CHAPTER XXI

ST. BRIDGET

FOR four centuries after the Bishop Patrick, setting foot in the country, began scattering far and wide the seeds of the Gospel, the history of the Irish race hangs upon the history of the holy men and women, and the scholars, who continued Patrick's work, at home in Ireland and afar on the Continent of Europe.

And by far the greatest woman in this work was Bridget.

When Patrick rested from his labours it was on Bridget that the seeding sheet was bound. And over the hills and the dales of Ireland then went she, sowing the fruitful words of the new Master to whom Ireland had learnt to bow. And a worthy successor to Patrick was she-Bridget the beloved, Bridget of Eirinn, the Mary of the Gael! In the centre of the trinity of Irish patron saints Patrick, Bridget and Colm Cille, she stands, crowned, the spiritual queen of the race. And warmly and fondly as the memory of the other two great ones is treasured in the Irish heart, it is doubtful if their names evoke the deep, sweet and tender, overwhelming affection that is breathed with the name of Bridget.1

1 Oh, she was fair as a lily,
And holy as she was fair,
The Virgin Mary of Erin-
Brigid of green Kildare.

She came to earth when the snow drops
Were starring the rain-drenched sod,

The sweetest blossom among them,

From the far-off gardens of God.

O Brigid, so high and holy!

So strong in womanly grace,
Look down from the sills of heaven
To-day on your olden race.
'Tis over the world we're scattered,
And your land is a land of woe,
But we're holding you as a lodestar,
Whatever the roads we go.

For you are our pledge in heaven,
With Padraig and Colm Cille,

For the Faith by our foes unbroken,
And the hopes that they could not still;

But not in Ireland alone is it a living thing, that intimate devotion to her, the woman patron saint of the Gael, but wherever they go and wherever they are they bear in their breast a little flame of the perpetual fire of Kildare. And devotion to her is as sweet and ardent among the simple islanders of Highland Scotland's fjords as it is in the Western Aran, or on the Currach of Kildare. The bare-footed maiden in Uist of Hebrides, driving the cows to pasture, still chants-but in melodious Gaelic:

"The protection of God and Columba,

Encompass your going and coming,

And about you be the milk-maid of the smooth white palm,
Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown."

Bridget was born just twenty years after the coming of Patrick, about the year 450, at Fochart, near Dundalk. She met and heard Patrick preach. According to an ancient tradition she slept a mystic sleep once, during his preaching at Clogher, and had a symbolic dream in which was shown her the future triumphs, and the future trials of the faith in Ireland. Another tradition has it that she aided in making his winding-sheet.

It is the universal Irish claim upon Bridget which has called forth legends giving every quarter of Ireland a proprietary right upon the national treasure. So some traditions would have her born in the house of a Druid, at the court of the chieftain of TirConaill, of a Munster father and Connaught mother, while her future home was to be Leinster.

Bridget's mother appears to have been a bond-maid in the house of Bridget's father, Dubtach, who was of royal descent,

For the surge of our prayers unceasing,
For the depth of our love unpriced,
For our agony in earth's garden,
And our crucifixion with Christ.

And we cry to you, holy Brigid,
'Tis you have the right to pray
For us in the land of Erin,

In the hour of our need to-day.
We breathe your name as a symbol,
Like the lamp on your altar set,
That God is an unforgetting God,
And will stand for our righting yet.
Yea, He who so long has tried us
In the flame of His purging fire,
Will give to the race of Brigid

The crown of their souls' desire.
-TERESA BRAYTON.

2 Concubinage was, in ancient times, common in Ireland, as in almost all

countries.

tenth from King Feidlimid the Lawgiver. And the tradition goes that just before Bridget's birth, her mother, like Hagar, was, through the jealousy of the wife of Dubtach, driven forth upon the world. She was sold into the service of a Druid-in whose house Bridget was born, and in whose service she is said to have lived to free her mother.

The Druid, when he had acquired the bond-maid and learnt the cause of her selling foretold to Dubtach: "The seed of thy wife shall serve the seed of the bond-maid, for the bond-maid will bring forth a daughter conspicuous, radiant, who will shine like a sun among the stars.'

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As Bridget grew up she became both a shepherd and a dairy-maid on the Druid's farm-a dairy-maid, sweet, gentle and beautiful, with a disposition that was perpetual sunshine in her clean white dairy, or in the woods with her sheep. In these days Bridget's heart went out to all living things, to God's beasts and birds as well as His mankind-on all which she lavished her love. And all in return loved her. God, too, sent His blessing upon her and her work. "Everything to which her hand was set," says the Book of Lismore, "used to increase. She tended the sheep; she satisfied the birds; she fed the poor."

Bridget cared for the milk of twelve cows. And when she took the butter she made it into twelve equal parts and one large part, in memory of Christ and the apostles. And the large portion she gave to the poor and to the stranger-for she used to say, "Christ is in the person of every faithful guest."

And one of the legends of the Book of Lismore tells how, once, the Druid and his wife learning that great quantities of their butter were being given away by the dairy-maid came to the dairy to see for themselves, and to demand from Bridget a hamper of butter for their own use. “Of butter, what has thou?" the Druid demanded. Now it happened that Bridget, because of her generosity, had only as much left as should come off one and one-half churning. Yet when her master and mistress demanded a full hamper, she cheerfully went into her dairykitchen, singing:

In and out she went chanting, and in and out continuously bearing with her from the kitchen, each time, the butter of half a churning till a large hamper was filled. And says the tale in the Book of Lismore, "If the hampers which the men of Munster possessed had been given her, she would fill them all."

Astonished at the miracle and the miracle-worker, the Druid exclaimed: "Both the butter and the kine are thine. Thou shouldst be serving not me but the Lord." "Take the kine," said Bridget, "and give me my mother's freedom." The Druid thereupon gave her both the kine and her mother's freedom. She gave the kine to the poor. The Druid and his wife were baptised, and were full of faith henceforward.

When the maid, Bridget, a free woman, returned to her father's house, she was so singularly graceful and beautiful, that the fame of her spread far and near. Ardent wooers, in the person of champions, chieftains, young princes in numbers, came to woo her for wife. But she refused them all-for she had resolved to be the bride of Christ. This her father did not likemuch less her stepmother who became intensely jealous of her. But her father's objections increased, and her stepmother's dislike for Bridget multiplied many times, when they discovered that the luxurious excess for which their house had been famed, was melting away, by reason of Bridget's bestowing their substance upon the poor who crowded to

her.

At the instigation of his wife, Dubtach, for peace sake had to decide to put Bridget away, just as he had once put away her mother. So he took her with him in his chariot to the Palace of Dunlaing MacEnda, King of Leinster. "It is not for honour or reverence to thee thou art carried in a chariot," he said to her, as they went, "but to take thee to sell thee to grind the quern for Dunlaing MacEnda."

When he reached Dunlaing's residence he left Bridget in the chariot while he went to see the King. But, so notorious had she become for her unstinted giving that he left with her in the chariot nothing which she might in his absence bestow on the poor-nothing but his sword. As, however, a leper, coming down the way, begged charity of her, and that she had nothing else to give him, she gave him her father's sword.

When her father returned with Dunlaing MacEnda, and discovered what she had done, he was mightily provoked. He appealed to the King saying: "Thou seest for thyself why I am forced to sell this daughter of mine."

And Dunlaing said to her: "Neither can I take you into my house, for since it is thine own father's wealth that thou takest and givest away, much more wilt thou take my wealth, and my cattle, and give them to the poor.

To which Bridget replied: "The Son of the Virgin knoweth that if I had thy might with all Leinster and all wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the elements."

Then Dunlaing said to Dubtach: "It is not meet for us to deal with this maiden. Her merit before the Lord is higher than ours."

And so was Bridget saved from a second slavery.

She was veiled with seven other virgins by Bishop Macaille whose church was in that part now called Kings County. And the inevitable legends that grew up around all of Ireland's beloved record that, when she was taking her vows, in the wooden pillar of the altar-rail on which she rested her hand the sap circulated and the pillar became green, and bloomed again.

She went into Connaught-where her piety and charity, her faith and her work, were such that she quickly became the most famous personage there. Her Leinster people, learning of her fame, sent to her, besought her to come home to them, and offered a habitation at Kildare to her and the great number of followers she had now gathered around her. Bridget accepted-and there then, she founded the Church of the Oak, and founded the Monastery of Kildare which was to be famous for all time. She founded also the little less famous school of Kildare. This was in the latter years of the fifth century. Her home in Kildare became a centre of religion and of learning, of piety and of lore, whose fame almost rivalled the fame of Patrick's See itself, at Armagh. Great were the crowds that resorted here, not only from all Leinster, but from every corner of Ireland. Crowds of poor came seeking material relief; crowds of the pious to satisfy their souls; crowds of students who thirsted for knowledge-all classes camethose in wealth and those in want; the humble and the haughty; learned and illiterate; chieftain and bondman, layman and ecclesiastic-all attracted by the piety and wisdom, the goodness and greatness, of the foremost woman of the Gael.

Yet the humility of this noble woman remained such that oftentimes when the very greatest sought her, they found her not in the hall nor the church, but, though it might be blowing or snowing, off in the fields herding the cattle that gave milk to the monastery, or the sheep that gave them wool.5

The Tripartite life of St. Patrick implies that in his day he consecrated nuns -that they even thronged to him from abroad. Nine daughters of the King of the Lombards, it says, came to Patrick, over the sea, and a daughter of the King of Britain. It is also said that he veiled the daughters of Laoghaire, the two princesses, Ethni of the Golden Hair, and Fedelm the Ruddy. "Patrick put a white veil upon their heads, and having received the Body and Blood, they fell asleep in death. Patrick laid them side by side on the one mantle, and in the same bed."

5 It was herding thus she was, when occurred the little incident that is related of Ninnid and herself.

Ninnid from Loch Erne whose name as a saint was afterwards to be famed was then a little lad studying at the school of Kildare. On a morning when she sat herding her sheep on the currach, enveloped in a cloak that hid her identity, the little Ninnid came running past-probably in fear of being late for his class. The cloaked nun called out, asking him why he ran. "O nun," the ready-witted boy replied, "I am going to Heaven." "Well," said the nun, "won't you pause and make prayer with me that it may be easy for me to go?" "O nun," replied the