A Garden of Girls; Or, Famous Schoolgirls of Former Days

by Mrs. Thomas Concannon

Darlugdacha left off stroking Bainidhe for a moment, and waited to see what would happen.

Brigid and the lepers and her cows came up with the stranger and his cow just at the Lios gate.

“My Master has sent this cow to thee as a gift,” said the man, and put an end of the halter that was round the cow’s neck in Brigid’s hand. With that he was off again.

Brigid looked at the cow which she held haltered, and then at the one Darlugdacha was stroking. And Darlugdacha looked at the new cow, and then at Bainidhe, and then back again. The two cows were exactly alike.

“Methinks my Master has sent this cow to you, poor men,” said Brigid, “instead of the one that would not go with you.” She put the halter into the hands of the two lepers; and when Kinnia and Blathnata had given them food, they drove off their new cow contentedly.

Since they did not come back for a long long time, I feel sure that the second cow must have gone with them obediently. As for Bainidhe, she was driven with her other companions into the badhun, and Darlugdacha stood very close to her, while Brigid herself milked her.

In those days, when the ideal of education was the direct preparation of the child for the duties which his future station in life was likely to lay on him, the law itself took cognisance of the necessity of training girls in the arts of household management. “The use of the quern, and the kneading trough, and the use of the sieve are to be taught to their daughters” says the Senchus Mór to Foster Parents in one place; and, again, to those who foster the children of Chieftains, “sewing, and cutting-out, and embroidery are to be taught to their daughters.”

You may be sure then that Darlugdacha (whom Brigid held in fosterage for the High King of Heaven Himself) was early trained in the use of the spindle, and the distaff, and the needle. In the quiet evenings of the tender Irish summer-time, when the nuns sat on the lawn under the shadow of the great oak, and Brigid, her poet’s soul stirred to the depths by the beauty of the world around her, was thinking, with pity, of Daria’s blindness, a little girl could be seen making a very brave attempt to imitate whatever she saw Kinnia, and Daria, and Blathnata, and Brigid herself do. It was Daria’s task to comb the wool. She drew it out in handfuls from the bag at her feet, and combed it with a pair of “cards” until it was fit for spinning. Then she turned it over to Blathnata, who wound it first loosely on the cuigeal (distaff), and then, dexterously, spun it on to the spindle. Kinnia was kept busy with her bronze needle and ball of wool, fashioning garments for the sisters themselves, or for the many poor who depended on them. And, while Brigid’s clever artist-fingers are copying on some beautiful ecclesiastical garment, with many coloured, precious threads, the design stamped on the leather pattern she holds before her, let us, whose fashionable pedagogy lays so much stress on “Object Lessons,” think how fortunate Darlugdacha is. There is not a process, from the sowing of the flax-seed to the making up of the linen altar-cloth, that she has not witnessed with her own eyes. She has been able to follow, step by step, the evolution of the woollen garment which Kinnia is fashioning—from the shearing of the sheep onward.

In the winter evenings the sisters sat in the loom-house, and wove the flaxen and woollen yarn they had prepared during the summer into linen and cloth. Darlugdacha loved to sit by, in the light of the rush candles, and watch the shuttle being flung back and forth. But something more precious was being woven during these hours than the web on the loom; and many a wonderful old story, many a gracious thought, many a poem, and many a prayer, were being patterned into the weaving of it. The old Irish, a people courteous and sociable, held no one cultured who could not “talk” well. Story-telling, as a great test of education and good breeding, was the accomplishment they valued most. Little Darlugdacha, who was set aside to be the bride of the King of Kings, was in the thought of those who fostered her to get the culture of a Princess. Can you picture her, a little white girl, sitting very close to her dear mother, telling, when the turn for a tale comes to her, some story she has been taught concerning the ancient days and ways in Erinn? Very sweetly and gravely the clear, treble voice carries the tale. Do you notice how pleasant is its “timbre,” how very expressive its inflections, how charming and musical its modulations? There is no instrument from which better effects can be obtained than the human “speaking” voice; and do they not do well, in this ancient Ireland, to which we have slipped back in search of our Darlugdacha, to devote great care to its cultivation? It is true they are fortunate in having in this language they speak, rich in sounds, full of delicately-shaded endings, a marvellous exerciser. And have we nothing to learn from Darlugdacha’s teachers?