans of
prologue by Donatus).
ii Life attributed to animosus, or Anmchad
Eds: Colgan Tr. Thaum. 546-67-AA.SS Boll. Feb 1
155-71.
iii Colgans Third Life
MSS: Cabrai Bibl. Communale 857.--Bodl Rawl. B 485 f
62; Rawal. B.
505 f 184 Eds: Colgan Tr. Thaum 527-42 --AA/SS Boll.
Feb I 118-34 Epitome:
Nova Legenda Anglie ff. 48-50; ed Horstman (1901) I
153-60-- Surius De
probatis sanctorum historiis I ( Cologne 1570) 782-5;
3rd ed. (1618) II
19-20; new ed (1875) II 42-7,--Messingham Florilegium
(1624) 206 sqq. iv
Life by Laurence of Durham 152 Lives of Brigit in
Irish MS: Bodl. Rawl.
B.512 ff 31-6 (ED: Lis Lives 319-31 (extracts). MS:
Brussels Bibbl. Roy.
5100-4 p. 33. ED: OCMs Mat. 616(With trans)-devotional
poem.
154 Dialogue between Patrick and Brigit
MSS: Brussels Bibl. Roy. 5100-4 p. 48--Vat. Palatin
830 f. 148 (2 quats).
EDS Z 961 96x (from Vat.Ms.)-WS Zx. F. Vergl.
Sprachf.XXXI (1890) 252-3
(with trans)--B. MacCarthy Codex Palatino-Vaticanus
830 (RIA Todd Lect.
Sr.III )(Dublin1892) 20 (Vat. Text).-poems ascribed to
Moling.
155 Later Hymns in honor of Brigit
MS: LH (T) f. 32 (the MS is of the 11th cent., but
this hymn has beeen
added in a lagter hand). EDS: Dreves An . hyumn XIX 98
(cf. Ibid. LI 320).--LH
1898) I 161,II 223. Watch this space as more of the
tales of Brigit are
gathered.
"The
Giveaway"
(from The Love Letters of Phyllis Mcginley, New York,
Viking
Press, 1957)
Saint Bridget was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Bridget drove
The family mad.
For here's the fault in Bridget lay:
She Would give everything away.
To any soul
Whose luck was out
She'd give her bowl
Of stir about;
She'd give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She'd borrow from a relative.
Her father's gold,
Her grandsire's dinner,
She'd hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's.
She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little niece-
's christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.
An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.
Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There's no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
WHO had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Bridget? Or her near and
dear?
Brigit the fair, strong, praiseworthy, chaste head of
Erin's nuns.
Brigit the fair, Virgin, Abbess, daughter of Dubthach
son of Demre, son of Bresal, son of Connla, son of Art
Corp, son of Cairbre Nia, son of Cormac,
son of Oengus the Dumb, son of Eochaid Find
Fuathnairt, son of Feidlimid Rechtmad.
The white-one from Liffey of the slopes, daughter of
Dubthach of Druim derg: tomorrow she goes quickly, so
that from her hand is Patrick's bequest.
Brigit's three eighths, to wit, her birth on the
eighth (of the month), her veil on the eighteenth, her
death on the twenty-eighth.
Eight Bishops came to Brigit out of Hui Briuin
Cualann, i.e. from Telach na n-epscop to Loch
Lemnachta beside Kildare on the north. Brigit asked
her
cook, Blathnait, whether she had food for the Bishops.
She said she did not. Brigit was ashamed: so the angel
told her to milk the cows again. The
cows were milked and they filled the tubs, and they
would have filled all the vessels in Leinster, so that
the milk went over the vessels and made a
lake thereof, so Loch Lemnachta is called 'New-milk
Lough'.
A robber came to Dubthach, who took a joint out of the
caldron for him, and he made five pieces thereof, and
gave them to Brigit to keep. But a
wretched hound came to her, and she gave it the five
pieces out of the caldron,and the five pieces were
then found in the caldron. That was told to
Dubthach, and then he gave to her and to God the land,
to wit, the site of an oratory in Tuath da Maige.
A young cleric of the community of Ferns, a foster-son
of Brigit's, used to come to her with wishes. He was
with her in the refectory, to partake of food.
Once after coming to Communion she strikes a clapper.
"Well, young cleric there," says Brigit, "hast thou a
soulfriend?" "I have," replied the young
cleric. "Let us sing his requiem," says Brigit, "for
he has died. I saw when half thy portion had gone,
that thy quota was put into thy trunk, and tho
without any head on thee, for thy soulfriend died, and
anyone without a soulfriend is a body without a head;
and eat no more till thou gettest a
soulfriend."
Amra Plea a convent of Brigit's which is on the brink
of the sea of Wight, or the Tyrrhene (sea), and its
Rule is that of Brigit's community. It happened
in this manner: Brigit despatched seven persons to
learn the Rule of Peter and Paul, for God did not
determine that she should go. And they brought
not the Rule. So she sent eastward a third time,
together with her blind boy, for everything he used to
hear he remembered. When they reached the
sea of Wight, a storm fell upon them, so they let down
their anchor, which stuck on the peak of the oratory.
They cast a lot among themselve as to
who was going down, and it fell to the blind (boy). He
loosed the anchor, and remained there to the end of a
year, learning the Rule, till the rest of
the party came to him from Rome, and a storm fell upon
them again in the same place, so they let down an
anchor,and the blind boy came up from
below with the Rule of Plea and with a beautiful bell,
and it is the Rule of Plea that abides today.
Now Brigit was fain to have the orders of penitence
conferred upon her; so she went to Bri Eile,
accompanied by seven nuns, since she had heard that
Bishop Mel was there. When they arrived, Bishop Mel
was not there, but had gone into the district of the
Hui Neill. So she fared forth on the morrow
with Mac caille before her as a guide to Moin
Faithnig. Brigit wrought so that the bog became a
smooth flowery plain for them. When they drew nigh
the place wherein Bishop Mel was biding Brigit told
Mac caille that she would take a veil on her head so
that she might not come unveiled to the
clerics; and that may be the veil that is commemorated
here. Now after reaching the clerics a fiery column
flamed from her head to the ridge of the
church. Said Mac caille: "This is the famous nun of
Leinster, even Brigit." "My welcome to her," quoth
Bishop Mel: "'Tis I," quoth he, "that prophesied
her in her mother's womb, and 'tis I that will confer
the orders upon her."
Once upon a time Bishop Mel came to Dubthach's house
and saw Dubthach's wife in grief. So the Bishop asked,
"What is the matter with the
woman?" "Cause of grief I have," she says, "for dearer
than I am to Dubthach is the bondmaid who is washing
you." "Thou hast good reason, " says
Bishop Mel, "for thy seed will serve the seed of the
bondmaid."
"Why have the nuns come?" asked Bishop Mel. "To have
the orders of penitence conferred on Brigit," says Mac
caille. Thereafter the orders were
read out over Brigit, and Bishop Mel bewtowed
Episcopal orders upon her, and it is then that Mac
caille set a veil on (her) head. Hence Brigit's
successor is entitled to have Episcopal orders
conferred upon her. [These are the orders of Abbess,
with the power of jurisdiction over her own nuns
and also over her churches and lands, but not
Sacramental which would allow her to give Communion.
No deacons, priests or bishops are recorded to
have been ordained by her nor does any Bishop claim
succession through her or her successors.]
Beloved and little the month of dear February, which
comprises for us those festivals,
Brigit's festival... Finntains's festival which I have
chosen.
Save great Mary, good her fame, Mother of the Lord
Jesus,
none under heaven has been found more wondrous than
bright-white Brigit.
The dandelion lights its
spark Lest Brigid find the wayside
dark. And Brother Wind comes
rollicking For joy that she has brought
the spring. Young lambs and little furry
folk Seek shelter underneath her
cloak.
-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.”
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.
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.
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
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
'Neath
rainbow skies, by tinkling rivulet's brink,
O
Brigid, young, thy tender, snow-white feet
In
days of old on breezy morns and eves
Wandered
through labyrinths of sun and shade,
Thy
face so innocent-sweet
Shining
with love that neither joys nor grieves
Save
as the angels, meek and holy maid !
With
white fire in thy hand that burned no man,
But
cleansed and warmed where'er its ray might call,
Nor
ever wasted low, or needed fan,
Thou
walk'dst at eve among the oak-trees tall.
There
thou didst chant thy vespers, while each star
Grew
brighter listening through the leafy screen.
Then
ceased the song-bird all his love-notes soft,
His
music near or far,
Hushing
his passion 'mid the sombre green
To
let thy peaceful whispers float aloft.
And
still from heavenly choirs thou steal'st by
night
To tell sweet Aves in the woods unseen,
To
tend the shrine-lamps with thy flambeau white
And set thy tender footprints in the green.
Thus
sing our birds with holy note and pure,
As though the loves of angels were their theme;
Thus
burn to throbbing flame our sacred fires
With
heats that still endure ;
Thence hath our daffodil its golden gleam,
From thy dear mindfulness that never tires !
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.
She
looked not on the face of man :
Nor husband hers, nor brother :
But
where she passed the children ran
And hailed that Maid their mother !
In
haste she fled soft mead and grove,
For
Virtue's region hilly:
They called her, 'mid the birds, the Dove,
Among
the flowers, the Lily.
In
woods of Oriel—Leix's vales—
Her convent homes she planted ;
And
Erin's cloistered nightingales
Their nocturns darkling chanted.
By
many a Scottish moorland wide,
By
many an English river,
Men
loved of old their ' good Saint Bride ;'
But
Erin loves for ever !
A
sword went forth : thy fanes they burn'd!
Sweet
Saint, no angers fret thee !—
There
are that ne'er thy grace have spurn'd :
There
are that ne'er forget thee !
Thus
sang they while the autumnal glade
Exchanged green leaf for golden ;
And
later griefs were lighter made
By thought of glories olden.
-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, 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.
Yellow,
yellow hair:
Paul said, and Peter said,
And all the saints alive or dead
Vowed she had the sweetest head,
Bonnie, sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow,
yellow hair.
White
may my milking be,
White
as thee:
Thy
face is white, thy neck is white,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shining bright—
O
dear to me,
O
dear to see
St.
Bridget white!
Yellow
may my butter be,
Firm,
and round : Thy breasts are sweet,
Firm,
round and sweet,
So
may my butter be :
So
may my butter be O
Bridget
sweet!
Safe
thy way is, safe, O
Safe,
St. Bride :
May
my kye come home at even,
None be fallin', none be leavin',
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here,
as there, where O
St.
Bride thou
Keepest
tryst with God in heav'n,
Seest the angels bow
And souls be shriven—
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even
Far
and wide—
Singeth thy little maid
Safe in thy shade
Bridget,
Bride!
-
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
Sang
Bridget Bride:
How sweet thou art,
My baby dear,
Heart of my heart!
Heavy her
body was with thee,
Mary, beloved of One in Three, Sang Bridget Bride—
Mary, who bore thee, little lad:
But light her heart was, light and glad
With God's love clad.
Sit on my
knee, Sang Bridget Bride:
Sit here
O Baby dear, Close to my heart, my heart :
For I thy foster-mother am,
My helpless lamb!
O have no fear, Sang good St. Bride.
None,
none,
No fear have I:
So let me cling
Close to thy side
While thou dost sing,
O Bridget Bride!
My Lord,
my Prince, I sing :
My Baby dear, my King !
Sang Bridget Bride.
-From
the hills of dream: threnodies, songs and later
poems, by Fiona Macleod., Fiona
Macleod/William Sharp, 1907
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,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shining bright—
O dear to me,
O dear to see,
St. Briget White!
Yellow
may my butter be,
Firm, and
round:
Thy breasts are sweet.
Firm, round, and sweet,
So may my butter be:
So may my butter be, O
Briget Sweet!
Safe thy way is, safe, O
Safe, St.
Bride:
May my
kye come home at even,
None be fallin', none be leavin',
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here, as there, where O
St. Bride
thou
Keepest
tryst with God in heav'n,
Seest the angels bow
And souls be shriven—
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even
Far and
wide—
Singeth thy little maid
Safe in thy shade
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.
Brigida
Thaumaturga 1620David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory (1568-1650)
Brigida Thaumaturga
sive Dissertatio partim encomiastica in
laudem ipsius sanctae, partim archaica, ex sacra
et antiqua historia
ecclesiastica, partim etiam parenetica ad alumnos
Collegiorum, in qua
elucidatur prodigium ligni aridi reviriscantis ex
attractu B. Brigidae
Virginis, et symbolico sensu accommodatur ad
antiquam quod intercesserat
commercium inter Galliam et Hiberniam in rebus
sacris, literariis, et
civilibus, habita in Collegio Hibernorum
Parisiense, Kalendis Februarii, die
festo ejusdem sanctae. Parisiis apud Sebastianum
Cramois sub ciconiis, via
Jacobaea. M.D.C.XX.'
BRIGIDA
THAUMATURGA
IN
the Mazarin Library in Paris is
to be found a copy of a work entitled Brigida
Thaumaturga, printed
and published in Paris A.D. 1620. This work is now
so rare that a short account
of it may not be uninteresting to the clients of St.
Brigid, Patroness of
Ireland, in the twentieth century. Its author is the
Most Rev. David Rothe,
Bishop of Ossory. That distinguished man, eminent as
a bishop, as a patriot,
and a scholar, was born in Kilkenny in 1568. Having
received his early
education in his native city, he proceeded to the
Continent, where he made his
studies in philosophy and theology at Douai, and
subsequently at Salamanca.
Having obtained the degree of Doctor of Theology at
the famous University of
Salamanca, David Rothe visited Rome, whence he
returned to Ireland in 1610,
with rank of Apostolic Protonotary, and with a
commission from the Holy See to
labour for the restoration of fraternal union
amongst the clergy of Ireland.
The success with which he fulfilled his mission was
the prelude of still higher
honours. In 1614 Dr. Rothe was appointed Bishop of
Ossory, and received
episcopal consecration in Paris. Returning to
Ireland he applied himself with
zeal to his Episcopal functions; and on behalf of
Primate Lombard, then
resident in Rome, he held diocesan synods in the
diocese of Armagh in 1614, and
again in 1618.
But
the numerous duties of his
episcopal office were not enough to satisfy the zeal
of Dr. Rothe. His moments
of leisure he devoted to literary work, and in 1617
he published the first part
of a valuable work entitled Analecta Sacra,
in which he placed on
record, with the authority of a contemporary
witness, the constancy of Irishmen
who suffered persecution for the faith in the reigns
of Elizabeth and James I.
of England. The concluding part of that valuable
work was published in 1619.
The entire work was reprinted with an introductory
notice in 1884, by an
eminent successor of the author. Dr. Moran, Bishop
of Ossory, subsequently
Cardinal-Archbishop of Sydney, whose memory will
long survive as a great Irish
scholar, and a great Irish churchman.
While
Dr. Rothe was thus engaged the
persecution of Irish Catholics became more violent.
The Lord-Deputy, Sir Oliver
St. John, issued an edict ordering the banishment of
priests and bishops. With
the object of discovering such persons, the houses
of the Catholic gentry were
frequently searched. Dr. Rothe judged it prudent to
withdraw before the storm
for a time, and he took up his residence in Paris.
Here,
on February 1, 1620, he
delivered a remarkable address in the Irish College
in Paris on St. Brigid, the
sainted Patroness of Ireland—an address which was
printed the same year with a
dedication to John L'Escalopier, Baron de
Saint-Just, President of the
Parliament of Paris, and benefactor of the Irish
College in that city. The work
is written throughout in Latin. The title-page is as
follows:
'Brigida
Thaumaturga, etc.
Brigid the wonder-worker; or a dissertation partly
laudatory, in praise of the
Saint, partly archaeological drawn from sacred and
from ecclesiastical history,
and partly also hortatory, addressed to the students
of the (Irish) Colleges.
In it the miracle of the wood growing green again at
the touch of the Virgin
Brigid is explained; and symbolically applied to the
ancient intercourse
between France and Ireland, in things sacred,
literary and civil. Delivered in
the Irish College in Paris on February I, Feast of
the Saint. Published by
Sebastian Cramois, under the Sign of the Storks. Rue
Saint-Jacques, 1620.'
The
title-page is followed by a
letter of dedication to John L'Escalopier, in which
the author refers to the
liberality of that generous man towards the Irish
exiles, and assures him that
as he has been their patron, so St. Brigid will be
his ('tu patronus illorum,
tibi ilia patrona erit'). The letter of dedication
is signed 'D.R.E.O.V.H.’ the
initials of 'David Rothe, Episcopus Ossoriensis,
Vice-Primas Hiberniae.' That
the work is due to his pen is expressly mentioned by
Lynch in his MS. Lives of
the Bishops of Ireland.
From
the dedication we pass on to
the work itself. In the first part the learned
author speaks in praise of St.
Brigid. He begins by narrating the miracle of the
wood of the altar growing
green at the touch of the Virgin, on the occasion of
her religious profession,
and he points out instances of similar miracles in
the case of St. Francis of
Assisi and other saints. He then dwells on the rank
which St. Brigid holds
amongst the saints of Ireland. As St. Patrick is the
head of the hierarchy, and
St. Columba of the monks, so St. Brigid is the head
of the virgins of Ireland.
Her life was a model of Christian virtue, especially
of faith and charity. Her
sanctity was manifested by numerous miracles
performed in favour of the blind,
the lame, lepers, and persons possessed by the
devil. Her sanctity, like a
fruitful vine, spread its branches through the whole
of Ireland.
In
the second part of the work the
author draws a parallel between the virtues of St.
Brigid, overflowing, as it
were, upon all who came within the sphere of her
influence, and the sanctity of
the Church in Ireland increasing, and then
overflowing upon foreign nations, and
especially upon France in the threefold relation of
religion, learning, and
civil intercourse.
Starting
with the bonds which
connected St. Patrick by blood with St. Martin of
Tours, and by education with
St. Germain of Auxerre, he dwells on the religious
intercourse between France
and Ireland; and he enumerates the most remarkable
of the Irish saints who
lived and laboured in France, especially from the
sixth to the twelfth century.
In the reign of Clotaire, Columban exercised a
widespread influence and founded
a monastery at Luxeuil, and his footprints may be
traced along the banks of the
Seine, the Marne, the Loire, and the Rhone. The work
for religion in France,
commenced by Columban, was continued under Dagobert
by the sainted brothers St.
Fursey, St. Livinus, and St. Ultan, whose memory
still flourished in the
monastery of Perrone. An Irish saint, St. Wirro, was
the confessor and adviser
of Pepin d'Heristal. Vincent, a layman, whom the
author claims as an Irishman,
was related by marriage to Dagobert. Two Irish
priests, Sadochim (or Cardocum)
and Adrian, evangelized Picardy. St. Malo, if not an
Irishman, was the pupil of
an Irishman, Albinus. As time rolled on
communication between Ireland and
France continued. St. Fiacre shed the lustre of his
virtues upon the country
around Meaux, where his shrine was long a centre of
pilgrimage, and where he
was honoured in particular as the patron of
gardeners.
Nor
were holy women wanting in the
list of Irish saints in France. St. Syra, sister of
St. Fiacre, and St. Ommana,
both Irishwomen, shed the odour of their virtues
around them in French
cloisters. Nor did Frenchmen neglect to honour Irish
saints. St. Patrick at
Rouen, St. Malachy at Clairvaux, and St. Laurence at
Eu, were the objects of
special veneration and shrines were dedicated in
their honour.
Passing
from religion to literature,
the author points out what France owes to Ireland.
Under Charlemagne two
Irishmen, Clement and Albinus, established on the
banks of the Seine a school
which became the cradle of the great University of
Paris. Under Charles the
Bald, another Irishman, Scotus Erigena, brought to
France a knowledge of Greek
literature and philosophy, which marked him out as
the foremost Greek scholar
of the period.
He
then laments that while Ireland
was once a fountain pouring forth streams of
learning upon Europe, her schools
are now closed through persecution, and her sons
compelled to seek education in
foreign lands.
Passing
to the intercourse of civil
life, the author points out that even in the days of
Tacitus there was frequent
communication between Ireland and the Continent, and
the harbours of Ireland
were widely known to traders. In course of time
trade was followed by
alliances. Vincent, an Irishman, otherwise called
Waldegaire, married
Waldetrude, a relative of King Dagobert. From their
union sprang four saints:
St. Landry, subsequently Bishop of Meaux; St.
Dentlinus, who died in his
seventh year; St. Aldetrude; and St. Madelberta. St.
Landry invited Irishmen to
come to France to aid him in the harvest of souls.
The journeys and the
influence of Columban and Gall and Virgil were not
without their influence upon
the communication between France and Ireland.
The
author also sees another though
a less direct proof of the intercourse between the
two countries in the
numerous family names of French origin which are to
be met with in Ireland. The
names de la Roche, de la Cource, Nogent, Barneville,
Netterville, de Lacy, de
la Blancheville, de la Groose, de St. Leger, S.
Salem, Burnell, Boucher,
Verdun, Moucler, Rochfort, de Burgo, Petit, Belleau,
are all, at least
remotely, of French origin.
In
the third part of the work the
author addresses himself to the Irish ecclesiastical
students on the Continent,
and exhorts them to imitate the virtues of St.
Brigid and of the other saints
of Ireland. Ireland lies prostrate under
persecution; but as the wood of the
altar became green at the touch of St. Brigid, the
prosperity of Ireland may
bloom again. That happy restoration, however, must
be the work of the young
Levites of Ireland. The author hopes that the day
will come when the students
of the period, all lovers of their brethren, will be
engaged in missionary work
in Ireland. It will then be said: ‘This one and that
one and that other are pupils
of the College in Paris; those others of Douai, and
Antwerp, and Tournai; those
others of Salamanca, and Compostella, and Lisbon,
not omitting those of
Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Rouen. They are all lovers
of the brethren, all angels
of peace, all ambassadors for Christ.' A great door
is open to them. As the
spirit of life entered into the dry bones at the
words of the prophet, so by
their preaching, religion will be made to flourish
again in Ireland. They are
not few in number, but they are few when compared
with the multitude of their
adversaries. If they are to succeed in their work
they must be united in
charity, and lead a life worthy of their vocation.
The
dissertation in praise of Brigida
Thaumaturga is followed by a Latin poem
in alternate hexameter and
pentameter verses, in which the author relates how
on a voyage from France to
Ireland he was saved from shipwreck through prayer
to St. Brigid. Beneath the
poem of Dr. Rothe are printed two verses by J. Ley,
in whom we recognize the
founder and first rector of the Irish College in
Paris, praying St. Brigid, as
she had saved Dr. Rothe from shipwreck, to protect
him from other dangers also.
This interesting ode in honour of St. Brigid runs
thus:-
Carmen
Thalassicum invocatorium B.
Brigidae Virginis et Patronae Hiberniae.
Brigida,
Hibernipetas quae ducis in
aequore classes,
Te
sibi ductricem nostra carina
petit.
Eurus
Hyperboreis alternans flatibus
auram
Instat
in occiduum carbasa tensa
latus.
Ante,
sed ex oculis quam gleba
Acquitana nostris
Egressa
est pelago subjicienda suo,
Inguine
succusso latebrosa carina
fatiscit,
Atque
subintrantes rima capessit
aquas.
Brachia
remigibus sentina repanda
fatigat
Inque
suas veniunt acta redacta
vices.
Clepsydra
deciduas quoties discrevit
arenas
Fundat
inexhaustum fistula puppis
onus.
Nec
tutum est regredi ad littus, nec
pergere tutum,
Unica
res miseris tuta, vovere Deo.
Vovimus,
alme pater, ne despice vota
precantium,
Sed,
duce te, optatum dirige navis
iter.
Brigida,
Hibernigenum supplex pro
gente precatur,
Virginis
haec pietas quod petit
accipiet.
In
periculo naufragii constitutus
pangebat eidem virgini
patronae
suae, indignus ipsius
cliens,
D. R.
Brigida,
quem
rapidis mire tutavit ab undis
Hunc,
ut ab hoste, precor, protegat
ipsa tetro.
J.
Ley.
A
sailor's song invoking St. Brigid,
Patroness of Ireland:—
'Brigid,
who guidest upon the deep
the fleets that sail for Ireland, our bark prays
thee to be her guide.
The
south-eastern alternating with
the northern blasts stretches our expanded sails
towards the western side.
But
ere the shores of Aquitaine,
disappearing below the main, were lost to view;
our
vessel lashed by the waves gapes
wide, and a leak admits the entering waters.
The
water-filled hold fatigues the
arms of the sailors relieving each other by turns.
As
often as the sand glass counts
the hours, the ship's pump pours out the exhaustless
burden.
To
go back was unsafe, unsafe to
advance.
The
sole safety for the wretched was
to offer prayers to God.
We
pray, merciful Father, despise
not the prayers of Thy suppliants,
but
under Thy guidance direct the
ship's course to the desired port.
Brigid
suppliantly prays for those
of Irish birth,
The
pious prayer of the Virgin shall
obtain what she asks.
'In
danger of shipwreck these verses
were composed in honour of the same Virgin, his
Patroness, by her unworthy
client, D. R.'
'Whom
Brigid wondrously saved from
the stormy waves.
Him
may she protect from dire
enemies, I pray.'
J.
Ley.'
The
work Brigida Thaumaturga is
followed by an appendix entitled ' De Scriptorum
Scotorum nomenclatura a Thoma
Dempstero edita praecidaneum.' The appendix is a
reply to a work of the Scotch
writer, Thomas Dempster, who claimed for Scotland
most of the Irish saints and
writers. Dr. Rothe states that he wrote his reply
chiefly to vindicate for
Ireland the honour of being the country of St.
Brigid, whom Dempster attempted
to take away from the plains of Lagenia, and
carrying her over Pictish hills
and rocks, to set her down in the woods of
Caledonia.' Then taking up Dempster's
list in alphabetical order for the letters A, B, and
C, he proves from
authoritative sources that the names claimed by
Dempster are, with few
exceptions, either Irish or Welsh. Dr. Rothe's
labours in defence of the right
of Ireland to her native saints, did not end with
this brief appendix to
the Brigida Thaumaturga. The following
years, 1621, he published a
still more complete reply to Dempster in a work
published under the title Hibernia
Resurgens, under the pseudonym of 'Donatus
Rourk.'
But
the devotion of Dr. Rothe to the
sainted Patroness of Ireland manifested itself in a
still more practical form.
In 1620, the same year in which he published
his Brigida Thaumaturga,
he instituted a Confraternity in Ireland in honour
of St. Brigid. The object of
that sodality was to pray through the intercession
of St. Brigid for peace and
union in Ireland. For that purpose the members met
on the first Sunday of each
month. The Holy See approved of the Sodality, and it
quickly spread over the
whole of Ireland to the great spiritual profit of
the faithful.
We
are not here concerned with the
other events of the life of the great Bishop of
Ossory, with his share in the
deliberations of the Confederation of Kilkenny, and
his death, in 1650, at the
age of eighty-two. He was a man of great attainments
and of great zeal to
promote the honour of the saints of Ireland. He
collaborated with Dr.
Messingham in editing the Florilegium
Insulae Sanctorum, and that
author makes express mention that the whole
dissertation on the conversion of
Ireland, together with remarks on some chapters of
Jocelyn, as well as several
paragraphs of the account of St. Patrick's Purgatory
in the Florilegium are
from the pen of Dr. Rothe.
He
also laboured long in preparing
an elaborate work on the saints of Ireland under the
title Hierographia
Hiberniae, which unhappily perished during the
siege of Kilkenny by
Cromwell. He also wrote a shorter treatise on Irish
places of pilgrimage, Opusculum
de Peregrinationibus Hiberniae.
His
treatise Brigida Thaumaturga,
for many reasons, merits to be remembered. It is a
monument to the Irish
College in Paris, and the first printed book which
issued from it. It is a
monument to the widespread devotion of the Irish at
home and abroad towards St.
Brigid in the seventeenth century. It is a monument
to the author, whom
Messingham, in his preface to the account of St.
Patrick's Purgatory, describes
as
a
man of wide information, an
eloquent speaker, a subtle philosopher, a profound
theologian, and a celebrated
historian, a zealous reprover of vice, a champion of
the liberty of the Church,
the defender of the rights of the nation devoted to
the relief of the
sufferings of Ireland, and a diligent promoter of
union and peace amongst
ecclesiastics.
The Brigida
Thaumaturga is
also a monument to the ecclesiastical culture of the
period. It shows a
familiarity with the Scriptures, with the classics,
with history and hagiology;
and a mastery of the Latin language in prose and
verse. The Irish ecclesiastics
of the period wrote Latin with correctness, ease,
and grace. The Carmen
Thalassicum is but one instance. In the
Introductory pages of
Messingham's Florilegium there are
Latin odes in commendation
of the work from the pens of Eugene Sweeny, Peter
Cadill, Hugh Reilly, Edmund
O'Dwyer, Thomas Messingham, J. Colgan, William
Coghlin, Patrick Cahill, Roger
Moloy, Laurence Sedgrave, James Delan, and Thomas
Guyer, all Irish priests.
Nearly
three centuries have passed
since St. Brigid's Feast, 1620. Since that date
religious, literary, and civil
intercourse between France and Ireland attained an
expansion which Dr. Rothe
could hardly have foreseen. Irish students received
their ecclesiastical
formation in France. Irish students frequented the
halls, and Irish professors
occupied chairs in the University of Paris. Irish
soldiers stood side by side
with Frenchmen on many a hard fought field. Irish
vessels traded with France on
a scale undreamt of in the days of the author of
the Brigida
Thaumaturga. The resurrection of Ireland,
which Dr. Rothe looked forward
to, has taken place; but even now the students of
the colleges in Paris,
Salamanca, and Rome are working side by side with
the home-trained clergy,'all
lovers of the brethren, all angels of peace.'
Let
us hope that, like those who
have gone before them, they will always be full of
devotion to 'Brigida
Thaumaturga, the Patroness of Ireland.'
A
Homily for Saint Brigid's Day, Canon O’Hanlon, 1875
Chapter
XIII Volume II of Lives of the
Irish Saints.
Like
that peerless Mother of our
Lord, to whom she has been compared, Brigid was
beautiful with the beauty of
Heaven and earth mingled together, with eyes sweet
and dove-like, and with a
countenance most soft and pure. She was both lovely
to see, as well as perfect,
in heart and in soul. Nor did the lapse of years
steal away any single grace or
charm, for her heart and feelings were ever
freshened with religious
inspiration. The biographers of this illustrious
saint are unmeasured in terms,
used to describe her virtues and merits; but, they
do not exaggerate her
praises, however they may dilate on various
miracles, attributed to her
powerful intercession. We are told, how this
wondrous pearl of virginity
neither deflected to the right or left, but always
pursued a just and virtuous
course. She never spoke without blushing, a sign of
her great modesty. She
never yielded to carnal illusions; for no person
could be more chaste and
continent. She considered her prestige and virtues
to have been gifts coming
from Divine Providence. She examined her
acquirements and merits, according to
those severe judgments, pronounced by a mind, filled
with prudence and true
faith; while, she took little heed of popular
applause or flattery. She
considered ill-regulated public opinion and mere
human praise, as tending only
to produce vanity and selfishness, or as savouring
of a worldly spirit. Her
whole desires consisted in not appearing to be holy,
while she aspired to the
most exalted degree of sanctity. And, as Brigid ever
willed a most perfect
conformity to the decrees of Heaven, so did Divine
mercy bestow on her
countless treasures of grace; for, according to Holy
Scripture, to every one
possessing them shall yet be given, and they shall
abound, while to those
wanting them, what they seem to possess shall be
taken away. So excellent did
Brigid appear in the sight of God, that He was
pleased to manifest her sanctity
by the performance of most renowned miracles. These
are abundantly instanced,
throughout her acts. Whenever liberality is hoped
for, it will usually be fully
tested; and, an opinion of unrestricted and active
charity must inevitably draw
together needy and afflicted, towards
benevolently-disposed persons. Hence, it
happened, that so many poor and infirm individuals
flocked to St. Brigid, not
only from her own locality, but from most distant
places. Those were allured by
a report of her virtues and charities, while, they
hoped relief under privation
from their various distresses. When our saint had
satisfied the wants of one
pauper, she was ready to perform a like charitable
office for a petitioner
succeeding; while the same generous disposition was
manifested towards all,
without personal favour or exception. However her
bounty had been extended to
the whole flock, notwithstanding her charity was
still moderated, according to
various necessities; she gave abundantly to those
most in need, more
restrictedly to those in middling circumstances, and
a little was only
distributed to those needing little. Yet, no gift of
hers could be considered
small, when her hands administered relief, and her
warm heart became the
prompter of her largesses. Again, she was very
humble, and she attended or was
accustomed to the herding of sheep, as an
occupation, and to early rising as
conducive to health. This her life proves, and
Cuimin of Coindeire states, in
his poem, referring to her great perfections. She
spent indeed many years,
diligently serving the Lord, performing signs and
miracles, curing every
disease and sickness. Her vigils were incessant, and
she watched over those
subjects committed to her charge, with extraordinary
care and tenderness. Her
numerous miracles are compared to the grass of the
field, because it grows in
such abundance, by one of her many eulogists. Those
wonders, recorded in her
various Acts, would seem to confirm such a
statement. She is specially ranked
among the friends and disciples of our great Irish
Apostle, St. Patrick; and,
among his numerous religious daughters, not one was
more distinguished for
great force of character, for high intellectual
accomplishments, and for
sublime spiritual gifts.
In
further reference to the spring
feature of Saint Brigid I am indebted to Miss Delap
for a curious legend from
Valentia Island which, with fine disregard of
chronology, makes Saint Brigid a
friend of the Virgin Mary. It is said that when the
Virgin was shy about facing
the congregation in the Temple, Saint Brigid
procured a harrow, took out the
spikes and putting a candle in every hole, placed it
on her head, walked up
before the Virgin and escorted her down again.
According to another version,
which it is believed came from the north of Ireland,
it was a hoop with lighted
candles which the Saint wore as she danced up the
aisle before the Virgin and
down again. For this service Saint Brigid’s Day is
the eve of Candlemas or the
Purification of the Virgin.
Elizabeth
Andrews, Man,
Vol. 22 (December 1922), 187.
A
Meditation for Saint Brigid's Day,Catholic
Clergyman,
(Dublin, 1866)
ON ST. BRIGID, PATRONESS OF IRELAND.
"
Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu
laetitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi
nostri."—Judith, Xv, 10.
ST.
Brigid, one of the first of our
saints, and the queen of our virgins, shed a lustre
and a purity on the ancient
Church of Ireland. Innocent like Eve in the garden
before her fall, animated
with strength and fortitude such as Judith had when
God nerved her arm and made
her the protection of Israel, endowed with the
greatest perfections like the
Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the refuge of all
sinners and the mother of many
virtues, St. Brigid was the light and glory of the
infant Church, and
contributed in no small degree to the spread of the
faith, and to the
observance of virtue among the people.
What
St. Patrick was to the whole
Church generally, St. Brigid was to those of her own
sex in particular,
instructing and infusing into them the spirit of
true religion, and leaving
them the example of perfect virtue. Though St.
Patrick was the great founder
and apostle of the Church in this country— though
his labours were great and
unceasing—though his missionaries went on all sides,
and he himself "
exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam" still it was
impossible for him to
do everything required. The special need which the
Church then had, the
Almighty God supplied by raising up St. Brigid, who
not only greatly
contributed to the conversion of the people, and to
the practice of piety
amongst them, but also infused into many of the
women of Ireland the love of
the religious life, and the devotion to the virtues
and perfections of the
cloister, which have never since passed away. This
was the flame which St.
Brigid lighted up in faithful hearts, which was
symbolised by that perpetual
fire burning for many ages at her shrine, which has
survived the change of
manners and the lapse of time, and the spirit of
which is to-day as rife among
the people as when St. Brigid laboured at her noble
mission with so much
success, when God spoke through the wonders of her
power, and through the works
of her hands.
1. Her virtues and her miracles.
Consider
and admire the inscrutable
ways of that God who is " wonderful in his saints"
and who chose a
weak woman to be a tower of strength and a prodigy
of virtue. No flesh should
glory in his sight, for he has made the weak to
confound the strong, he has
selected a poor virgin, who was an outcast and a
wanderer, not only to be an
example of the greatest perfection by the
subjugation of her passions, and to
reflect in her life the virtues of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, but also to
exercise a wonderful influence in leading souls to
God, and in bringing them to
the observance of the counsels of the Gospel, and to
the highest practice of
religious discipline.
St.
Brigid not only excelled in the
ordinary Christian virtues in an uncommon degree,
but God gave her gifts and
powers which are bestowed on few. St. Brigid had
great humility; she had a
heart full of kindness and compassion; she had the
open and melting hand of
charity. Her purity shone above all her other
virtues, shunning and flying from
every thing which could wound it in the slightest
degree. In this she most
resembled the Blessed Virgin Mary, and hence was she
truly called " the
Mary of Erin," because of her angelic purity, and of
the perfection of her
divine love.
This
holy soul, so full of God's
grace and such a vessel of election, God did not
suffer to pass her tranquil
years in the quiet and innocence of her cloister
life, and in the strict
observance of holy discipline. God had other
designs, and for their
accomplishment in his Church he gave to St. Brigid
extraordinary gifts, and
mysterious power. Accordingly, like her Divine
Saviour she went about in signs
and wonders. Wherever she went she left the evidence
of her merciful
compassion, and she spread around her the gifts and
the blessings of God. She
made the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the blind
to see, and the dead she
restored to life, until all confessed that God spoke
through the mouth of his
servant, and that his power was in her hands.
As
our Divine Saviour went through
Palestine, visiting different places, so St. Brigid
went about doing good in
different parts of Ireland. She passed her early
youth and made the vows of her
religious life at Ussny, under the care of St.
Maccaille. She visited the
sainted prelate of Ardagh—St. Mel, who was rich in
faith and in many virtues.
St. Patrick, who was her great and sainted friend,
she saw on his death bed,
hearing his last prayer, and receiving his last
sigh. Many years of her life
she passed in the South, founding, wherever she
went, houses of religion, and
maintaining in them the observance of discipline and
the practice of virtue,
but it was on the vast plain of Kildare, by the Cell
of the Oak, that she fixed
her permanent home, and at the foot of that tower
which even now exists, and
which is the memorial of the ancient days and the
mystery of our own, she lighted
up the fire of true religion, and spread around far
and near the faith and the
love of Jesus Christ in the hearts of the people.
2. Her special mission.
Consider
also the noble work and
special mission which God called on her to fulfil.
Even at that early period of
the conversion of the island, the Christian religion
took such hold, and made
such progress in the hearts of many, that they not
only observed the precepts
of the Gospel, but they were also anxious to
practise and to observe the
evangelical counsels. Men and women with holy
enthusiasm went to the altar, to
give their lives to God as a perpetual sacrifice,
and it was in the religious
life, which regulates and sustains this divine
ardour, that they found the
fullest gratification of their hopes and wishes.
Inspired
by God, St. Brigid
continued, if she did not commence, the conventual
institution in Ireland, and
brought it, even in her own time, to a most happy
issue, and made it produce
the most wonderful results. Communities of holy
virgins, overcoming the
weakness of their sex, and the temptations of the
world, sprung up under the hand
of St. Brigid, and living under the rule which she
prescribed, served God in
holiness and fear, and made their lives the practice
of the perfection and of
the praise of God. This was the seed which St.
Brigid sowed in Ireland, which
even in the worst of times has produced the most
happy fruits, and which,
thanks be to the Almighty God, the Father of mercies
and the giver of every
good gift, is reviving to-day with a strength and
power which are worthy of the
best and most noble ages of the faith.
O
holy St. Brigid, thou who art the
light, the ornament, and the glory of the Church of
Ireland, be the heavenly
patron of its people, and be the especial friend and
the protectress of the
priests of the sanctuary. Let those who offer
sacrifice to the name of God, be
worthy of their exalted duties. Shew forth in their
lives the form of all
perfection and cover them with the robe of holiness.
Let them love justice and
hate iniquity. Let their prayer be like incense in
the sight of heaven. Let
their doctrine be saving and salutary to the people,
and let the odour of their
lives be the delight of the Church of God.
-Ecclesiastical
Meditations
Suitable for Priests on the Mission and Students in
Diocesan
Seminaries by a Catholic Clergyman (Dublin, 1866),
250-255.
A miracle, which occurred in
repairing this church, and
which, Cogitosus thinks should not be passed over in
silence, has been placed
on record. When the old door of the left side
passage, through which St. Brigid
used to enter the church, had been altered,
repaired, and placed on its former
hinges, by artisans, it could not exactly cover the
opening as required. A
fourth part of this space appeared exposed, without
anything left to fill it ;
and, if a fourth more were added and joined to the
height of the gate, then it
might fill up the entire altitude of this
reconstructed and lofty passage. The
workmen held a consultation, about making another
new and larger door to fill
up this entrance, or to prepare a panel for an
addition to the old door, so as
to make it the required size. A principal artisan
among the Irish then spoke
:"On this night, we should fervently implore the
Lord, before St. Brigid,
that before morning she may counsel us what course
we ought to pursue, in
reference to this matter," After these words, he
passed a whole night in
prayer, beside St. Brigid's tomb. On the morning he
arose. He then found, on
forcing and settling the old door on its hinge, the
whole passage was filled,
so that a single chink was not left uncovered, nor
in its height was any, even
the least, excess discovered. Thus, it happened, as
the whole aperture was
filled, that St. Brigid—as was generally
believed—had miraculously extended
that door in height. Nor did any part appear open,
except when the door was
moved on entering her church. This miracle,
accomplished by Divine omnipotence,
was evidently manifested to the eyes of all, who
looked upon the door and the
passage.
Adest
Dies
Leticie - This is the Day of Rejoicing, 15th
century
Adest dies leticie
quo sancta virgo Brigida
de tenebris miserie
transit ad regna lucida.
A statu puericie
Deo servire studuit
dono pollens mundicie
sponso superno placuit.
In signum pudicicie
altaris quod exaruit
manus tactu virginee
lignum repente viruit
Hec est laurus Hibernie
cuius viror non marcuit
plena misericordiae
nulli petenti defuit.
Per secla sine terminis
soli Deo sit gloria;
qui prece tante virginis
nos ducat ad celestia.
Amen.
Goffine's
Devout
Instruction on the Feast of Saint Brigid , Father Leonard
Goffine (1648-1719), 1680s.
INSTRUCTION ON THE FESTIVAL OF ST.
BRIDGET, VIRGIN.
ABBESS, AND PATRONESS
OF IRELAND.
[February 1]
ST. BRIDGET was born
at Fochard, in Ulster, soon after Ireland had been
blessed with the light of
the faith. It was about the year 453 that she saw
for the first time the light
of this world. Her parents, Dubtach and Bronchessa,
were both Christians. By
her father she was lineally descended from "Con of
the Hundred Battles,"
and her mother, Bronchessa, was descended from the
noble house of the
O'Connors.
Bridget spent her
early years in Connaught, and was reared by a nurse
who fortunately for her,
was a Christian. She grew up beautiful in
appearance, but still more so in her
heavenly virtues, her meekness, humility and
sweetness of manner. Her mother
and her nurse carefully instructed her in the
Christian religion; and deeply
impressed upon her young mindthe
goodness and mercy of Jesus, and the loving
tenderness of His holy mother Mary.
And when told not to offend Jesus or Mary, with
childlike simplicity she would
ask how she could please them, and when told, would
reply that she would never
do anything to offend them. Thus were the purest
impressions made on her infant
mind, and as she grew in years, she became rich in
all the Christian virtues.
Bridget, even when a
child, accustomed herself to prayer and pious works,
and loved to retire in
solitude to commune with God. She was exceedingly
modest, and the least indelicacy
of word or action hurt her tender soul very deeply.
No wonder she was admired
and loved by everybody.
Our saint was never
more happy then when she found ways and means to
assist the sick and the poor.
Her charity knew no bounds. One time when visiting
the sick neighbors, (she was
then only nine years of age) it happened that she
had nothing to relieve the
wants of the needy; so she gave them the jewels from
a precious sword which the
king of Leinster had given her father, as a token of
his good will and liking
for his valiant service. The king heard of this and
was angry, and shortly
afterward came to a banquet in her father's house,
and calling the little maid
he asked her how she dared to deface the gift of a
king in such a manner as she
had done the gift to her father. She fearlessly
replied that she had given the
jewels to a better king than he was, "whom” she
continued, "finding
in such extremities, I would have given all that my
father has, and all that
you have, yea, yourself too and "all you have, were
it in my power to give
them, rather than Christ or His children, the poor,
should starve." The
king was so touched with her answer that he said to
her father that his whole
possessions would not be an equivalent for his
daughter; and that he should let
her have her own way in future, and not restrain the
extraordinary graces God
had conferred on her. He then gave Dubtach another
sword more valuable than the
former, as a mark of the esteem he entertained for
him and his daughter.
When Bridget
approached maturity, her father wished that she
should wed a certain young man.
Our saint was astonished at such a proposal, and
firmly refused, and told her
father that she was resolved to consecrate her
virginity to God. All her
relations opposed this resolution for a long time,
but seeing that Bridget was
determined they finally consented, and allowed her
to choose her state of life.
She made known her intention to several pious
virgins, all of whom resolved to
accompany her. Bishop Mel, nephew and disciple of
St. Patrick, gave her the
veil. It is said that she made her vows in the
sixteenth year of her age.
Bridget's first
community was established at Bridget's-Town or
Ballyboy, near Ussna Hill. Her
community soon became celebrated for its piety and
charity. The poor flocked
around her, and even the sick came from afar to be
cured by St. Bridget's
prayers. Several bishops requested her to establish
communities in their
dioceses. She visited Munster and established
several convents there. While
there she cured by her prayers a man who had been
blind for years. Then she
passed into the county Waterford, and established in
the neighborhood of the
present village of Tramore a community of nuns. We
next find her in the county
of Limerick establishing convents.
Society in Ireland in
pagan times was divided into freemen and slaves; the
former regarded the latter
as beings of an inferior order, and treated them as
mere chattels, as is the
case in all slave countries even in our own times.
The Catholic Church endeavored
from the beginning to abolish this barbarous custom,
and finally succeeded. St.
Bridget labored hard to obtain the freedom of poor
culprits, or at least to
mitigate the bitterness of their captivity.
Her numerous miracles
and the respect and veneration entertained for her,
gave power to her
influence, which seldom failed in gaining the boon
of mercy. St. Bridget was
great in miracles, great in Christian charity. She
shares with St. Patrick the
glory and sanctity of being the first to bring the
pious young virgins of
Ireland into conventual communities. Her success in
this holy work was
wonderful, for soon religious establishments of the
kind extended over all the
land. Thus she aided powerfully the work of St.
Patrick in christianizing
the inhabitants of Ireland. No wonder that after her
death many churches were
dedicated to God under her name. A portion of her
relics was kept with great
veneration in a monastery of regular canons at
Aburnethi, once the capital of
the kingdom of the Picts. Her body was found with
those of SS. Patrick and
Columba, in a triple vault in Down-Patrick, in 1185.
The head of St.
Bridget is now kept in the church of the Jesuits at
Lisbon.
The Introit of the
Mass reads: Thou hast loved justice, and hated
iniquity: therefore God, thy
God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows. My heart
hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the
King. (Ps. xliv.) Glory be
&c.
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH.
Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation: that, as
we rejoice in the
festivity of the blessed Bridget, Thy virgin, we may
be instructed in the
affection of a loving devotion. Through, etc.
LESSON, (ii Cor. x.
ry-xi. i, 2.) BRETHREN, He that glorieth, let him
glory in the Lord. For not he
that commendeth himself is approved; but he whom God
commendeth. Would to God
you could bear with some little of my folly, but do
bear with me. For I am
jealous of you with the jealousy of God. For I have
espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin
to Christ.
EXPLANATION. The
Apostle exhorts the Corinthians to avoid all
self-praise and vainglory. To
acknowledge our merits, however, is not wrong,
provided we attribute such
merits to the grace of God, giving all honor to Him,
who works the good in us.
Self-praise is no proof that we are faithful
servants of God; we are no more
than what we are in the eyes of God. St. Paul indeed
endeavors to draw the
attention of the Corinthians to his dignity and
merits, but does it to honor
God, and to save for Christ those whom he had by
their conversion to
Christianity brought to Christ as a spouse to her
bridegroom; he speaks of his
dignity, and is jealous to oppose the heretics who
tried to lessen his influence
by decrying his merits, and who endeavored to make
the Christians abandon the
true faith. When self-praise proceeds from a motive
of honoring God and saving
the souls of our neighbors it is allowable.
GOSPEL. (Matt. xxv. i
13.) AT THAT TIME, Jesus spoke to his disciples this
parable: The kingdom of
heaven shall be like to ten virgins, who, taking
their lamps, went out to meet
the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were
foolish, and five wise: but
the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not
take oil with them, but the
wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And
the bridegroom tarrying,
they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there
was a cry made: Behold, the
bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him. Then all
those virgins arose and
trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the
wise: Give us of your oil, for
our lamps are gone out. The wise answered, saying:
Lest perhaps there be not
enough for us and for you, go you rather to them
that sell, and buy for
yourselves. Now whilst they went to buy, the
bridegroom came: and they that
were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the
door was shut. But at last
came also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord,
open to us. But he answering,
said: Amen, I say to you, I know you not. Watch ye,
therefore, because you know
not the day nor the hour.
Who is the
bridegroom?
Christ the Lord who
has united Himself to His Church, and enters into an
intimate union with every
soul of the faithful who keeps His commandments.
Why is the kingdom of
heaven compared to virgins?
Because virginity is
similar to the integrity of holy faith. Only those
who preserve the faith
inviolate will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Why does Christ make
mention of “ten" virgins?
The number ten was in
ancient times made use of to express a whole. Here
according to SS. Jerome and
Ambrose all the faithful are to be understood. This
is evident from the words
of Christ who says of the virgins that they had
lamps. The lamp signifies the
light of faith. This holy faith is infused into the
soul in baptism.
Who are the wise and
who the foolish virgins?
The wise are all
those of the faithful who not only believe in the
doctrine of Christ, but also
live according to the faith, performing good works;
the foolish are those
Christians who have indeed the true faith, but not
the works according to the
faith.
What is understood by
the oil?
It means good works,
especially works of charity.
Without good works
our faith does not shine forth, is, therefore, not
burning light, but dead as
St. James says: "Faith without works is dead."
What mean the vessels
that contain the oil?
Our conscience, which
is the seat and receptacle of good works.
What does His coming
at midnight signify?
It signifies the time
when we least expect; for who would suppose the
coming of the bridegroom at
that unexpected hour when every one is asleep! Let
us, therefore, be careful
that we are not wanting in faith and good works, let
us take warning also from
the words of Christ to be ever ready, as we know not
the day nor the hour when
we shall be called upon to appear before our Judge.
-Rev.
Leonard Goffine, Explanation of the Epistles and
Gospels for the Sundays,
Holydays and Festivals throughout the
Ecclesiastical Year, to which are added
the Lives of Many Saints, (New York, 51st
edition, 1880), 687-693
Brigit,
and certain virgins with
her, went to Bishop Mel, in Telcha Mide, to take the
veil. Glad was he thereat.
For humbleness Brigit staid, so that she might be
the last to whom the veil
should be given. A fiery pillar arose from her head
to the ridgepole of the
church. Bishop Mel asked :"What virgin is there ?"
Answered MacCaille
: "That is Brigit," saith he. "Come thou, O holy
Brigit,"
saith Bishop Mel, " that the veil may be sained on
thy head before the
other virgins." It came to pass then, through the
grace of the Holy Ghost,
that the form of ordaining a bishop was read over
Brigit. Mac Caille said that
the order of a bishop should not be(conferred) on a
woman." Dixit Bishop
Mel: " No power have I in this matter, inasmuch as
by God hath been given
unto her this honour beyond every woman." Hence, it
is that the men of
Ireland give the honour of a bishop to Brigit's
successor.
In
the eighth (day) of the lunar
month (?) was she born. On the eighteenth did she
take the veil on her head. On
the twenty-eighth did she go to heaven. Together
with eight virgins was Brigit
consecrated. According to the number of the eight
beatitudes of the gospel did
she fulfil (her course).
This
was one of Brigit's miracles.
When the solemnity of Easter drew nigh, Brigit set
up, shortly before
Maunday-Thursday, in a certain place near unto
Bishop Mel. Brigit desired,
through (her) charity, to brew ale for the many
churches that were around her,
and it was not usual to brew ale at that time.
Brigit possessed only one
measure of malt, and Brigit's family had no vessels
save two troughs. They made
a tub of one of the two vessels, and they filled the
other vessel with the ale,
and the virgins kept taking the ale from Brigit to
the churches, and still the
vessel before Brigit remained full. And thus the
produce of one measure of
malt, through Brigit's blessing, supplied (?) seven
churches of Fir Telach for
Maunday-Thursday and for the eight days of Easter.
When
the solemnity of Easter was
fulfilled, Brigit asked her maidens whether they had
the leavings of the Easter
ale. Replied the virgins: "God will give food," say
they. Then two
maidens came in with a tub full of water. " The
Virgin's Son
knoweth," says Brigit, "that there is good (ale)
there." She thought
that it was ale. Quicker than speech, as she said
that, the water was turned
into choice ale forthwith.
Brigit
went to a certain church in
the land of Teffia to celebrate Easter, when Brigit
took to washing the feet of
the old men and the feeble folk who were in the
church. Four of the sick people
there, were a maimed man, a madman, a blind man, and
a leper. Brigit washed the
feet of the four, and they were straightway healed
from every disease that was
on them.
Once
Brigit was in a house as a
guest, and all went out, save a stripling of
fourteen years. He had never
spoken, nor moved foot or hand, and Brigit knew not
that he was thus. So then
came guests into the house to Brigit. Said Brigit to
the stripling :
"Attend on the guests." "I will do so," saith the
stripling. He got up at once and did service to the
guests, and he was quite
whole thenceforward.
Then
there came to pass a meeting of
the men of Ireland in Tailtin,in the place where
Patrick abode, with a synod of
Ireland's clerics around him. Now Brigit and Bishop
Mel went to the meeting,
and a certain woman (also) went thither with a babe
on her arm, and she said
that the babe was by Bishop Bron. The Bishop,
however, denied that. Brigit
asked the woman by whom the child had been
conceived, and told her not to utter
a lie. And the woman answered: It is by Bishop Bron.
Then a swelling
straightway filled her tongue, so that she was
unable to speak. Brigit made the
sign of the cross over the infant's mouth and asked
it : "Who is thy
father ?" The infant answered and said : "A wretched
man who is in
the outskirts of the assembly, that is my father,"
saith he. So in that
wise Bishop Bron was saved through the grace of
Brigit.
Brigit
went to converse with Patrick
in Mag Lemne while he was preaching the gospel. And
Brigit fell asleep at the
preaching. Dixit Patrick :
"Wherefore hast thou slept
?" Brigit bent her knees thrice and said : "I saw a
vision,"
quoth she. Dixit Patrick : "Tell us
the vision."
"I saw," quoth she, "four ploughs in the south-east,
and they
ploughed the whole island, and before the sowing was
finished the harvest grew
up, and clear wellsprings and shining streams came
out of the furrows, and
white garments were round the sowers and the
ploughmen. I beheld four other
ploughs in the north, and they ploughed the island
athwart, and before the
harvest came again, the oats which they had sown
grew up at once and ripened,
and black streams came out of the furrows, and black
garments were on the
sowers and on the ploughmen. And I am sorrowful
thereat," quoth Brigit. Dixit Patrick
:
"Be not in sadness, for good is that which thou
beheldest. The first
four ploughs which thou beheldest, those are I and
thou. We sow the four books
of the gospel with seed of faith and confession. The
harvest which appeared to
thee, that is the perfect faith of those men-folk.
The four other ploughs,
those are the false teachers and the liars, and they
will overturn the
teachings that we sow, and those we shall not
uplift. But we, I and thou, shall
then be in the presence of the Creator."
Then
Brigit went to Dunlaing to ask
him to forfeit to her father the sword which he had
given to him while he was
in the door-way of the fortress. Then a slave of the
slaves of the King came to
speak with Brigit and said to her : "If thou wouldst
save me from the
servitude wherein I am, I would become a Christian,
and I would serve thee
thyself." Brigit said : "I will ask that of the
King." So Brigit
went into the fortress and asked her two boons of
the King the forfeiture of
the sword to Dubthach, and his freedom for the
slave. Said Brigit to the King:
"If thou desirest excellent children and a kingdom
for thy sons and Heaven
for thyself, give me the two boons that I ask." Said
the King to Brigit :
"The kingdom of Heaven, as I see it not, and as no
one knows what thing it
is, I seek not, and a kingdom for my sons I seek
not, for I shall not myself be
extant, and let each one serve his time. But give me
length of life in my
kingdom and victory always over the Hui Neill, for
there is often warfare
between us. And give me victory in the first battle,
so that I may be trustful
in the other fights." And this was fulfilled in the
battle of Lochar,
(which he fought) against the Hui Neill.
Once
upon a time the King of
Leinster came unto Brigit to listen to preaching and
celebration at Easter-day.
After the ending of the form of celebration, the
King fared forth on his way
and Brigit went to refection. Lomman, Brigit's
leper, said he would eat nothing
until the weapons of the King of Leinster were given
to him both spears and
sword and shield. A messenger went from Brigit after
the King. From mid-day to
evening a thousand paces until the weapons were
given by him, and bestowed on
the leper.
Once
upon a time Bishop Ercc and
Brigit were in the land of Leinster. She said to
Bishop Ercc : "There is
at present a battle between thy tribe and its
neighbours." Dixit a student
of Bishop Ercc's family : "We think not," saith he,
"that that
is true." Brigit sained the student's eyes. Said the
student: "I see
my brothers a-slaughtering now." Then the student
repented greatly.
Once
upon a time a certain leper
came to Brigit to ask for a cow. Dixit Brigit to him
: "Which wouldst thou
prefer, to carry off a cow or to be healed of the
leprosy ?" The leper
said, that he would rather be healed of his leprosy
than have the kingdom of
all the world, for every sound man is a king, saith
he. Then Brigit made prayer
to God and the leper was healed and served Brigit
afterwards.
Now,
when Brigit's fame in miracles
and marvels had travelled throughout all Ireland,
there came unto Brigit for
their healing two blind men from Britain, and a
little leper boy with them, and
they put trust in Bishop Mel to get them healed.
Said Brigit : "Let them
stay outside just now till mass is over." Said the
Britons (for those
people are impatient), " Thou healedst folk of thy
own race yesterday,
though thou healest not us to-day." Brigit made
prayer and the three were
healed at once.
Brigit
went afterwards with her
virgins to Ardachad of Bishop Mel. The king of
Teffia was at a feast near them.
There was a vessel covered with many gems in the
king's hand. And a certain
careless man took it out of his hand, and it fell
and broke into pieces. That
man was seized by the king. Bishop Mel went to ask
for him, but nothing could
be got from the king save his death. However, Bishop
Mel asked that the broken
vessel might be given to him by the king, and then
he had it and took it with
him to the house wherein was Brigit. And Brigit made
prayer to the Lord, and
the vessel was restored in a form that was better
than before, and then it was
taken to the king, and the captive was loosed. And
Bishop Mel said : "Not
for me hath God wrought this miracle, but for
Brigit."
Once
upon a time Brigit went to
watch over a certain virgin, namely, Brigit, the
daughter of Congaile, who used
to work many miracles. And when Brigit and her
virgins were at dinner, Brigit
paused in the middle of the meal, and she said to a
certain virgin : "Make
thou Christ's cross over thy face and over thine
eyes that thou mayest see what
I see." So then the virgin beheld Satan beside the
table with his head
down and his feet up, his smoke and his flame out of
his gullet and out of his
nostrils. Said Brigit to the demon that he should
answer her : "I cannot,
O nun, be without conversing with thee, for thou
keepest God's commandments and
thou art .... to God's poor and to His family."
"Tell us," saith
Brigit, "why thou art hurtful in thy deeds to the
human race ?"
Said
the demon : "That the race
may not attain unto Paradise." Said Brigit to the
demon : "Wherefore
hast thou come to us among our nuns ?"
"A
certain pious virgin is
here," saith the demon, " and in her company am I."
Said Brigit
to the virgin: "Put Christ's cross over thine eyes."
And the virgin
beheld at once the hideous monster there, and great
fear seized the virgin when
she beheld the demon." Wherefore shunnest thou,"
saith Brigit,
"the fosterling whom thou hast been cherishing (?)
for long seasons
?" Then the virgin repented, and she was healed of
the devil of gluttony
and lust that had dwelt in her company.
Once
upon a time Brigit went over
Teffia, and there were great hosts along with her.
There were two lepers behind
them, who quarrelled on the road. The hand of him
that first raised his hand
withers, and then the hand of the other leper
withered. Thereafter they
repented and Brigit cured them of their leprosy.
Once
upon a time Brigit, with her
virgins, was at Armagh, and two went by her bearing
a tub of water. They came
to Brigit to be blessed, and the tub fell behind
them and went back over back
from the door of the Rath as far as Loch Lapan. And
it brake not, and not a
drop fell thereout. It was well known to every one
that Brigit's blessing had
caused this, and Patrick said : "Deal ye the water
throughout Armagh and
Airthir." So it was dealt, and it cured every
disease and every anguish
that was in the land.
Brigit
went into the province of Fir
Ross to loosen a captive who was in manu with the
King of Fir Ross. Said Brigit
: "Wilt thou set that captive free for me ?" The
King replied :
"Though thou shouldst give me the realm of the men
of Breg, I would not give
him to thee. But go not with a refusal," saith the
King. "For one
night thou shalt have the right to guard his life
for him" Then Brigit
appeared at the close of day to the captive and said
to him : "When the
chain shall be opened for thee repeat this hymn,
Nunc populus, and turn to thy
right hand and flee." Thus it is done, and the
captive flees at the word
of Brigit.
Brigit
one day came over Sliab Breg.
There was a madman on the mountain who used to be
destroying the companies.
Great fear seized the virgins who were near Brigit,
when they saw the madman.
Said Brigit to the demoniac : "Since thou hast gone
there, preach the word
of God to us."
"I
cannot," he saith,
"be ungentle to thee, for thou art merciful to the
Lord's family, to wit,
to the poor and to the wretched." So then said the
madman :
"Reverence the LORD, O nun, and every one will
reverence thee; love the
LORD, and every one will love thee ; fear the LORD,
and every one will fear
thee!" Then the madman went from them and did no
hurt to them.
Brigit
was once journeying in Mag
Laigen, and she saw running past her a student,
namely, Ninnid the scholar.
"What art thou doing, O Sage! " saith Brigit, "and
whither art
thou wending (so) quickly?" "To heaven," saith the
scholar.
"The Son of the Virgin knoweth," saith Brigit, "that
I would
fain fare with thee !" Dixit the
scholar : "O
nun," saith he, "hinder me not from my road ; or, if
thou hinderest,
beseech the Lord with me that the journey to heaven
may be happy, and I will
beseech God with thee that it may be easy for thee,
and that thou mayst bring
many thousands with thee to heaven."
Brigit
repeated a Paternoster with
him, and he was pious thenceforward ; and Brigit
said that neither gallows nor
punishment would be for him ; and he it is that
afterwards administered
communion and sacrifice to Brigit.
Brigit
went to Bishop Ibair that he
might mark out her city for her. So they came
thereafter to the place where
Kildare is to-day. That was the season and the time
that Ailill son of
Dunlaing, with a hundred horse-loads of peeled rods,
chanced to be going
through the ground of Kildare. Two girls came from
Brigit to ask for some of
the rods, and they got a refusal. Forthwith all the
horses were struck down
under their loads against the ground. Stakes and
wattles were taken from them,
and they arose not until Ailill son of Dunlaing had
offered unto Brigit those
hundred horse-loads ; and thereout was built
Brigit's house in Kildare. Then
said Brigit -
“........................................
my
house
On
a time came two lepers unto
Brigit to ask an alms. Nought else was in the
kitchen save a single cow. So
Brigit gave the single cow to the lepers. One of the
two lepers gave thanks
unto God for the cow. But the other leper was
displeased, for he was haughty.
"I alone," saith he, "have been set at nought with a
cow ! Till
to-day," saith he, "O ye nuns, I have never been
counted among
Culdees and amongst the poor and feeble, and I am
not to be slighted with a
single cow." Said Brigit to
the
lowly leper : "Stay thou
here to see whether God will put anything into the
kitchen, and let that
haughty leper fare forth with his cow." Then came a
certain heathen having
a cow for Brigit. So Brigit gave that cow to the
lowly leper. And when the
haughty leper went on his way he was unable to drive
his cow alone, so he came
back again to Brigit and to his comrade, and was
reviling and blaming Brigit.
"Not for God's sake," saith he, "bestowedst thou
thine offering,
but for mischief and oppressiveness thou gavest to
me."
Thereafter
the two lepers come to
the Barrow. The river riseth against them. Through
Brigit's blessing the lowly
leper escapes with his cow. But the haughty leper
and his cow fell into the
stream, and went to the bottom, and were drowned.
Once
upon a time the Queen of
Cremthan, son of Ennae Cennselach, came and brought
a chain of silver to Brigit
as an offering. The semblance of a human shape was
at one of its ends, and an
apple of silver on the other end. Brigit gave it to
her virgins ; they stored
it up without her knowledge, for greatly used Brigit
to take her wealth and
give it to the poor. Nevertheless, a leper came to
Brigit, and without her
virgins knowledge, she went to the chain and gave it
unto him. When the virgins
knew this, they said, with much angry bitterness and
wrath, "Little good
have we from thy compassion to every one," say they,
"and we
ourselves in need of food and raiment." "Ye are
sinning," saith
Brigit : "Go ye into the church : the place wherein
I make prayer, there
will ye find your chain." They went at Brigit's
word. But, though it had
been given to the poor man, the virgins found their
chain therein.
Once
upon a time Brigit beheld a man
with salt on his back."What is that on thy back ?"
saith Brigit:
"Stones," saith the man. "Let them be stones then,"
saith
Brigit, and of the salt stones were made. The same
man again cometh to (or
past) Brigit. "What is that on thy back ?" saith
Brigit:
"Salt," saith the man. "It shall be salt then,"
saith
Brigit. Salt was made again thereof through Brigit's
word.
On
a time came two lepers unto Brigit
to be healed. Said Brigit to one of the two lepers :
"Wash thou the
other."Thus was it done, and he was quite sound
forthwith. Said Brigit to
the sound leper: "Bathe and wash thy comrade even as
he did service unto
thee." "Besides the time that we have [already] come
together,"
says he, "we will never come together, for it is not
fair for thee, O nun,
(to expect) me, a sound man with fresh limbs and
fresh clean raiment, to wash
that loathsome leper there, with his livid limbs
falling out of him."
However, Brigit herself washed the poor, lowly
leper. The haughty leper who had
been washen first, then spake, "Meseems," saith he,
"that sparks
of fire are breaking through my skin." Swifter than
speech he was
straightway smitten with leprosy from the crown of
his head to his soles,
because of his disobedience to Brigit.
Another
time as Brigit was going to
confess to the bishop there was shewn to her a
he-goat's head in the
mass-chalice. Brigit refused the chalice. "Why,"
saith the
ecclesiastic, "dost thou refuse it ?" "Not hard to
say,"
saith Brigit, "this is why I refuse : the head of a
he-goat is shewn unto
me in the chalice." The bishop called the gillie who
brought the imaltoir
(credence-table?) " Make thy confessions, O gillie,"
saith the
bishop. "This very morning," saith the gillie, "I
went to the
goat-house, and took thereout a fat he-goat, and his
flesh I ate." The
gillie did penance and repented. Brigit thereafter
went to confession, and saw
not the semblance.
Once
upon a time came seven bishops
to Brigit, and she had nought to give them after
milking the cows thrice. So
the cows were milked again the third time, and it
was greater than any milking.
Once
upon a time a certain nun of
Brigit's family took a longing for salt. Brigit made
prayer, and the stone
before her she turned into salt, and then the nun
was cured.
Once
upon a time a bondsman of
Brigid's family was cutting firewood. It came to
pass that he killed a pet fox
of the King of Leinster's. The bondsman was seized
by the King. Brigit ordered
a wild fox to come out of the wood. So he came and
was playing and sporting for
the hosts and the King at Brigit's order. But when
the fox had finished his
feats he went safe back through the wood, with the
hosts of Leinster behind
him, both foot and horse and hound.
(This)
was (one) of Brigit's
miracles. She had a great band of reapers a-reaping.
A rain-storm poured on the
plain of Liffey, but, through Brigit's prayer, not a
drop fell on her field.
(This)
was (one) of Brigit's
miracles. She blessed the table-faced man, so that
his two eyes were whole.
(This)
was (one) of Brigit's
miracles. Robbers stole her oxen. The river Liffey
rose against them. The oxen
came home on the morrow with the robbers clothes on
their horns.
(This)
was (one) of Brigit's miracles.
When she came to the widow Lassair on Mag Coel, and
Lassair killed her cow's
calf for Brigit and burnt the beam of her loom
thereunder, God so wrought for
Brigit that the beam was whole on the morrow and the
calf was along with its
mother.
Once
upon a time Brenainn came from
the west of Ireland to Brigit, to the plain of
Liffey. For he wondered at the
fame that Brigit had in miracles and marvels. Brigit
came from her sheep to
welcome Brenainn. As Brigit entered the house she
put her wet cloak on the rays
of the sun, and they supported it like pot-hooks.
Brenainn told his gillie to
put his cloak on the same rays, and the gillie put
it on them, but it fell from
them twice. Brenainn himself put it, the third time,
with anger and wrath, and
the cloak staid upon them.
Each
of them confessed to the other.
Said Brenainn: - Not usual is it for me to go over
seven ridges without
(giving) my mind to God." Said Brigit: "Since I
first gave my mind to
God. I never took it from Him at all."
While
Brigit was herding sheep,
there came a thief unto her and stole seven wethers
from her, after having
first besought her (for them). Nevertheless, when
the flock was counted the
wethers were found again (therein) through Brigit's
prayer.
A
certain man of Brigit's family
once made (some) mead for the King of Leinster. When
the King came to consume
it, not a drop thereof was found, for Brigit had
given all the mead to the
poor. Brigit at once rose up to protect the host,
and blessed the vessels, and
they were at once full of choice mead. For
everything which Brigit used to ask
of the Lord used to be given to her at once. For
this was her desire : to feed
the poor, to repel every hardship, to be gentle to
every misery.
Many
miracles and marvels in that
wise the Lord wrought for Saint Brigit. Such is
their number that no one could
relate them unless her own spirit, or an angel of
God, should come from heaven
to relate them.
Now
there never hath been any one
more bashful or more modest than that holy virgin.
She never washed her hands,
or her feet, or her head, amongst men. She never
looked into a male person's
face. She never spoke without blushing. She was
abstinent, innocent, liberal,
patient. She was joyous in God's commandments,
steadfast, lowly, forgiving,
charitable. She was a consecrated vessel for keeping
Christ's Body. She was a
temple of God. Her heart and her mind were a throne
of rest for the Holy Ghost.
Towards God she was simple : towards the wretched
she was compassionate: in
miracles she was splendid. Therefore her type among
created things is the Dove
among birds, the Vine among trees, the Sun above
stars.
This
is the father of this holy
virgin the Heavenly Father. This is her son Jesus
Christ. This is her fosterer
the Holy Ghost: and thence it is that this holy
virgin wrought these great
innumerable marvels.
She
it is that helpeth every one who
is in straits and in danger. She it is that abateth
the pestilences. She it is
that quelleth the wave-voice and the wrath of the
great sea. This is the
prophesied woman of Christ. She is the Queen of the
South. She is the Mary of
the Gael.
Now
when Brigit came to the
ending-days, after founding churches and church
buildings in plenty, after
miracles and wondrous deeds in number (like) sand of
sea or stars of heaven,
after charity and mercy, she received communion and
sacrifice from Ninnid the
Pure-handed, when he had returned from Rome of
Latium, and sent her spirit
thereafter to heaven. But her remains and her relics
are on earth with great
honour and with primacy and pre-eminence, with
miracles and marvels. Her soul
is like the sun in the heavenly City among quires of
angels and archangels, in
union with cherubim and seraphim, in union with
Mary's Son, to wit, in the
union with all the Holy Trinity, Father and Son and
Holy Ghost.
I
beseech the Lord's mercy, through
Saint Brigit's intercession. May we all attain that
union in scecula
sceculorum. Amen.
-W.Stokes,
ed.and trans., 'On the Life of Saint
Brigit' in Three Middle-Irish Homilies on the Lives
of Saints Patrick, Brigit
and Columba (Calcutta, 1877), 50-89.
The
holy virgin, Brigit, born in the
province of Leinster, in Ireland, of parents of
noble blood and of the
Christian faith, became the mother in Christ of many
consecrated virgins. While
she was yet a little child, her father saw in a
vision men clothed in white
garments, pouring oil upon her head. As she reached
the early years of girlhood
she chose Christ the Saviour as her Spouse, and
clung to Him so ardently, from
her inmost heart, as, for His love, to give away all
she had to the poor. Her
matchless beauty drew around her a multitude of
suitors; and fearing that their
importunity might render impossible her purpose of
devoting her life to God in
holy virginity, she prayed that her beauty might be
changed into ugliness. Her
prayer was at once heard. One of her eyes became
quite swollen, and her whole
face so altered, that all her suitors retired in
disgust, leaving her free to
consecrate her virginity to Christ by a solemn vow.
Taking
with her three young maidens,
she repaired without delay to Bishop Macheas, a
disciple of St, Patrick. The
good Bishop, seeing a pillar of fire over her head,
clothed her in a fair
garment and a white mantle; and reciting the Ritual
prayers, received her to
holy profession, according to the Canonical form
introduced into Ireland by
blessed Patrick. In the course of the ceremony, as
she bent her head to receive
the sacred veil, she leant her hand on the wooden
altar-step. At the moment,
the dry, seasoned wood became green and fresh; on
the instant her eye was
cured, and her whole face recovered its former
beauty. In process of time,
her example drew young maidens to embrace the
religious life in such numbers as
to cover all Ireland with communities of nuns, of
that order over which Brigit
herself presided, and upon which all the rest were
dependent.
The
virgin's sanctity is attested by
the miracles she wrought in her life time, as well
as after death. She
frequently cleansed lepers, and by her prayers
obtained cure for people sick of
divers diseases; she gave sight to one blind from
his birth. An abandoned woman
sought to father her base-born child upon Bishop
Brooney. The Saint, making the
sign of the cross upon the poor baby's lips, made it
declare the name of its
true father, thus vindicating the Bishop's
character. Filled with the spirit of
prophecy, she foretold things to come as if they
were passing before her eyes.
She
enjoyed the most intimate
friendship of St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland,
and foretold the time of his
departure from this world, and the place of his
burial. She was present at his
death, and supplied the winding sheet, which she had
long and carefully kept
for the purpose, in which his blessed remains were
wrapped; and when she came
to give back her beautiful soul to Christ, her
Spouse, she was laid in the same
grave with him.
-M.
F.
Cusack, The
Lives of Saint Columba
and Saint Brigit (Dublin and London, 1877),
254-6.
On
the
Life of Saint Brigid - a Homily from the Leabhar
Breac
Hi sunt, etc. These are the folk that
follow the unpolluted Lamb,
whatsoever way He may wend.
John,
son of Zebedee, Jesus
bosom-fosterling, heir of theVirgin, he it is that
wrote these words, and that
left them in the Church Christian in memory of the
reward and guerdon which God
hath given to the third grade of the Church, namely,
to the Virgins, that is,
the following of the unpolluted Lamb.
Inde Johannes, etc. Now this is the parallel
part of the declaration by
John, as far as where he previously said in his
Gospel (sic) Nemo potest, etc.
There cometh not to any one on earth to make unto
the Lord meet praise or
fitting quire-song, save only of a surety one of the
all-fullness of either
Church, who hath been brought up in chastity and in
virginity, and hath been
redeemed with the price of Christ s blood.
Virgines enim sunt. For those are the virgins
assuredly. So on the track of
these words John saith Hi sunt, etc. Nihil
enim prodest, etc. It
profiteth not any one to have the flesh a virgin if
he be corrupt in
mind. Virginitas enim, etc.
Hoc est enim in Evangelio, etc. For this is in the Gospel,
that these are the virgins
that have not oil in their vessels, namely,the
virgins that do not keep (to
themselves) the approbation of the Lord, but (make)
boasting before every one.
Haec est falsa castitas, etc.
Now
Patriarchs fulfilled the
testament of virginity in prefiguration of Christ.
And apostles and disciples
of Jesus Christ son of the living God, fulfilled it
also, the martyrs and
anchorites of the Lord, the saints and holy virgins
of the world besides, even
as the holy, venerable virgin fulfilled it, she that
hath a festival and a
commemoration on the occasion of this season and
this time, to wit, sancta
virgo Dei Brigida, for then it is that the
Christians celebrate the feast
and festal day of this holy Brigit, to wit, the
Kalends of February as to the
day of the solar month.
Here
then is related in the churches
of the Christians some what of her miracles and
marvels, and of her birth
according to flesh.
Brigit
(was the) daughter of
Dubthach, son of Demre (or Dreimne), son of Bresal,
son of Den, son of Conla,
son of Artair (?) son of Art Corb. son of Cairpre
the Champion, son of Cormac,
son of Oengus the Dumb, son of Eochaid Find
Fuathnart, son of Fedlimid the
Lawgiver, etc.
Now
that Dubthach son of Demre
bought a bondmaid, named Broicsech, daughter of
Dallbronach of Dal Conchobair
in the south of Bregia. Dubthach united himself in
wedlock to her, and she
became pregnant by him. Thereafter Dubthach's
consort grew jealous of the
bondmaid (Brechtnat Blaithbec was the name of
Dubthach's wife), and the queen
said "unless thou sellest this bondmaid in far-off
lands, I will demand my
dowry of thee, and I will go from thee." Dubthach
did not at all desire to
sell the bondmaid.
Dubthach
went, and his bondmaid
along with him, in a chariot past the house of a
certain wizard. When the
wizard heard the noise of the chariot, this he said
: "See, O gillie, who
is in the chariot, for this is the noise of a
chariot under a king. Said the
gillie, “Dubthach is therein." Then the wizard went
to meet the chariot,
and he asked whose (was) the woman who was biding in
the chariot. Said
Dubthach, That is a bondmaid of mine," quoth he,
Maithgen was the wizard s
name, and from him Ross Maithgen is named. The
wizard asked by whom the
bondmaid was pregnant. "By Dubthach." says the
bondmaid. Said the
wizard, “Marvellous will be the offspring, the like
of her will not be in (all)
the land.
Said
Dubthach, " My consort did
not allow me not to sell this bondmaid."
Said
the wizard through his gift of
prophecy, "Thy wife's seed shall serve this
bondmaid's seed, for the
bondmaid will bring forth a daughter, noble,
revered, before the men of the
earth. As sun shineth among stars, (so) will shine
the maiden's deeds and
merits."
Dubthach
and the bondmaid rejoiced
thereat, (and) Dubthach said, "Since I have
(already) sons, I should like
to have a daughter." Then Dubthach went (back) to
his house and his
bondmaid with him. The wife however was still
jealous of the bondmaid.
Great
was the honour in which God
held this girl. For two bishops of the Britons came
to her from Alba to
prophesy of her and to sanctify her, to wit, Bishop
Mel and Melchu nomina
eorum. So Dubthach gave them a welcome and the
bondmaid served them and tended
them. Now Dubthach's consort was mournful thereat,
and Bishop Mel asked her the
cause of her sadness. Said the wife, "Because
Dubthach hath distinguished
his bondmaid from me."Said Bishop Mel, " Thus shall
it be as thou
sayest, for thy seed shall serve the seed of the
bondmaid, but her seed shall
be profitable unto thy seed." She was angry with
him. So the bishop asked
her," How many sons hast thou ?" Said the wife,"Six
sons."
Dixit Bishop Mel, " Thou shalt bear the seventh son,
and he will be the
worst of them, and the other sons will be bad unless
the bondmaid's seed
ennobles them, and thou thyself shalt be accursed,
because of the cruelty which
thou shewest to the bondmaid."
After
these words there came to
Dubthach's house, out of the border of
Hui-Maiccuais, another wizard who had
been gathering treasures. Now when the wizard knew
that the bondmaid was the
cause of the anger of Dubthach's wife, he said,
"Wilt thou sell the
bondmaid?" "I will sell," saith Dubthach. Quoth the
bishops,"Sell the bondmaid, but sell not the child
that is in her
womb." Thus did Dubthach.
The
wizard went forth and the
bondmaid with him. The wizard with his bondmaid
arrived at his house.
A
certain poet came out of the
province of Conaille to the house of the wizard
aforesaid in order to buy a
slave or a bondmaid. The wizard sold him the
bondmaid, but sold him not the
offspring. Then it came to pass that the wizard made
a great feast, and bade
the king of Conaille to the feast, and it was then
the time for the king's wife
to bear a child. There was a prophet along with the
king, and a friend of the
king's asked him what hour would be lucky for the
queen to bring forth the
royal offspring. Dixit propheta," The
child that shall be
brought forth to-morrow at sunrise shall overtop
every birth in Ireland."
Now the queen's travail came on before that hour,
and she brought forth a dead
son. Then the poet asked the prophet what hour would
be lucky for the bondmaid
to bring forth? Said the poet, "The child that shall
be brought forth
to-morrow at sunrise, and neither within the house
nor without, shall surpass
every child in Ireland."
Now
on the morrow, at sunrise, when
the bondmaid was going with a vessel full of milk in
her hand, and when she put
one foot over the threshold of the house inside and
the other foot outside,
then did she bring forth the girl, to wit, Brigit.
The
maid-servants washed the girl
with the milk that was in her mother's hand. Now
that was in accord with the
merits of Saint Brigit, to wit, with the brightness
and sheen of her chastity.
On a Wednesday and in the eighth moon was Brigit
born in Fothart Murthemni.
Still, to the south-east of the church is the
flagstone whereon Brigit was
born, and the girl was taken straightway after her
birth to the queen's dead
son, and when Brigit's breath came to him he swiftly
arose out of death.
Then
the wizard and the bondmaid
with her daughter went into the province of
Connaught: her mother (was) of
Connaught, her father out of Munster, her abode with
the Connaughtmen.
On
a certain day the bondmaid went
to her island, and covered up her daughter in her
house. Certain neighbours saw
the house wherein was the girl all ablaze, so that a
flame of fire was made of
it from earth to heaven. But when they went to
rescue the house, the fire
appeared not, and this they said, that the girl was
full of the Holy Spirit.
One
day the wizard went with his
bondmaid to visit the cattle. The cow-dung (?) that
lay before the girl was
seen ablaze. But when the wizard and the bondmaid
stretched down their hands to
it, the fire appeared not.
Once
upon a time when the wizard was
sleeping, he saw three clerics in white garments, to
wit, three angels of heaven,
and they poured oil on St. Brigit s head, and they,
completed the order of
baptism. And the third cleric said to the wizard "
This shall be the name
of this holy maiden : Sancta Brigita".
The wizard arose, and
told what he had beheld.
Now
this holy virgin, namely,
Brigit, was nourished with food and like to her
compeers (?) besides, and she
rejected the guidance of the, wizard and used to
give it (the food) away. The
wizard meditated on the girl, and it seemed to him
that it was because of the
impurity and the corruption of his food. Then he
enjoined a white red-eared cow
to give milk to Brigit, and he enjoined a faithful
woman to milk the cow. The
virgin took her fill of that.
That
holy virgin was reared till she
was a handmaiden, and everything to which her hand
was set used to increase and
reverence God. Every store of food which she saw and
served used to grow. She
bettered the sheep: she tended the blind: she fed
the poor.
Brigit
was minded to go and watch
over her fatherland. And the wizard sent messengers
to Dubthach, that he might
come for his daughter. The messengers declared unto
Dubthach the maiden's
miracles and many wonders. Then Dubthach came, and
the wizard bade him welcome,
and gave him his daughter free.
Then
they went to their country,
Dubthach and his daughter Brigit, in the province of
Offaly and there did
Brigit work a wondrous miracle, to wit, her
fostermother was in weakness of
disease, and the fostermother sent the holy Brigit
and another maiden with her
to the house of a certain man named Boethchu, to ask
him for a draught of ale.
He refused Brigit. Then Brigit filled a vessel out
of a certain well, and
blessed it, and (the water) was turned into the
taste of ale, and she gave it
to her fostermother, who straightway became whole
thereby. Now when they went
to drink the banquet not a drop thereof was found.
This
(was another) of Brigit's
miracles : while she was herding Dubthach's swine,
there came two robbers and
carried off two boars of the flock. They fared over
the plain, and Dubthach met
them and bound on them the erc (mulct)
of his swine. Said
Dubthach to Brigit, "Is the herding of the swine
good, my girl?"
saith he. Dixit Brigit to Dubthach,
"Count thou the
swine." Dubthach counted the swine, and not one of
them was wanting.
Guests,
then, came to Dubthach.
Dubthach sundered a gammon of bacon into five
pieces, and left them with Brigit
to be boiled. And a miserable, greedy hound came
into the house to Brigit.
Brigit out of pity gave him the fifth piece. When
the hound had eaten that
piece Brigit gave another piece to him. Then
Dubthach came and said to Brigit :
"Hast thou boiled the bacon, and do all the portions
remain?"
"Count them," saith Brigit. Dubthach counted them,
and none of them
was wanting.
The
guests declared unto Dubthach
what Brigit had done."Abundant," saith Dubthach, "
are the
miracles of that maiden." Now the guests ate not the
food, for they were
unworthy (thereof), but it was dealt out to the poor
and to the needy of the
LORD.
Once
upon a time a certain faithful
woman asked Dubthach that Brigit might go with her
into the plain of the
Liffey, for a congregation of the synod of Leinster
was held there. And it was
revealed in a vision to a certain holy man who was
in the assembly, that Mary
the Virgin was coming thereto, and it was told him
that she would not be
(accompanied) by a man in the assembly. On the
morrow came the woman to the
assembly, and Brigit along with her. And he that had
seen the vision said
"This is the Mary that I beheld" saith he to Brigit.
The holy Brigit
blessed all the hosts under the name and honour of
Mary. Wherefore Brigit was
(called) the Mary of the Gael thenceforward.
On
a time it came into Brigit's
mind, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, to go and
see her mother who was in
bondage. So she asked her father's leave, and he
gave it not. Nevertheless, she
went without permission from Dubthach. Glad was her
mother when she arrived.
Toil-worn and sickly was the mother and she (Brigit)
for her mother, and took
to bettering the dairy. The first churning that
Brigit had she divided the
fruit thereof into twelve shares in honour of the
twelve apostles of the
Creator, and she set the thirteenth portion so that
it was greater than every
(other) portion in honour of Jesus Christ, and she
gave them all then to the
poor of the Lord. Now the wizard's herdsman
marvelled at the ordering that
Brigit gave the butter. Then said Brigit:"Christ
with his twelve apostles
preached to the men of the world. In His name it is
that I feed the poor, for Christ
is in the person of every faithful poor man."
The
charioteer (that is the
herdsman) went to the wizard's house, and the wizard
and his wife asked him
"hath the virgin well cared for the dairy?" And the
charioteer (i.e.,
the herdsman) said "I am thankful anyhow, and the
calves are fat" for
he durst not carp at Brigit in her absence. The
charioteer took with him a
firkin(?), eight fists in height. Said the
charioteer to Brigit :"The
wizard will come with his wife to fill this firkin
with the butter of the
dairy." "They are welcome," saith Brigit. The wizard
and his
consort came to the dairy, and beheld the calves
fat. And Brigit made them
welcome and brought them food. Then said the
wizard's wife to Brigit : "We
have come to know whether that which hath been
entrusted to thee hath profited.
Of butter what hast thou?" She had none in
readiness, except the making of
one churning and a half making, and she first
brought the half. The wizard s
wife mocked thereat and said : "This quantity of
butter," says she,
"is good to fill the big firkin that I have" "Fill
your
firkin" saith Brigit, "and God will put butter into
it."
So
she kept going still into her
kitchen and carrying out of it a half making at
every journey, for God did not
wish to deprive her of honour, so in that wise the
firkin was filled. And this
is what she repeated on going into her kitchen -
O
God, O my Prince
Who
canst do all these things,
Bless,
O God (a cry unforbidden),
With
thy right hand this kitchen !
May
Mary's Son, my Friend, come
To
bless my kitchen !
The
Prince of the world to the
border,
May
we have abundance with Him !
The
wizard and his consort venerated
the Lord because of the miracle which they beheld;
wherefore then said the
wizard to Brigit: "The butter and the kine that thou
hast milked, I offer
them to thee. Thou shalt not abide in bondage to me,
but serve thou the Lord”.
Brigit answered him and said: "Take thou the kine
and give me my mother's
freedom." Said the wizard: "Not only shall thy
mother be freed,(but)
the kine shall be given to thee, and whatsoever thou
shalt say (that) will I
do." Then Brigit dealt out the kine unto the poor
and the needy of God.
The wizard was baptized and was faithful, and
accompanied Brigit from that time
forth.
Then
came Brigit, and her mother
with her, to her father's house. Thereafter Dubthach
and his consort were
minded to sell the holy Brigit into bondage ; for
Dubthach liked not his cattle
and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that
is what Brigit used to do.
So Dubthach fared in his chariot, and Brigit along
with him. Said Dubthach to
Brigit :"Not for honour or reverence to thee art
thou carried in a
chariot, but to take thee to sell thee, and to grind
the quern for Dunlang
MacEnda, King of Leinster.” When they came to the
King s fortress, Dubthach
went in to the King and Brigit remained in her
chariot at the fortress door.
Dubthach had left his sword in the chariot near
Brigit. A leper came to Brigit
to ask an alms. She gave him Dubthach's sword. Dixit
Dubthach to the King: "Wilt
thou buy a bondmaid, namely, my daughter?" says he.
Dixit Dunlang:
"Why sellest thou thine own daughter ?" Dixit Dubthach
:
" She stayeth not from selling my wealth and giving
it to the
poor." Dixit the King : "Let the
maiden come into
the fortress." Dubthach went for Brigit and was
enraged against her,
because she had given his sword to the poor man.
When Brigit came into the
King's presence, the King said to her : "Since it is
thy father's wealth
that thou takest, much more, if I buy thee, wilt
thou take my wealth and my
cattle and give them to the poor ?" Dixit Brigit:
"The
Son of the Virgin knoweth if I had thy might with
(all) Leinster, and
with all thy wealth I would give (them) to the Lord
of the Elements." Said
the King to Dubthach : "Thou art not fit on either
hand to bargain about
this maiden, for her merit is higher before God than
before men." And the
King gave Dubthach for her an ivory-hilled
sword, et sic liberata est
sancta virgo Brigita captivitate.
Shortly
after that came a certain
nobleman unto Dubthach to ask for his daughter (in
marriage). Dubthach and his
sons were willing, but Brigit refused. Said a
brother of her brethren named
Beccan unto her : "Idle is the fair eye that is in
thy head not to be on a
pillow near a husband."
"The
Son of the Virgin
knoweth," says Brigit, "it is not lively for us if
it brings harm
upon us." Then Brigit put her finger under her eye,
and drew it out of her
head till it was on her cheek ; and she said : "Lo,
here for thee is thy delightful
eye, O Beccan !" Then his eye burst forthwith. When
Dubthach and her
brethren beheld that, they promised that she should
never be told to go unto a
husband. Then she put her palm to her eye and it was
quite whole at once. But
Beecan's eye was not whole till his death.
Said
Dubthach to Brigit : "O
daughter, says he, "put a veil on thy head. If thou
hast dedicated thy
virginity to God, I will not snatch it from
Him." Deo gratias,
says Brigit.
10.
Now, St. Bridget, an illustrious
virgin, who dwelt and flourished at that time in the
island of Hibernia, and
presided as abbess over a nunnery, on hearing of the
renown of St. Gildas, sent
a messenger to him, saying with entreating words:
Rejoice, holy father, and be
always strong in the Lord. I beseech thee to deem it
worthy to send me some
token of thy holiness, that the memory of thee may
ever, without ceasing, be
held in honour amongst us. Then St. Gildas, having
heard the holy virgin’s
ambassador, made with his own hands a mould of
wrought work and, according to
her petition, constructed a bell, and despatched it
to her by means of the
messenger whom she had sent. She joyfully took it,
and gladly received it as a
heavenly gift sent to her from him.
The
Chronicle
of Glastonbury Abbey by John of Glastonbury.
14th century
Saint
Bridget flourished at the end
of the life of the greater Patrick, with whom we
dealt earlier. She survived
him, as Gildas writes, by sixty years, and she came
to Glastonbury about AD
488. Saint Kolumkilla was born four years before the
death of Saint Brigid and
came to Glastonbury later, about AD 504. These
saints, indeed, frequented the
spot, along with some of the Irish nobility because
of the venerable relics of
their patron Patrick. Saint Bridget made a stay of
several years on an island near
Glastonbury, called Beckery or Little Ireland, where
there was an oratory
consecrated in honour of Saint Mary Magdalene. She
left there certain signs of
her presence - her wallet, collar, bell and weaving
implements, which are
exhibited and honoured there because of her holy
memory - and she returned to
Ireland, where, not much later, she rested in the
Lord and was buried in the
city of Down. The chapel on that island [i.e.
Beckery] is now dedicated in
honour of Saint Bridget; on its side there is an
opening through which,
according to the belief of the common folk, anyone
who passes will receive
forgiveness of all his sins.
-J.P.Carley
and D. Townsend, The
Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey - An Edition,
Translation and Study of John of
Glastonbury's Cronica sive
Antiquitates Glastoniensis(Boydell
and
Brewer, 1985), 67.
The
Feast of Saint Brigid in the Martyrology of
Donegal
1.
D. KALENDIS FEBRUARII. 1.
BRIGHIT,
Virgin, abbess of
Cill-dara. She was of the race of Eochaidh
Finnfuathairt, son of Feidhlimidh
Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar, 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
Brogan to put them into
poetry, as is evident in the Book of Hymns, i.e.,
'The victorious Brighit did
not love,&c'.
When
Moling was returning from the
king of Erinn, after obtaining the remission of the
Borumha from Fionnachta,
king of Erinn, the people of the king were seized
with regret, and they
followed him to kill him. When Moling saw this he
had recourse to the
protection of the saints, and he implored Brighit
first, and said :'Brighit,
bless our path,&c.'
A
very ancient old book of vellum,
in which is found the Martyrology of Maelruain of
Tamhlacht and the saints of
the same name, and the names of many of the mothers
of the saints, states that
Brighit was following the manners and the life which
the holy Mary, mother of
Jesus had.
It
was this Brighit, 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 constantly thinking of
Him, as is evident in her own life, and also in the
life of Saint Brenainn,
bishop of Cluain-fearta. 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
Coindeire states in the poem
whose beginning is, 'Patrick of the fort of Macha
loved, &c'. Thus he says
- :
The
blessed Brighit loved
Constant
piety, which was not
prescribed;
Sheep-herding
and early rising
Hospitality
towards men of virtues.
She
spent indeed 74 years diligently
serving the Lord, performing signs and miracles,
curing every disease, and
sickness in general, as is evident in her own life,
until she yielded her
spirit, after having completed seventy-four years,
as we have said before, A.D.
525, and she was buried at Dun, in one tomb with
Patrick, where Colum Cille was
afterwards interred. The life of Ciaran of Cluain
states, chap. 47, that the
Order of Brighit was [one] of the eight Orders that
were in Erinn.
-J.O'Donovan,
J.H. Todd, W. Reeves,
eds and trans. The Martyrology of Donegal – A
Calendar of the Saints of
Ireland (Dublin, 1864), 34-7.
The
Feast of Saint Brigid in the Martyrology of Oengus
D.
Calendis Februarii
They
magnify February's calends, a
shower of great pure-coloured martyrs: Brigit the
fair, strong, praiseworthy,
chaste head of Erin's nuns.
and
the notes:
Brigit.
Brigit daughter of Dubthach
son of Demre, son of Bresal, son of Connla, son of
Art Corp, son of Cairbre
Nia, son of Cormac, son of Oengus the Dumb, son of
Eochaid Find Fuathnairt, son
of Feidlimid Rechtmad.
Brigit's
three eighths, to wit, her
birth on the eighth (of the month) her veil on the
eighteenth, her death on the
twenty-eighth.
The
white-one from Liffey of the
slopes, daughter of Dubthach of Druim derg:
to-morrow
she goes quickly, so that
from her hand is Patrick's bequest.
Eight
bishops came to Brigit out of
Hui Briuin Cualann, i.e. From Telach na n-epscop to
Loch Lemnachta beside
Kildare on the north. Brigit asked her cook,
Blathnait, whether she had food
for the bishops. Dixit ilia non. Brigit
was ashamed: so the angel
told her to milk the cows again. The cows were
milked and they filled the tubs,
and they would have filled all the vessels in
Leinster, so that the milk went
over the vessels and made a lake thereof, unde Loch
Lemnachta
'New-milk Lough' dicitur.
A
robber came to Dubthach, who took
a joint out of the cauldron for him, and he made
five pieces thereof, and gave
them to Brigit to keep. But a wretched hound came to
her, and she gave it the
five pieces out of the cauldron, and the five pieces
were then found in the
cauldron. That was told to Dubthach, and then he
gave to her and to God the
land, to wit, the site of an oratory in Tuath da
Maige.
A
young cleric of the community of
Ferns, a foster-son of Brigit's, used to come to her
with wishes. He was with
her in the refectory, to partake of food. Once after
coming to communion she
strikes a clapper.
"Well,
young cleric
there," says Brigit, "hast thou a soulfriend?"
"I
have," replied the
young cleric.
"
Let us sing his
requiem," says Brigit, "for he has died. I saw when
half thy portion
had gone, that thy quota was put into thy trunk, and
thou without any head on
thee, for thy soulfriend died, and anyone without a
soulfriend is a body
without a head ; and eat no more till thou gettest a
soulfriend."
Amra
Plea etc. a convent of Brigit's
which is on the brink of the sea of Wight, or the
Tyrrhene (sea), and its Rule
is that of Brigit's community. Et sic factum
est. Brigit despatched
seven persons to learn the Rule of Peter and Paul,
for God did not determine
that she should go. And they brought not the Rule.
So she sent eastward a third
time, together with her blind boy, for everything he
used to hear he
remembered. When they reached the sea of Wight, a
storm fell upon them, so they
let down their anchor, which stuck on the peak of
the oratory. They cast a
lot inter se as to going down, and
it fell to the blind (boy).
He loosed the anchor, et stetit there
to the end of a year,
learning the Rule, till the rest of the party came
to him from Rome, and a
storm fell upon them again in the same place, so
they let down an anchor, and
the blind boy came up from below with the Rule of
Plea and with a beautiful
bell, and it is the Rule of Plea that abides to-day.
Now
Brigit was fain to have the
orders of penitence conferred upon her ; so she went
to Bri Eile, accompanied
by seven nuns, since she had heard that bishop Mel
was there. When they
arrived, bishop Mel was not there, but had gone into
the district of the Hui
Neill. So she fared forth on the morrow with Mac
caille before her as a guide
to Moin Faithnig. Brigit wrought so that the bog
became a smooth flowery plain
for them. When they drew nigh the place wherein
bishop Mel was biding Brigit
told Mac caille that she would take a veil on her
head so that she might not
come unveiled to the clerics; and that may be the
veil that is commemorated
here. Now after reaching the clerics a fiery column
flamed from her head to the
ridge of the church. Said Mac caille : " This is the
famous nun of
Leinster, even Brigit." "My welcome to her," quoth
bishop Mel:
"'tis I," quoth he, "that prophesied her in her
mother's womb,
and 'tis I that will confer the orders upon her."
Once
upon a time bishop Mel came to
Dubthach's house and saw Dubthach's wife in grief.
So the bishop asked, "
What is the matter with the woman?" " Cause of grief
I have,"
she says, "for dearer than I am to Dubthach is the
bondmaid who is washing
you." "Thou hast good reason," says bishop Mel, "for
thy
seed will serve the seed of the bondmaid."
"Why
have the nuns come? asked
bishop Mel. "To have the orders of penitence
conferred on Brigit,"
says Mac caille. Thereafter the orders were read out
over Brigit, and bishop
Mel bestowed episcopal orders upon her, and it is
then that Mac caille set a
veil on (her) head. Hence Brigit's successor is
entitled to have episcopal
orders conferred upon her.
So
long as he was reading out the
orders, thus was Brigit, with the foot of the altar
in her hand; and seven
churches were burnt with that foot (in one of them);
and it was not burnt, sed
etc. Dicunt alii that in Fir tulach
that church was, as bishop
Mel declared :
Beloved
and little the month of dear
February, which comprises for us those festivals,
Brigit's
festival .... Finntain's
festival which I have chosen.
Save
great Mary, good her fame,
Mother of the Lord Jesus,
no
... under heaven has been found
more wondrous than bright white Brigit.
-Whitley
Stokes, ed. and trans. Felire Oengusso
The Martyrology of Oengus, (London 1905), 58,
65-7.
Brigit
Bé
Bithmaith- The Hymn in Praise of Saint Brigid
by Saint Ultan
IV.
ULTAN'S HYMN IN PRAISE OF
BRIGIT.
(Lib,
Hymn, 166.)
The Preface
Brigit
excellent woman! It may be
Colum-cille that made this hymn, and in the time of
Aed son of Ainmire he made
it ; in … (?) he made it. This is the cause of
making it. A great storm came to
Colum-cille when he was going over sea, and he came
into Breccán's Caldron, and
besought Brigit that a calm might come unto him, and
he said 'Brigit bé
bithmaith'.
Or
it is Brocc the squinting that
made it, and at the same time as 'Ní car
Brigit' was made.
Or
it is three of Brigit's family
that made it. They were going to Rome and reached
Placentia, and a man of the
city met them outside and asked them whether they
needed hospitality. They said
that they needed it. Then he took them with him to
his house, and a student, on
his way from Rome, met them there and asked them
whence they came and why they
came. They said “for hospitality.” “ It is a
mistake," says he, “for that
is the custom of this man to kill his guests," and
they asked that through
the student's teaching. So poison was given to them
in ale, and they praised
Brigit for the saving of them, and they sang Brigit
bé bithmaith.
They drank the ale with the poison, and it did no
harm to them. So the man of
the house came to see whether the poison had killed
them, and he beheld them
alive, and he beheld a comely virgin amongst them.
Thereafter he came in, and
was seeking the virgin, and found her not, and he
asked of them, “Why has the
virgin gone?” And they said they had not seen her at
all. Then a chain was put
upon them, that they might be killed on the morrow
unless they would disclose
the virgin. Then the same student came to them on
the morrow to see them, et
invenit, &etc
Or
it is Brenainn that made this
hymn navigans mare etc.
Now
came Brenainn thereafter to
Kildare to Brigit that he might know why the
monster in mare had
given honour to Brigit beyond the saints besides.
Now,
when Brenainn reached Brigit he
asked her to confess in what wise the love of God
was with her. Said Brigit to
Brenainn, "Give thou, O cleric, thy confession prius and
I
will give (mine) thereafter." Said Brenainn, " From
the day I took
orders I never went over seven furrows without my
mind (being) on God."
" Good is the confession," quoth Brigit " Do thou,
now, O
nun," quoth Brenainn, " give thy confession." . " By
the
Son of the Virgin," quoth she, " from the hour I set
my mind on Him I
never took it from Him." " By God, O nun," quoth
Brenainn,
" the monsters are right though they give honour to
thee beyond us"'
Or
it is Ultan of Ardbreccáin who
made this hymn. For Brigit's praise he made it. For
he was of Dal Conchobair,
and so it was with Brigit's mother, namely,
Broicsech daughter of Dallbrónach.
In the time, however, of the two sons of Aed Sláne
it was made besides, for it
is they that killed Suibne son of Colman Mór on one
hand of Ultan. In
Ardbreccan, moreover, it was made.
The Hymn
Brigit,
excellent woman, a flame
golden, delightful,
May
(she), the sun dazzling
splendid, bear us to the eternal kingdom!
May
Brigit save us beyond throngs of
demons!
May
she overthrow before us (the)
battles of every disease!
May
she destroy within us our flesh's
taxes
The
branch with blossoms, the mother
of Jesus!
The
true virgin, dear, with vast
dignity :
May
I be safe always, with my saint
of the Lagenians!
One
of the pillars of (the) Kingdom
with Patrick the pre-eminent,
The
vesture over liga,
the Queen of Queens!
Let
our bodies after old age be in
sackcloth
With
her grace may Brigit rain on
us, save us !
-Whitley
Stokes (ed.) Goidelica
– Old and Early Middle-Irish Glosses, Prose and
Verse, 2nd edition,(London,
1892), 133-7.
The
Hymn
in Praise of Saint Brigid of Brogan-Cloen
ANCIENT
IRISH HYMN OF ST.
BROGAN-CLOEN IN PRAISE OF ST. BRIGID.
THE
hymn of St. Brogan-Cloen in
praise of St. Brigid, which we now publish, is one
of the most valuable records
of the life of our great patroness which have been
handed down by our early
Church. It is preserved in a very ancient MS. of
Trinity College, which is
certainly not later than the ninth century, and in
the famous Liber
Hymnorum of St. Isidore's, Rome, which is
probably of the same age.
The
author of this hymn was St.
Brogan-Cloen, whose name, as Colgan tells us was
honoured on the 17th of
September, in the church of Rostuirck, in Ossory.
The Martyrology of Donegal
also mentions a St. Brocan as honoured on that day.
The name Kilbrogan recalls
his memory in the neighbourhood of Bandon, and he is
venerated as patron of the
parish of Clonee in the diocese of Waterford, where
a few years ago a new
church was dedicated under his invocation in the
presence of the Cardinal
Archbishop of this city. In the Roman MS. the
following title is prefixed to
the hymn in the original hand:
"The
place where this hymn was
composed was Sliabh Bladhma, or Cluain mor Moedhog.
The author of it was Brogan
Cloen. The time was when Lughaidh, son of Loeghaire,
was king of Ireland, and
Ailill, son of Dunlang, king of Leinster. The cause
of writing it, viz., Ultan
of Ardbraccan, the tutor of Brogan, requested him to
narrate the miracles of
Brigid in appropriate poetical language, for Ultan
had collected all the
miracles of Brigid for him".
From
this important record we learn
the following particulars:
1.
That St. Brogan lived for some
time in the monastery of Sliabh-Bladhma, founded by
St. Molua, and in that of
Cluainmor Moedhog, now Clonmore, in Bantry barony,
county Waterford, founded by
St. Aedan, patron of Ferns, about the year 620.
2.
The period to which the poem
refers embraced the reigns of Lughaidh, king of
Ireland, and of Ailildus, king
of Leinster. The Annals of the Four Masters mark the
death of Lughaidh, son of
Loeghaire, in 503, after a reign of twenty -five
years. From Colgan we learn
that Ailildus, according to the ancient catalogues
of the kings of Leinster,
died in 523, after a reign of twenty years. Thus,
the subject of the poem would
embrace the period from 478 to 523, during which St.
Brigid adorned our island
by her virtues and miracles. The learned Colgan
having inadvertently referred
this passage to the "time when the poem was
composed", fell into a
serious anachronism regarding the time of its
composition.
3.
As to the occasion of the poem,
St. Brogan is expressly said to have composed it at
the request of his master,
St Ultan of Ardbraccan: "Ultan of Ardbraccan, the
tutor of Brogan,
requested him to narrate the miracles of Brigid in
appropriate, poetical
language, for Ultan had collected all the miracles
of Brigid for him". In
the Martyrology of Donegal, the same statement is
made under the 4th of
September, the feast of St. Ultan, as follows:
"
Ultan, Bishop of Ardbrecain.
He was of the race of Irial, son of Conall Cearnach.
One of the habits of Ultan
was to feed with his own hands every child who had
no support in Erin, so that
he often had fifty and thrice fifty with him
together, though it was difficult
for him to feed them. One hundred and eighty-nine
was his age when he went to
Heaven, A.D. 656.
'Ultan
loves his children;
A
prison for his lean side,
And
a bath in cold water
In
the sharp wind he loved'.
"
It was he that collected the
miracles of Brigid into one book, and gave them to
Brogan-Cloen, his disciple,
and commanded him to turn them into verse, so that
it was the latter who
composed 'The Victorious Brigid loved not', as it is
found in the Book of
Hymns" (Martyr, of Donegal, Public. I. A. S. pag.
237. seq.).
Again,
when commemorating our holy
patroness on the 1st of February, it is said :
"
It was Ultan that collected
the virtues and miracles of Brigid together, and who
commanded his disciple
Brogan to put them into poetry, as is evident in the
Book of Hymns, i.e.,
" The Victorious Brigid did not love' ", etc.
(ibid., pag. 35).
4.
The connection of the author of
our poem with St. Ultan, sufficiently indicates the
time when it was composed.
The death of St Ultan, as we have just seen, is
marked in the Martyrology of
Donegal in 656. The Annals of the Four Masters in
the same year record his
death on the 4th of September, in the 'one hundred
and eightieth year of his
age' (O'Donov., i. 269). The Annals of Ulster
register it in the same year, though
in 662 they again mention it with the additional
remark secundum alium
librum. Tigernach records his demise in 657,
varying as he generally does
by one year from the other annalists. This date
corresponds perfectly with the
historic data which are given in the Scholia on
the Metrical
Calendar of Aengus the Culdee ; from which we learn
that St Ultan specially
devoted himself to the care of the orphans, who were
deprived of their parents
by the yellow plague, which laid waste our island
about the middle of the
seventh century (see Introduction to Obits, etc., of
Christ Church, by Dr.
Todd. I. A. S., pag. lxxv.). Cathal Maguire, in his
Annotations on Aenghus, at
the 4th September, says that Diarmait Mac Cearbhaill
was king of Ireland in the
time of Ultan of Ardbraccan; and we know from our
annalists that Diarmait
reigned from 644 to 665. In the Sanctilogium
Genealogicum of
Michael O'Clery, at chap. 23, is given the genealogy
of St. Ultan, who is ninth
in descent from Caolbadh, king of Ulster, who died
in 357. Allowing then thirty
years to each descent, the age of St. Ultan is
brought down to 627. As,
however, all our ancient writers agree in assigning
an extreme old age to our
saint, the date 656 may, without hesitation, be
marked for his demise.
Since,
therefore, St. Brogan
composed this poem at the request of his great
master, St. Ultan, we may safely
assign its date about the year 650. The reference to
the monasteries in which
it was composed, agrees perfectly with this date.
Sliabh-bladhma and Clonmore
were both founded about the year 620. The poem
itself furnishes some intrinsic
data which lead to the same conclusion: thus, in
verse 10, a fact from the life
of St. Coemghen of Glendaloch is historically
introduced, and this saint's
repose is chronicled in our annals in 617. We may,
therefore, confidently
assign the interval between 620 and 650, as the
period when St. Brogan composed
this poem.
5.
We should here add some notes to
illustrate the many peculiar forms of expression
which are used in the poem
itself. Our limited space, however, obliges us to
confine our remarks to the
phrase which occurs in the second verse, in which
St. Brigid is styled “The
Mother of the heavenly King". At first sight this
seems to be a startling
expression, and yet it is only a simple metaphor
taken from the words of our
Divine Saviour, in which He teaches that whosoever
performs the will of His
heavenly Father, "the same is His Brother and Sister
and Mother'. There
was a special reason why our Irish writers used this
phrase in regard to our
great patroness. They love to style her “the Mary of
Erin" : they liken
her virtues, miraculous power, and patronage to
those of the Holy Virgin; and
they add that, as Mary is the leader of all the
virgin choirs, so Brigid is the
leader of the virgins of Erin. St Ultan, in the
beautiful poem, " Christus
in nostra insula" (Lib. Hymn , I. A. S., pag. 58),
says of St. Brigid,
that " she pledged herself to become the Mother of
Christ, and proved
herself to be so by her words and deeds".
The
same great saint, in his Life of
St. Brigid, mentions how, during an assembly of the
clergy of Kildare, a holy
man announced to them that he had seen the Blessed
Virgin Mary in vision, and
when on the next day St. Brigid came to the
assembly, he immediately cried out,
" This is holy Mary, whom I saw in my vision" : then
adds the writer,
" all gave glory unto her as being in the type of
Mary" (Colgan, Vit.
Tert., cap. 14, pag. 528). The Martyrology of
Donegal, on the 1st of February,
writes:
"
A very ancient old book of
vellum, in which is found the Martyrology of
Maelruain of Tamhlacht, and the
saints of the same name, and the names of many of
the mothers of the saints,
states that Brigid was following the manners and the
life which the holy Mary,
Mother of Jesus, led. 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 constantly
thinking of Him" (Public.
I. A. S., pag. 35).
Other
passages from our ancient
writers, illustrating this title, may be seen in the
Book of Hymns (I. A. S.,
pag. 65). Hence, St. Brigid being " the Mary of
Erin", our poets did
not hesitate to apply to her in a figurative sense
those titles which strictly
speaking could only designate the special and
characteristic prerogatives of
the holy Mother of God.
6.
There is another short Irish poem
which presents in a most striking way many of these
titles. It is preserved in
the Liber Hymnorum of Trinity
College and in that of St.
Isidore's. Colgan, who gave a Latin translation of
it (Trias, pag. 606),
attributes it to St. Columbkille, and the preface in
the Liber Hymnorum also
mentions this saint as one of those to whom it was
generally referred. Others,
however, attribute it to St. Ultan, the great master
of St. Brogan-Cloen, and
under his name it was printed with an English
translation by the learned Mr.
Stokes in his Goidilica, pag. 81. It is as follows:
Brigid,
noble woman!
A
flame, golden, beautiful,
A
sun dazzling splendid,
May
she bear us to the eternal
kingdom.
May
Brigid save us,
Despite
the throngs of demons
May
she overthrow before us
The
battle-hosts of every disetie.
May
she destroy within us
Our
flesh's taxes (i.e. our sins),
blossoming
branch!
Mother
of Jesus!
The
pure Virgin, dear to us,
Great
her dignity,
May
we be always safe
With
my saint of the Lagenians.
She
is a pillar of the Kingdom
With
Patrick the preeminent, *
The
garment of garments,
The
Queen of Queens.
When
in our old age
Our
bodies are laid in sackcloth,
May
Brigid shower her blessings on
us,
May
Brigid save us.
*The
gloss adds that " Patrick
is the head of the men, Brigid of the women of
Ireland".
7.
As regards the hymn of St
Brogan-Cloen, it was first published by Colgan
(Trias, pag. 515), with a Latin
translation. Mr. Stokes, too, has of late published
it from the Trinity College
text (Goidilica, Calcutta, 1866, pag. 82, seqq.),
accompanying it with an
English translation which, however, he admits to be
very far from classical. We
now present the Irish text of St. Isidore's MS., and
we add a Latin
translation, based on that of Colgan, but in which
many corrections have been
made in accordance with the more literal version of
Mr. Stokes. We cannot
conclude without thanking Mr. O'Looney for his kind
and valuable assistance in
editing this important record of our early Church.
-THE
IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD Vol 4, FEBRUARY,
1868, 221-237.
THE
IRISH HYMNS IN THE LIBER
HYMNORUM.
Translation.
Locus hujus hymni, — Slieve Bloom or Cluain Mor
Maedoc. The author, Broccan the
squinting. Tempus of Lugaid, son of
Loegaire, king of Ireland
and of Ailill son of Dunking, king of
Leinster. Causa, Ultan of
Ardbrecain his tutor asked him to relate Brigit's
miracles in short discourse
with poetic consonance, for it is this Ultan that
collected all Brigit's
miracles.
Victorious
Brigit loved not (the)
world ; she sat (the) seat of a bird on a cliff :
The
holy-one slept a captive's sleep
because of her Son's absence.
Not
much of carping used to be found
with (the) noble faith of (the) Trinity,
Brigit
mother of my Lord,— of
heaven's kingdom best was she born.
5
She was not a carper, she was not
malevolent, she loved not vehement woman's-war :
She
was not a serpent wounding,
speckled : she sold not God's Son for gain.
She
was not greedy for treasures,
she gave without gall, without abatement :
She
was not hard (or) penurious :
she loved not the world's pastime.
She
was not harsh to sojourners,
gentle was she to wretched lepers.
10
On a plain she built a town: to
(God's) kingdom she convoyed hosts.
She
was not a herdswoman on a
mountain-side : she wrought amid a plain,
A
marvellous ladder for pagans to
visit (the) kingdom of Mary's Son.
Marvellous
(was) St. Brigit's
congregation : marvellous the flame that went (from
it) :
It
was only about Christ sang (the)
assembly that was frequent with multitudes.
15
In a good hour MacCaille set the
veil on Saint Brigit's head :
Clear
was she in her goings : in
heaven was heard her prayer.
"
God, I pray Him in every
struggle, in every way that my mouth may speak,
Deeper
than seas, greater than can
be told, Three-Persons, One-Person, marvel of a
story!"
She
prophesied to the sage, famous
Coemgen, that wind would hurl him through a storm of
snow :
20
In Glendalough a cross was
suffered so that he possessed peace after trouble.
Saint
Brigit was not sleepy, she was
not changeful about God's love:
The
holy-one neither bought nor
gained profit of this world.
What
the King wrought of miracles
for St. Brigte
Hath
not been wrought for man where
car of anyone living hath heard.
25
The first calling to which she
was sent in spring in a chariot,
She
took not from her guests' food,
she diminished not their substance.
Her
(caldron's) charge of bacon
after this — one evening — high was the marvel !
Although
the dog was satisfied
thereout, the guest was not
mournful.
On
her day of reaping well reaped
she — fault was not found there with my pious one :
30
There was fine weather always in
her field — though on the world fell a storm.
Bishops
who visited her, not
trifling was the danger to her
If
it had not been that the King
increased the cows' milk three-fold.
She
herded on a day of storm sheep
amid a plain :
She
spread afterwards her hood in
(the) house on a sunbeam.
35
The hard youth besought her,
Brigit, for love of her King :
She
gave seven wethers from her, her
flock's number she lessened not.
It
is according to my lore if I
should relate what she did of good :
Marvellous
for her the bath which
she blessed : about her it was red ale.
She
blessed the pregnant nun, she
was whole without poison, without illness :
40
There was a greater marvel
another (time) — of the stone she made salt (for the
poor).
I
have not told, I tell not, what
the holy creature wrought.
She
blessed the table-faced man, so
that his two eyes were clear.
A
dumb girl was brought to Brigit —
it was one of her miracles —
Her
hand went not from her hand
until her speech was clear.
45
A marvel of (the) bacon she
blessed — it was God's power that secured it :
It
was a full mouth with the dog:
the dog marred it not.
There
was a greater marvel at
another time ! a bit she asked from the (caldron's)
charge
Spoiled
not her scapular's colour,
(though) it was flung hot into her bosom.
The
leper begged a boon of her : it
was good for him that she granted it :
50
The choice of the calves she
blessed : (the) choice of the cows it loved.
She
afterwards sent her chariot
north ward to the hill of Cobthach Coil,
The
calf with (the) leper in (the)
chariot, the cow behind the calf.
The
oxen that had gone away from her
— well for them had anyone turned them —
Against
them rose the river, at
morning they came home.
55
Her horse separated head from
bridle when they were running down hill:
The
yoke was not uneven — God's Son
helped the royal hand.
A
wild boar frequented her herd — northwards
the beast drove it:
Brigit
sained (him) with her staff,
with her swine he took his stay.
A
hog, a fat pig which was given
her, over Magh Fea — it was a marvel ! —
60
Wolves hunted it for her until it
was in Uachtar-gabra.
She
gave the wild fox for grace of
her vassal the wretched :
To
a wood it went although the hosts
pursued.
She
was clear in her goings : she
was one mother of (the) great King's Son.
She
sained the swift bird so that it
played in her hand.
65
Nine outlaws she sained, who
reddened their weapons in a pool of gore:
The
man on whom they inflicted
wounds, his body was not found.
What
she wrought of miracles there
is not (one) who has rightly counted :
A
marvel, she took Lugaid's dinner,
(the) champion, his strength did not lessen.
An
oak which the host lifted not at
the other time — excellent, famous !
70
Her son brought to her for Brigte
to (the) place in which her house was founded.
The
pin of silver — not to be
concealed— for evil against the Nia's woman
Was
flung into (the) sea a cast's
full length so that it was in a salmon's belly.
A
marvel for her, the (poor) widow,
who dwelt (?) in Magh Coil,
Burnt
the new weaver's beam on (the)
fire cooking the calf.
75
Greater was (the) marvel than the
other ! the saint wrought (?) it :
In
(the) morning whole was the beam,
at (its) mother the calf suckled.
The
treasure of silver which the
artisan broke not, it was a marvel for her !
Brigit
struck it against her palm so
that afterwards it brake into three.
It
was put into a scale by the
artizan, a marvel was found after this,
80
It was not found that even one
scruple (one third) was greater than another third.
What
she wrought of miracles, there
is not a human being who may recount them :
She
blessed raiment for Condla when
he was taken to Latium.
When
there was danger to her, her
Son before her did not fail her :
He
brought (like) raiment in a
coffer of sealskin in a chariot of two wheels.
85
The vat of mead that was brought
to her, there was no hardship to every one who
brought :
(The
vessel) was found beside (his)
house : it was not observed there with her.
She
gave (mead) for her vassal's
benefit when he needed it :
There
was not found increase there,
nor was a drop wanting from it.
On
us let Brigit's prayers be, long
against dangers may she aid us !
90
May they be on her weaklings'
side before going into (the) Holy Spirit's presence
!
May
she come to us with a sword of
fire at the fight against dark flights (of demons) !
May
her holy prayers convoy us into
heaven's kingdom beyond pains !
Before
going with angels to the
battle, let us visit the church running :
Commemoration
of God is better than
any poem — victorious Brigit loved not (the) world.
95
I beseech (the) patronage of
Saint Brigit, with (the) Saints of Kildare :
May
they be between me and pain,
(that) my soul come not to ruin.
The
Nun that used to run over (the)
Curragh, may she be a shield against sharp weapons :
She
found not her like save Mary :
we put trust in my Brige !
We
put trust in my Brige — may she
be a protection to our host !
100
May her patronage work with me !
may we all deserve escape !
Christ's
praise, a glorious
utterance, adoration of God's Son, a gift of
victory,
Of
God's kingdom without denial be
every one who has sung it, who has heard it.
Whoever
hath heard, whoever hath
sung, let Brigit's blessing be on him :
Brigit's
blessing and God's be upon
us together.
105
There are two nuns in heaven,
whom I rely on (?) for my protection,
Mary
and Saint Brigit: under (the)
protection of them both be we!
Sancta Brigitta etc.
[In
the MS. Trinity College, Dublin,
is added the Latin strophe:
Sancta Brigitta virgo Sacratissima
In Christo Domino fuit fidelissima. Amen .]
Whitley
Stokes, Goidelica: Old
and Early-middle-Irish Glosses,
Prose and Verse (1872), 142-6.
The
Office
of Saint Brigid from the Roman Breviary
OFFICES
PECULIAR TO IRELAND
February
1
St Brigid (Bride,) Virgin.
Patroness of Ireland.
Double of the Second Class.
All from the Common Office for
Virgins (p. 567,) except the following.
Prayer throughout the Office.
O
GOD, Who year by year dost cause
us to rejoice as upon this day, in the feast of Thy
blessed hand-maiden Brigid,
mercifully grant us help for her sake, the bright
ensample of whose chastity
doth still shed its light upon us. Through our Lord
Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who
liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the
Holy Ghost, one God, world
without end. Amen.
MATTINS.
FIRST
NOCTURN.
Lessons from i Cor. vii. 25, as in
the Common.
SECOND
NOCTURN.
Fourth Lesson.
THE
holy virgin Brigid was born of
noble and Christian parents in the province of
Leinster in Ireland, and she was
the mother in Christ of many holy maidens. While she
was yet a little child,
her father saw men clad in white raiment pouring
holy oil upon her head, which
thing was a foreshadowing of the godliness and
holiness of the virgin. As soon
as she had attained to the first years of girlhood,
she chose Christ her
Saviour for her Bridegroom, and clung to Him with so
profound a passion of her
heart, that she gave away to the poor whatsoever she
had. The matchless
loveliness of her body brought about her a host of
suitors, and lest they
should prevail with her to break the intention of
virginity, by which she had
given herself over to God, she prayed God to make
her unsightly. She was soon
heard. One eye swelled, and her whole face became so
changed, that she was
allowed to send back the messenger of the suitors,
and by a solemn vow to keep
her virginity for Christ.
Fifth Lesson.
SHE
took with her three maidens, and
went to Bishop Mahew, the disciple of St Patrick.
When he beheld a pillar of
fire over her head, he clad her in a white tunic and
a white mantle, read the
sacred prayers, and admitted her to that canonical
profession which blessed
Patrick had brought into Ireland. At the moment that
she bowed down her head to
receive the hallowed veil, she chanced to touch the
wooden step of the altar
with her hand, and the dry wood at once became
green, and her eye was healed,
and her face became lovely as beforetime. After her
example so great a
multitude of maidens embraced the regular life, that
in a little while all
Ireland was filled with houses of nuns, whereof the
chief was that one in which
Brigid herself ruled, and from which the others
hung, as from their head.
Sixth Lesson.
THE
holiness of this virgin is
witnessed by the miracles which she openly wrought,
not only during her life,
but also after her course in this world was ended.
Very often did she cleanse
lepers, and obtain health by her prayers for them
that were sick of divers
diseases. She opened the eyes of one that was born
blind. A certain shameless
woman had an unlawful child, whereof she protested
that Bishop Broonus was the
father, but Brigid made the sign of the cross upon
the mouth of the new-born
child, which forthwith told the name of its real
father, and so delivered the
Bishop from that false accusation. She had the
spirit of prophecy, and foretold
many things which were yet to come, as though they
were present before her. She
was bound in a holy friendship to St Patrick the
Apostle of the Irish. She
foretold when he would pass out of this life, and
where would be the place of
his sepulchre. She was there when he passed away,
and gave the linen which she
had made ready beforehand to swathe his body withal.
At last she gave up her
beautiful soul to her bridegroom Christ, and was
laid in the same grave with
blessed Patrick.
THIRD
NOCTURN.
Lessons from Matth. xxv. i, with
the Homily of St Gregory
(p. 571.)
-J.
P. Crichton-Stuart, tr., The
Roman Breviary: Reformed by order of the Holy
Ecumenical Council of Trent
(Edinburgh 1908), 954-955.
FIONOLA,
the daughter of Ronan the
silversmith, was ill nigh unto death with a strange
fever, and her father was
sorrowful. He had sent for Aengus, the physician,
who came in haste over the
plains of Druim Criaidh, and made secret potions of
herbs for her healing. But
his tendance and simples availed not against this
sickness, the like of which
he had not known until now.
Thereupon
Ronan, staring in bitter
melancholy at the perplexed physician, called a
messenger and bade him go with
all speed for the magnus. But the unhappy physician
glided across to the
silversmith and spoke to him in low tones, with a
look of cunning on his
sombre, lean face.
"Stay
a little," he said,
"I have thought of the cause of this strange fever
that wastes the
beautiful Fionola. It is a punishment, Ronan. It is
a punishment. Mark how she
speaks foolishly in her sickness of this young
woman, Brigid, who has come to
lead our children from the gods of our fathers.
Look: yonder are her houses set
in pride upon Magh Liffe. Beside the oak tree, as if
deriding the strength of
our druids, stands the temple she has raised to the
God of Padraig a slave who
herded swine upon Sliabh Mis! But this Brigid is
young and beautiful and
gentle-"
"
She is young, and she is
beautiful, and she is gentle. I have seen her," said
Ronan. " She is
not like other women. Her beauty shines about her
like a soft light. She is
gracious as a queen. It is a great pity that she has
been false to Crom Cruach
and the gods we love."
"
She and all her like, who followed
Padraig, the priest of the Gall, will turn again to
Crom Cruach, Ronan. Such
fevers as this, ..." said Aengus, pausing with
meaning in his look.
Ronan
scarcely heeded him. He
beckoned to the messenger, who stood waiting, and
told him to go to the
arch-druid himself, and to bring him speedily.
"
He shall have choice of the
richest treasures in my workshops," he added, as the
messenger flashed
forth.
With
a sign to the attendant, the
silent Aengus went once more to the chamber in which
the sick girl lay. For
some moments he stood with her worn hand in his, and
strove to soothe her. But
she continued to toss her head uneasily upon the
silken cushions of her couch.
Her delirious crying and crooning abated not. She
snatched her hand from his
cool clasp, and struck at him; then waved her frail
arms about her, clutched
wildly at the purple and green tapestries, and
shrank away from him, twisting
and moaning, hiding her face in the confusion of her
loose tresses, that fell
about her stricken loveliness like a shower of gold.
With
a troubled countenance, the old
man left the room. He met Ronan the smith in the
outer apartment, and glanced
uneasily at the grim features of him.
''
In truth it is a
punishment," he said. ''Brigid, or the false
Nadfraoich, or perhaps
Clonlaedh who is Brigid's chief counsellor, one of
these has cast a spell upon
the fair Fionola. She has been drawn to one of them
in her childish wishing and
unwise curiosity, not understanding her folly. Even
now but listen! Listen,
Ronan: she is singing in her wild fever of Brigid of
Cill Dara!"
The
silversmith frowned quiet scorn
on the physician, with whose impotency he had scant
patience.
"
She is dying in her wild
fever," he said slowly, " and you cannot heal her
for me."
"Unless
we offer sacrifice,
beseeching our gods: -"
“I
have offered sacrifice, and
besought all our gods," snapped the smith, without
reverence. "I have
spoken to the druids that are left us, but even they
in their wisdom have
failed me. And now I have sent to the grove of the
arch-druid ah !" he
said, listening an instant, "Fionola is singing the
song that I made !''
"
The song that you made?
" said the physician, wondering.
He
watched the smith grasp the
silver-spun tassels and draw the heavy saffron
curtains a little apart. Then he
was listening to the weird voice of the sick girl.
The room, with its pagan
tapestry and rich-hued curtains, its ornaments of
silver and bronze, its shaggy
rugs, and oddly-fashioned couches, faded from him.
He could not see Ronan, who
was very still and mute. Groping blindly, as if a
mist enshrouded him, he
struck against a harp. There was a musical crash,
and he stood motionless,
amazed, hearing the girl's wild song, which was
eloquent of desolation; of
shadows; of despair.
The
darkness passed from him, and
upon his vision there broke now a very glory of
light. Countless shining
figures seemed to move before him. There was a
flashing of white wings. There
was the gleaming of bright faces. He heard music of
triumph; voices of
gladness, giving praise; and he shook to the
delicate might of them.
He
became aware all at once of a
change in the voice that sang. It was tranquil and
happy, very tender and clear
in its tones, dying away at last in a tremulous
cadence that was awed and
yearningful. There was silence for a time, during
which he realised that the
singing of Fionola had been the cause of those
imaginings which had so
strangely bemused him. He heard the silversmith's
voice, quivering a little :
"It
was the song that I made of
her chaste beauty'' he was saying. " While I wrought
in my workshop one
day, carving flowers of gold to set in the silver
girdle of the druid, Erva,
she went by in her chariot with others of the
virgins from yonder cloister. And
seeing Brigid, more stately than the swan upon Loch
Darvra, more gentle than
any other maiden I have seen-: "
"
She is not more lovely than
Fionola of the golden hair," said Aengus with a
suave gallantry.
"
My daughter is beautiful. But
this Brigid, for all her disbelief in the truths of
old, is more fair to see,
as though some power of mystery had touched her. And
seeing her when she passed
by, I was moved to song. Unbidden, to my lips came
happy music, and while I
graved the gold, I sang like a poet in her praise.
And -"
"
And now," cried the
physician, " now, for your chastisement, Fionola is
stricken. The child
suffers for the father's deed; and, until you repent
your treachery to our
gods, the witching fever will possess her."
"Perhaps
it is my
chastisement," said Ronan, subdued a little. ''Yet,
as I tell you, Aengus,
the song came unbidden. It seemed but my innocent
tribute to one who shone
wondrously fair. I forswore not a word, not a hope,
of my ancient creed, which
is yet, I say, as proud and lasting as your own, my
good man. Nor did Fionola
turn from the worship of our true gods. Only, like
myself, she has looked upon
Brigid passing by with her virgins, one stainless
blossom, tender and bright
amongst the clustering of other blossoms nigh as
fair as she. And now Fionola
has added to my little song, that came I know not
why, and has wrought a
gentle, sad magic in my heart, winning me to kinder
thoughts of Brigid's
faith-".
"
O Ronan, Ronan, you grow
pitiful because of your visions when Fionola sang !
I also had visions of
darkness and of brightness; but know you not that
our youngest bard can work
such enchantment with his voice and harp? Why, but
yesterday," said the
old physician, craftily, "I heard Diarmaid, the son
of Jarlait Mór; and,
as I listened to his music, I saw again the Battle
of the Ford. I heard the
cries of challenge and of death. I saw the strife of
warriors. I saw the blood
steam red along the grass. Music brings dreams,
Ronan. It soothes our griefs.
It fires the brain to passion. So the harp of
Diarmaid, and this strange
chaunting of Fionola, brought the visions that were
as changing dreams."
“I
heard her sing, and saw the world
in darkness. I saw a King, forgotten by his people,
returning to them, cleaving
the shadows that had hidden them. I saw reviled,"
said Ronan, speaking
like one whose memory strains for the utmost truth,
"I saw reviled One of
boundless kingly glory, Who died, for the sake of
His people, upon a great
cross raised amidst the darkness. And then and then,
behold! I saw a white
brightness shine upon the world, and One whose Face
was more beautiful than the
light of the sky seemed to speak and bless His
people. So the wonder of it
passed from me, in the strange thanksgiving of
Fionola's song."
Ronan
gazed long and earnestly at
the physician, who returned the pondering look with
a stupid amaze. Then into
the dim eyes of Aengus there came a quickness of
deceit. And he said,
shrewdly-seeming:
"
O my friend, I also had such
visions while the poor Fionola sang. I saw darkness,
and I saw light in which
strange figures moved. And the darkness is this
house of Brigid overshadowing
Druim Criaidh. And the light is the joy that will
fill your heart when your
child will be healed because of your ceasing to
praise the goodness of Brigid.
And the moving figures are the followers of Padraig
and of her, fleeing before
the wrath of our gods."
"
And the cross on which died
the King?" said the silversmith, looking rapt,
gazing afar off.
"I
did not see a cross. I did
not see a kingly One," said the physician.: ''Read
these signs yourself,
Ronan, as you deem wise and true. The greatest of
our druids will tell their
secret meaning when he comes to you."
''
Wanderers have told me of the
faith that Padraig preached," said Ronan,
reflecting. " And Brigid
believes as Padraig believed. They spoke of a cross
... of One who died ... of
One who rose up, casting the cromlech aside . . ."
They spoke: and so
memory brings their light words to shape a lighter
vision, Ronan. If you had
not heard them speak '' I saw it not like this
before. I saw not such wonder
and such sacrifice."
"Because
a maiden, uplifted in
her fevere, sang enchantment ! I shall bring
Diarmaid Og with his harp,"
said Aengus, bondsman in allegiance to the druids;
his calling, too, being
close akin to theirs. "I shall bring Diarmaid of the
cunning fingers to
work his music-spells on your troubled brain
perchance to work, besides, a
wholesome change in the girl's fever."
"
You call it fever," said
Ronan. " If it be so, why does it not come with you
to cool its burning?
Where is the magic in your herbs and secrets, that
cannot cure a fever as of
old?"
"
It is a wicked and strange
sickness, like to a fever, and yet unlike. I know it
not. But look, Ronan: here
comes Mornac, driving like the wind in his chariot
!"
"It
is Diarmaid Og who drives
the black horses of Jarlait Mór."
"
He brings his great harp in
the chariot.''
"
Noble is he of look, and
masterful with the proud steeds. He hastens for
Fionola's sake," said
Ronan, going to the bawn, urging the attendants in
their welcoming of the
arch-druid and the young bard.
Aengus
bowed low as the great Mornac
swept past, in grave speech with the sad Ronan. The
place became silent. In the
bright workshops, where the tinkle of silver and
instruments had hinted busy
pagan craftsmen, there was now a hush. In the
household awe grew more and more:
the sonorous voice of the druid rose and fell in
mystic chaunt, vibrating
weirdly as he wrought his spells. Only in the
spacious banquet-hall was there a
sound, while serving-women moved swiftly hither and
thither, setting forth
fruit in silver dishes, wines and meads in
fine-carven goblets and meythers,
venison and game, and delicate little cakes in
abundance.
Then,
breaking that respectful
silence, there rang an anguished scream. The druid
was compelling the stricken
girl to partake of the magical posset which he had
mixed with his own hand. She
refused to drink it. He touched her with the
slender, gold-tipped wand that he
bore. He laid his palm upon her brow, and droned
druidical incantation, making
odd wizard-signs with his slow wand. Crom Cruach,
and all the lesser gods, he
invoked in solemnity of beseeching; Dagda, and
Aengus of Brugh, and all the
magi of the Tuath. But the sorcery and supplication
proved vain: Fionola
refused the magician's cup; grew, indeed, more
violent in her distemper because
of Mornac's presence.
"It
is the coming of this
daughter of Dubhthac and Brocessa, She and her
virgins have cast new spells
into the winds that sweep Magh Liffe. But we shall
vanquish their enmity, and
the gods aiding us, as they aided our fathers . . ."
Mornac's
vibrant deep voice broke
murmurously. His handsome and venerable face worked
as if to the confusion of
very fierce emotions. For some moments, driving his
long fingers through the snowiness
of his locks, from the big brow to the hood of his
cloak, he looked wild and
repellant. Presently, uttering a low cry to his
gods, he snatched at the
leathern wallet that hung from his cincture on a
gold chain, and unclasped it.
From his robe he drew forth a parchment which, when
he had opened the wallet of
dried herbs, he studied with frowning eagerness,
peering now and then keenly at
the herbs in the little compartments into which the
pouch was divided. At last,
turning away from Ronan, who was anxiously
contemplating Fionola and him, he
moaned within himself, and appeared to be more
grievously confounded than he
had been.
At
that moment a silent messenger
touched the silversmith on the arm, and whispered
him: '' Diarmaid the son of
Jarlait Mór begs urgent speech with you."
Ronan
went out at once, and met the
handsome young chieftain in the ante-chamber.
"Great
Mornac delays
long," said Diarmaid. " What wondrous deed has he
done for our
beloved Fionola?"
''He
cannot lessen her
sickness," said Ronan, gazing in melancholy on the
solicitous face of his
daughter's noble lover.
"Listen
then, O Ronan, my true
friend," said the young chieftain.'' I fear that I
may deserve rebuke, and
I would confess a secret to thee quickly. When I
came to woo the beautiful
Fionola, she returned not my love. And because she
did not love me as I had
hoped, I sought the aid of Mornac, who pledged to me
the strength of all his
love-potions in my cause, which I had deemed just
and worthy. And Mornac, going
to Slana, who makes the little golden honey-cakes
that Fionola loves, bade her
mix with the wheat and honey a fine powder ground
from herbs of great magic. So
did Mornac tell me for my good cheer. But now,
Ronan, this fever this lasting
sickness it troubles me, and I feel, even as I speak
to you, a secret surge of
shame."
They
had moved slowly across the
threshold while Diarmaid spoke. Hearing of this
hidden tampering with his
daughter's food, the silversmith was sorely smitten
with misery, and stood
silent for a space, wringing his hands, striving to
control the rage that he
felt rising within him. Standing there in the
sunshine, the two men heard sweet
voices near them; and wheeling a little, they
perceived a group of gentle,
calm-browed women moving to them; bearing to them,
it seemed, a very radiance
of youth, and mildness and beauty. And having
saluted them, the fairest of the
women, whom Ronan recognised as Brigid of the Church
of the Oak, spoke to the
silversmith, and said:
"Erca,
the daughter of the
shepherd, who came to us yesterday, has told us that
your daughter is ailing
with a dangerous fever."
"
She is ill nigh unto
death," said Ronan quickly, ''and in her sickness
she has sung of you, and
made songs in your praise."
"Truly,
it is a strange fever
which afflicts her, that she would be making songs
in praise of me," said
Brigid cheerfully. "But be of good heart, O my
friend, for the Bishop,
Conlaedh, has offered the Holy Sacrifice for her,
and we have prayed long and
humbly. Now we come to see her.''
"
A thousand welcomes before
yourself, O generous maiden, and before the noble
maidens who are with
you," said the silversmith, with childlike fervour.
And
bidding them follow him into the
house, he went tremulously within. Diarmaid remained
in the bawn, where he
lingered for some minutes beside the chariot from
which the horses had been
unyoked considering without pride the great harp
that had been brought because
Mornac wished it. And of a sudden, as he waited
alone, there came to him a
joyous voice.
"
O Diarmaid," cried
Fionola from the threshold, " O Diarmaid Og, I am
cured of my poisoning
!"
"
Great Mornac and our gods be
praised!" said Diarmaid, hastening to her. " O
Fionola, a mhuirnin,
there is great gladness ''
"
Mornac poisoned me, and could
not stay the fever that sprang from his evil. It
is she," said
Fionola in happy triumph. ''It is she,
the noble Brigid, who healed
me through the great power of her One High God the
Saviour God the Three-in-One
that Padraig preached !"
''Then
praise, O Fionola, to the God
of Padraig and Brigid ! Praise to that God for
ever!" said the young
chieftain with reverence.
"Bring
your harp into the
house, and let us make a great poem of praise," said
Fionola, and she
turned to send an attendant for the beautiful
instrument in the chariot.
Within
doors the druid and the
physician were disputing with Brigid, whose power
and its source they
questioned, seekly subtly after that which they
lacked, pretending to be
dissatisfied with her answers, but finding their
arts futile before the wisdom
and simplicity which were of Truth alone.
The
silversmith had hurried to his
workshops. He returned with a massive silver cup,
very graceful of line despite
its solidity, chased delicately to a design of
intricate, but artistic
interlacing of wolfhounds and snakes, and studded
with eight circular facets of
highly-burnished gold, whose plainness but enhanced
the beauty of the engraven
polished silver. Ronan had wrought this cup with his
own hand, as a gift for
Fionola on her marriage festival. He offered it now
to Brigid as a token of his
gratitude and veneration. But although sensible
alike of the silversmith's
kindness and of his exquisite workmanship, she
preferred that he give it to
Fionola as an espousal gift.
"
For Fionola has whispered to
me a holy whisper," Brigid said with a sweet
seriousness, "and in a
little while she will make her vows to the Son of
God. In marriage of the
spirit He will be her Heavenly Spouse, and her great
blessing will be shared
with you, O Ronan of the shining gift."
The
silversmith glanced for an
instant toward Diarmaid, who had heard this speech
where he stood beside his
harp.
''I
have come to make a poem of
praise," the young bard said simply, and his clear
eyes moved from Ronan
to Fionola in a calm gaze that betokened
understanding of all that had
happened.
"Sing
in praise of a King that
died upon a cross for His people, and rose again to
bless them," said
Ronan.
He
beckoned to Fionola, and having
kissed her on the forehead, presented his gift to
her.
"
Drink from this, O my
daughter, of such holiness as hers," he said in low
tones of affection.
Then
Diarmaid Og struck the strings
of his harp, and sang his song in praise of God, the
King. And it was majestic,
it was beautiful, and it was holy, as befitted the
King. For Diarmaid, the son
of Jarlait Mór, was a great bard, and of noble
blood.
And
while the young musician played,
Aengus arose and strode rudely out, praying evil
prayers, begging of his gods
swift vengeance on Brigid, and Fionola, and Ronan,
and Diarmaid. His face was
dark and vindictive as he halted without, to await
the coming of Mornac the
druid.
But
the old druid did not come. He
had heard of Padraig; and now he had seen Brigid, in
whose virtue he saw GOD.
His
wand snapped into two pieces. In
the glory of the young chieftain's music the sound
of its breaking was unheard.
Only Brigid, indeed, saw that it had been broken.
The
Tombs
of Saints Brigid and Conleth at Kildare From: Life of Saint Brigid Cogitosus,
Seventh Century.
Neither should one pass over in
silence the miracle wrought
in the repairing of the church in which the glorious
bodies of both - namely
Archbishop Conleth and our most flourishing virgin
Brigit - are laid on the
right and left of the ornate altar and rest in tombs
adorned with a refined
profusion of gold, silver, gems and precious stones
with gold and silver
chandaliers hanging from above and different images
presenting a variety of
carvings and colours. Thus, on account of the
growing number of the faithful of
both sexes, a new reality is born in an age-old
setting, that is a church with
its spacious [site] and its awesome height towering
upwards. It is adorned with
painted pictures and inside there are three chapels
which are spacious and
divided by board walls under the single roof of the
cathedral church. The first
of these walls, which is painted with pictures and
covered with wall hangings,
stretches width-wise in the east part of the church
from one wall to the other.
In it there are two doors, one at either end, and
through the door situated on
the right, one enters the sanctuary to the altar
where the Archbishop offers
the Lord's sacrifice together with his monastic
chapter and those appointed to
the sacred mysteries. Through the other door,
situated on the left side of the
aforesaid cross-wall, only the abbess and her nuns
and faithful widows enter to
partake of the banquet of the body and blood of
Jesus Christ. The second of
these walls divides the floor of the building into
two equal parts and
stretches from the west wall to the wall running
across the church. This church
contains many windows and one finely wrought portal
on the right side through
which the priests and the faithful of the male sex
enter the church, and a
second portal on the left side through which the
nuns and congregation of women
faithful are accustomed to enter. And so, in one
vast basilica, a congregation
of people of varying status, rank, sex and local
origin, with partitions placed
between them, prays to the omnipotent Master,
differing in status, but one in
spirit.
-S.
Connolly and J-M Picard, 'Cogitosus's
Life of Saint Brigit - content and value' in
JRSAI, 117, (1987), 25-6.
Translation
of
the Relics of Saints Patrick, Brigid and Colum
Cille, Canon O'Hanlon,
Lives of the Irish Saints,
Volume 6
Feast
of the Translation of the
Relics of St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Brigid,
Chief Patrons of Ireland.
[June 9.]
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, and
according to a long-preserved
tradition, in a very deep earth-pit, without the
site of that cathedral. After
the lapse of years, the body of the Irish Apostle
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, 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, 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. When the happy soul of St.
Columba departed from the
tenement of his body after his useful missionary
career in Scotland had
terminated, 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 Iona. Those visions were
clearly manifested, but only to a select few. 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. 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. Afterwards, they must have been
transferred to the church of the
monastery in Iona, 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. The accounts contained in
our Irish Annals state, that the remains 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 Iona, and there he
profaned the sanctuary, while digging in the earth
for treasures he thought to
be concealed. Among other 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 he sailed for Ireland ; but,
on opening the chest, 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 Downpatrick. 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
lipsanae of Saints Patrick and
Brigid. We need not attach the slightest credit to
the foregoing account ; for,
it may be observed, that the earliest recorded
descent of the Northmen on Iona
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. [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. ] Moreover, in the year 825,
when the Scandinavians again
visited the Island of Iona, St. Columba's shrine
adorned with precious metals
was there, and to prevent desecration it was hidden
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 Downpatrick,
for a 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, Bngid
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. 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 9th of June, 1186, this public
Translation of the remains
was solemnized. No less than fifteen Bishops were
present, besides many abbots
and high dignitaries, with a great concourse of the
clergy and laity, the
Cardinal Legate himself assisting. An office, 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. This is
in a small and rare 18mo
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, Columba; et
Brigidae, trium communium Hibernise
Patronorum, Duplex I. Classis, cum Octava per
universam Insulam, cujus sequitur
Oflicium approbatum a Viviano Cardinale titttli S.
Stephani in Coelio Monte,
quern ad Solemnitatem Translationis, 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. The office 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.
The
Bollandists have fallen into an
error, in placing the Finding of the Relics of
Saints Patrick, Brigid and
Columba, at this date, which should rather be called
that for their
Translation.
Canon
O'Hanlon has a second entry
for the feast at June 17 where he records:
Festival
of St. Columba, and the
Translation of the Relics of St. Patrick, St.
Columba and St. Brigid. In 1620,
an Office of St. Columba, Abbot, had been printed in
Paris, and again in the
same city, a.d. 1675, referring his Feast as a
Double of the Second Class to
the 17th day of June, on account of the Feast of the
Translation of the Relics
of St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Brigid, falling
on the 9th of June, and it
being an Office of the First Class with an Octave.
This contains proper
Antiphons for Vespers and Lauds, with proper Hymns
and Prayers, as also an
Office of Nine Lessons, three of which are proper.
The
foregoing is stated,and shown in
a small 18mo tract, anonymously printed, apparently
in the last century, and in
Ireland. The copy, from which the writer quotes, was
borrowed from Rev. Denis
Murphy, S.J.
St.
Bridget, Patroness of Ireland,
accompanied by her nuns, was, on a certain occasion,
in the presence of Bishop
Maccelle, from whom she had received the veil, and
she asked the good bishop to
give them a brief instruction on some pious subject.
The bishop delivered a
brief discourse on the “Eight Beatitudes." Whereupon
the saint, turning to
her sister nuns, said: “We are eight virgins, and
eight virtues are offered to
us as a means of sanctification. It is true that
whoever practices one virtue
perfectly must possess every other; yet let each of
us now choose a virtue for
special devotion."
St.
Bridget, as superioress, was
requested to make the first choice, and she chose
that sweetest of all virtues,
Mercy. Her whole life afterward was a living
illustration of the virtue which
she had chosen.
-Short Instructive Sketches from the
Lives of the Saints for the use of Parochial and
Sunday Schools, Academies &etc. (New York,
1888), 72-73.
O S. Brigits Countrey, Parents, Birth,
and many vertues and especially
of her charithy to the poore
From the Matins lesso
From Lady
Gregory
Sit
thou safely enthroned, triumphant Brigit, upon the
side of Liffey
far as the strand of the ebbing sea!