Part 7

As he was returning, very tired, with his men, he reached a _dun_ or castle, and resolved to rest there. His men dissuaded him, as the enemy were in pursuit. “Bah!” said Conall, “Bridget has promised to look after me,” and he threw himself down to sleep. A great fire was lighted, and his men ranged the heads of the slain they had brought with them round the fire, and they themselves sat up talking and singing. Meanwhile the enemy came on, but they sent a spy, who crept unobserved up to the walls and looked in. When he saw the dead faces with the flicker of the red fire on them, and that Conall’s men were alert, his heart failed him, and he went back and told his fellows that they must not risk a night attack on the _dun_.

Many touching stories are told of Bridget’s tenderness to the sick: of a poor consumptive boy whom she nursed; of a man who carried his mother on his back for many days, that he might lay her before Bridget in the hopes that she might be healed of the lung complaint that afflicted her.

One day—so says the legend—two lepers came to her, and she bade the one wash the other. And he who was washed became whole. Then said she, “Go and wash thy brother.” “Not I, forsooth!” replied the man. “I, a clean man, with sound skin, shall I scrub that loathsome object?” “Then I will do it,” said Bridget; and she took the poor leper and thoroughly cleansed him.

The truth of this story would seem to be that Bridget bade a servant wash the leper, that he refused, and she herself performed the office.

But she did more than attend to the sick. She saved the lives of men condemned to death. On one occasion, a cupbearer to the King of Teffia let fall a valuable goblet, and it was dented. The king, in a rage, ordered the man to execution, though Bishop Mel interceded for him, but in vain; then Bridget got the cup, and, as she had skilful smiths under her, had the dents removed, so that it presented the same appearance as before, and the king was then reluctantly induced to pardon the man.

She was for a long time under the direction of Erc of Slane, in Munster. Whilst there, a certain anchorite, who had made a vow never to look on the face of a woman, started with his disciples to go to one of the Western Isles, there to establish a community. His way led near where Bridget was. Night fell, and his disciples, not relishing spending the hours of darkness on the open waste, and supperless, begged him to ask Bridget to give them food and lodging for the night. The old man absolutely refused. Bridget heard of this, and when the whole company was asleep she and one or two of her maids went on tiptoe to them and carried off all their bundles of goods and garments. When the men woke next morning everything was gone. Here was a pretty kettle of fish! Most reluctantly the old anchorite was obliged to swallow his objections and go humbly to Bridget and beg for the restitution of the packages. “Very well,” said she, “when I have fed and housed you for a couple of days, you shall have them,—and do not hold up your nose and despise women any more.” So she entertained the whole party, and when they departed she provided them with a couple of sumpter horses to carry their bundles for them. When the anchorite arrived at the island to which he had taken a fancy, to his dismay he found that a man lived on it with his wife and sons and daughters, and claimed it as his property, and absolutely refused to leave. The anchorite was forced to send for Bridget to arrange terms, and she with difficulty bought off the proprietor. “After all,” said she, “you can’t do without the help of women—for all your foolish vow.”

When with S. Erc, she must have been in that portion of King’s County that then belonged to the kingdom of Meath. After that she removed to Waterford, and remained for some time at Kilbride, near Tramore.

She heard that the King of Munster had a captive in chains very harshly treated. She went to his castle to beg for the man’s release, but the king was not at home. However, the foster-father and -mother, and foster-brothers were there. They could give her no assistance. “I will await the king’s return,” said Bridget. Time began to pass heavily. She looked round, and saw that harps hung in the hall. “Come,” said she, “let us have some music.” The foster-parents of the king expressed themselves unwilling and incapable. But Bridget would take no excuse. Towards evening the king returned, and as he neared his hall, heard the twang of harps and voices singing and laughing. He came in at the door, and when he saw his foster-father with a cracked voice piping out an old ballad he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. Every one was in good humour, and he could not refuse Bridget her request.

Bridget next moved into Leinster, apparently to the district of Kinsale. She had not seen her father for some time, so now she went to visit him. He was not more amiable as he advanced in years. With difficulty she withdrew from him a servant maid, whom he was thrashing unmercifully. When she left, the maid said to her, “Oh! would to heaven you were always here, to save us from the master’s violence!”

She—who had been a slave-girl herself—was pitiful to these poor things. Some runaway slave-girls took refuge with her, and she had hard work sometimes to reconcile their mistresses to leaving them under her protection.

Before she left her father, the old fellow asked her to get the king to let him keep as his own property a sword the prince had lent him. Bridget went to the castle. No sooner had she arrived than one of the king’s men entreated her to take him into her tribe. So she asked the king to give her the man, and give her father the sword.

“You ask a great deal,” said he. “I must have something in return.”

“Shall I demand of God for you Life Eternal, and a continuation of royalty in your house?”

“As to Life Eternal,” said the king, “I know nothing about it; and as to royalty after I am dead, the boys of my family must fight for their own crowns. Give me victory over my enemies.”

“I will obtain that for you,” she said. And on this being promised he acceded to both her requests.

This is a very characteristic story of an Irish saint. The kings and princes firmly believed that the saints could give them a place in heaven and victory over their foes, could continue their line in power, or deprive their posterity of sovereign rights.

This king was Illand, son of Dunlaing. Soon after this interview he went into the plain of Breagh, west of Dublin, where he fought the Ulster men and defeated them. After this he waged as many as thirty battles in Ireland, and gained eight victories in Britain. He died in 506. On his death the clan of Niall, taking courage, gathered their forces to attack the men of Leinster, who actually dug up the body of the old king, set it in a chariot, clothed in his regal garments, and marched against the men of the north, headed by the corpse.

Bridget now went into Connaught, and founded an establishment there. It was whilst there that an incident characteristic of the times occurred.

She had under her charge a poor decrepit woman who was failing rapidly. “The old creature can’t live,” said one of Bridget’s women. “Let us strip her at once. It is bitter weather and frosty, and it will be awkward to get her garments off her back when she is stiff and stark.”

“On no account,” said Bridget. And when the cripple died she with her own hands divested the body of its clothing, then laid the garments outside the door in the frost, and washed them finally herself.

Bridget and some of her spiritual daughters paid a visit to S. Ibar of Begery. He served them at supper with bacon. Bridget saw two of the girls sitting with their platters before them and their noses turned up; they would not touch the food. She was very angry, jumped up from her seat, caught them by the shoulders, and turned them out of the hall, and bade them stand there, one on each side of the door, till supper was over. She had run short of seed-corn, and had gone to beg some of Ibar. The season was probably Lent, and the scruple of the girls was on that account.

When S. Bridget first saw the great plain of Breagh stretched before her, it was in early summer, and it was as though snowed over with the white clover, and the air that breathed from it was sweet with scent and musical with the hum of bees. She stood still, raised her hands in an ecstasy of delight, and said: “Oh! if this plain were but mine, I would give it all to God!”

“Good woman!” said S. Columba, when he was told this of Bridget. “God accepted the desire of her loving heart just as surely as if she really had made to Him the donation of all that land.”

Once a bishop and a party of clerks arrived, and began to inquire when they were to have a meal and what they were to have to eat.

“It is all very well for you to be so clamorous,” said Bridget, “for you are hungry. But can you not understand that I and my spiritual daughters are hungry also? We have no religious teacher here, and we long to hear the Word of God. Will you not give us who are hungry the nourishment of souls before you call on us to satisfy your stomachs?”

The bishop was ashamed, and led the way to the church.

It happened that there was a couple who led a cat-and-dog life, and at last declared that they could not live together, and that they would separate. Bridget went to them, and by her charm of manner and earnest words so won them over that thenceforth they came to love each other devotedly. So much so, that one day when the husband left home to cross an estuary, without saying good-bye, the wife ran after him into the water, and would have been drowned had he not returned to kiss her.

There was a madman who wandered on the mountain—Slive Forait. Bridget was crossing it, and her companions were in deadly fear of encountering the maniac. “I fear him not,” said she; “I will go and find him.”

Before long she encountered the poor wretch. She said to him, “My friend, have you anything to say to me?”

“Yes, nun,” answered he: “Love the Lord, and all will love thee. Reverence the Lord, and all will reverence thee. I cannot avoid thee, O nun, thou art so pitiful to all the miserable and poor.”

The life she led with the sisters was full of simplicity. She took her turn to tend the sheep, she helped to brew the Easter ale which she sent about to the bishops as her offering.

The following is a funny story.

Certain friends came to visit Bridget, and they left their house shut without a caretaker in it. When they were well away, some robbers came, broke open the byre and stole the oxen, and drove them away to the Liffey. They had to cross the river at a ford, but the water was deep, so the men stripped themselves, and that their garments might be kept dry, attached them to the horns of the cattle. But no sooner were the oxen in the water than they refused to proceed, and, turning, galloped home, carrying away the clothing of the robbers on their heads.

Having such large numbers of women under her direction, Bridget was obliged to draw up for them a set of rules. An odd legend attaches to the rules. She sent, so it was told, seven men and a poor blind boy, who was in her service, to Rome to obtain a rule. But as they were crossing the English Channel, the anchor caught. They drew lots who was to go down and release the anchor. The lot fell to the blind boy. He descended, unhooked the anchor, and it was hauled up, but left him behind. The seven went on, and returned at the end of the year, and were without any rule. As they were crossing the Channel, again the anchor caught, but it became disengaged, and up with it came the boy, and he had a Rule of Life with him, acquired in the depths, and this he took to Bridget, and it became her famous rule for all her communities. Perhaps the story originated thus. It was said that she had sent to Rome for a system of monastic discipline, but as none came to her, she fished up one out of the depths of her own conscience and common-sense.

Bridget certainly to the utmost strove to show forth the grace of Mercy, which she had elected as that for which she would specially strive, when she was veiled. Poor lepers were kept by her attached to her convent, and fed and administered to by her.

One day a woman brought her a hamper of apples. “Oh!” cried Bridget, “how pleased my lepers will be with them!” The woman angrily said, “I brought the apples for you, and not for a parcel of lepers.”

On another occasion, when Bishop Conlaeth came to vest for the Eucharist, he found that his chasuble was gone. In fact, Bridget had cut it up and made of it a garment for a leper. Conlaeth was not overpleased. “I cannot celebrate without a proper vestment,” said he. “Wait a moment,” said Bridget, and ran away. Presently she returned with one she had made and embroidered with her own hands, and gave it to him in place of that she had disposed of to the leper.

A poor fellow who had gone to prefer a petition to the King of Leinster, saw a fox playing about in his _cashel_ (_i.e._ castle). Not knowing that it was tame, and a pet of the king, he killed it. The king, Illand, was furious, threw the fellow into chains and vowed he would have him put to death. Bridget heard of it, and at once went to see him, and took with her a fox that had just been trapped. She offered the fox to Illand, on condition that he should let the man go. The king, supposing it was tame, consented. No sooner was the fellow released than Bridget let go her fox, when away dashed Reynard across the _dun_ and over the walls, and was seen no more. “I have not got the best of this bargain,” said the king.

In or about the year 480 she founded her mother house at Kildare—“The Cell of the Oak.” She was granted land and a sanctuary, with jurisdiction over all who lived on her land. Thus she became a great ecclesiastical chieftainess, ruling not over women only, but over men as well. Indeed, it would seem that schools for youths were also under her. To regulate sacred matters in her tribe, she chose a bishop named Conlaeth, who was a good smith in the precious metals, and could manufacture bells.

In the great house of Kildare little children were taken charge of, either because orphans, or because given to the sisters by their parents. Tighernach, Bishop of Clones, was one of these. As a babe, Bridget held him at the font, and his infant years were under her care. He ever remained deeply attached to her. Perhaps it may be taken as a token of his affection that when he founded a church in Cornwall, a chapel dedicated to his foster-mother should have been planted in proximity.

One who deeply reverenced her was the famous S. Brendan, who sailed for seven years on the Atlantic in quest of the Land of Promise. Once he was in conversation with her, and he said to her, “Tell me, Bridget, about your spiritual things. For my part I may say that, since I have learned to love and fear God, I have not stepped across nine furrows without my mind turning to Him.”

Bridget thought for a moment and said, “I do not think, Brendan, that my mind has ever strayed from Him.”

As her age advanced, her influence extended throughout Ireland. Swarms of her spiritual children must have crossed to Wales, to Devon and Cornwall, to Brittany, for we find in all these districts dedications to her; and these dedications signify churches placed under the rule of her congregation. It may indeed be said that it was she who initiated a great upheaval of woman from being a mere slave to become a revered member of the social body.

There was no woman in the British Church, either in Wales or Alba, which we now call Scotland, who occupied the same position. In Saxon England the only woman who at all approached her was S. Hilda, and she was not, like Bridget, an originator.

Conlaeth, Bridget’s bishop, died in 519. She was sought, consulted by princes and by prelates. The sour Gildas, author of the “History of the Britons,” if he did not pay her a visit, sent her as token of his esteem the present of a small bell, cast by himself.

Nothing particular is recorded of her last illness. She received the Communion from the hands of S. Nennid, whom years before she had gently reproved for his giddiness, and she died on February 1st, 525. According to some accounts she was aged seventy, according to others seventy-four.

There are two old Irish hymns in honour of her. One begins:

“Bridget, ever good woman, Flame-golden, sparkling.”

This is variously attributed to S. Columba, S. Ultan, and S. Brendan. The other hymn is by S. Broccan, who died in 650.

Both may be found in the Irish “Liber Hymnorum,” recently issued by the “Henry Bradshaw Society.”

X

_THE DAUGHTERS OF BRIDGET_

The story of the introduction of Christianity into Ireland is altogether so interesting, that it may be well to add something further to what has already been told of S. Bridget, and to the story of S. Itha. In the evangelisation of the Emerald Isle, woman had her place beside man, and S. Bridget and S. Itha played their part as effectually as did S. Patrick and S. Benignus.

Let us first see what the paganism of the Irish consisted in, and what was their social condition before S. Patrick preached, so that we may be able to realise to some degree what a revolution was effected by the introduction of the Gospel.

The heathen Irish certainly adored idols; one of the principal of these was Cromm Cruaich, which is said to have been the chief idol of Ireland. It is said to have been of gold, and to have been surrounded by twelve lesser idols of stone. To this Cromm Cruaich the Irish were wont to sacrifice their children. There still exists an old poem that mentions this:

“Milk and corn They sought of him urgently, For a third of their offspring, Great was its horror and its wailing.”

Then there were the _Side_ worshipped. We do not know what these were, but it is thought that they were the spirits of ancestors. The sun also received adoration, so did wells. S. Patrick went to the well of Slan, and there he was told that the natives venerated it as a god; it was the King of Waters, and they believed that an old dead _faith_ or prophet lay in it under a great stone that covered the well. S. Patrick moved the slab aside, and so destroyed the sanctity of the well.

There can be no doubt that polygamy existed: Bridget’s father had a wife in addition to Brotseach, her mother; and S. Patrick, like S. Paul, had to insist that those whom he consecrated as bishops should be husbands of one wife.

Women were in low repute; they were required to go into battle and fight along with the men, and it was only on the urgency of Adamnan in the synod of Drumceatt, in 574, that they were exempted. A man could sell his daughter—it was so with Dubtach and Bridget. In the life of S. Illtyt, a Welsh Knight, it is told how one stormy morning, when he wanted to have his strayed horses collected, he pushed his wife out of her bed and sent her without any clothes on to drive the horses together. There is no doubt but the Irish husbands were quite as brutal.

There is a very curious story in the life of S. Patrick. He was desirous of revisiting his old master Miliuc with whom he had been a slave as a lad, and from whom he had run away. His hope was to convert Miliuc, and to propitiate him with a double ransom. But the old heathen, frightened at his approach, and unwilling to receive him and listen to his Gospel, burned himself alive in his house with all his substance. This seems to point to the Indian _Dharna_ having been customary in Ireland.

When S. Patrick converted the Irish he dealt very gently with such of their customs as were harmless. The wells they so reverenced he converted into baptisteries, and the pillar-stones they venerated he rendered less objectionable by cutting crosses on them. The Druids wore white raiment, and had their heads tonsured; he made his clergy adopt both the white habit and the tonsure.

The oak was an object of reverence, and S. Bridget set up her cell under an ancient oak. She did not cut it down, and when people came on pilgrimage to it, taught them of Christ, from under its leafy boughs.

There was another relic of paganism that was not ruthlessly rejected. The ancient Irish venerated fire. Now, in Ireland, where the atmosphere is so charged with moisture, it is not easy to procure fire by rubbing sticks together, as it would be in Italy or Africa. Consequently it was a matter of extreme importance that fires should not be allowed to be extinguished. It was the custom among the early Latins that there should be in every village a circular hut in which the fire was kept ever burning, and the unmarried girls were expected and obliged to attend to it; and if by the fault of any it became extinguished, then her life was forfeit.

As the Romans became more civilised, the central hut was called the Temple of Vesta, or Hestia,—the Hearth-fire; and a certain number of virgins was chosen, and invested with great privileges, whose duty it was never to allow it to die out.

Now, it was much the same in Ireland, and it was more important there to keep fire always burning, than it was in the drier air of Italy. S. Bridget undertook that she and her nuns should keep the sacred fire from extinction, and Kildare became the centre from which fire could always be procured. The fire was twice extinguished, once by the Normans and again at the Reformation, finally.

The monastery of Kildare had a _les_ about it—that is to say, it was enclosed within a bank and moat; the buildings were, however, of wood and wattle. This we know from a story in the Life of S. Bridget. When she was about laying out her monastery, a hundred horses arrived laden with “peeled rods,” for Ailill, son of that very prince Dunlaing who had refused to buy her when he found she had given away her father’s sword. Some of the girls ran to beg for the poles, but were refused. As, however, some of the horses fell down under their burdens, which were excessive, Ailill gave way and supplied them with stakes and wattles. He very good-naturedly allowed his horses to bring to Bridget as many more as were required, free of cost. “And,” says the writer, “therewith was built S. Bridget’s great house in Kildare.”

All the sisters wore white flannel habits, and on their heads white veils. Each had her own cell, but all met for Divine worship and for meals. During the latter, Bridget’s bishop Conlaeth read aloud to them.

Bridget travelled about a great deal, visiting her several communities, in a car or chariot; and her driver was at her desire ordained priest, so that as she sat in her conveyance, he could turn his head over his shoulder and preach to her and the sisters with her. One day Bridget said: “This is inconvenient. Turn bodily about, that we may hear you the better, and as for the reins, throw them down. The horses will jog along.”

So he cast the reins over the front of the chariot, and addressed his discourse to them with his back to the horses. Unhappily, one of these latter took advantage of the occasion, and slipped its neck from the yoke, and ran free; and so engrossed were Bridget and her companion in the sermon of the priestly coachman, that they discovered nothing till they were nearly upset.