In early ecclesiastical annals Brigit is thus on the same platform with Patrick and Columba in Gaelic Hagiology. True; her name is not found, for instance, in the Benchor Antiphonary; but her name is not unknown even in Latin Hymnology. The earliest Latin poem that recognizes her is a fragment of three stanzas, beginning with the letters X, Y, Z, respectively. It appears to have belonged to an A B C Darian hymn of a somewhat biographical nature.—[See Anecdota etc., 1713: Leabhar Imuinn: Dublin, 1855-1869.] The following Latin lines give us the earliest conceptions of this “Mary of the Gael.”:—
Ymnus iste angelicae
Summeque sanctae Brigidae
Fari non valet omnia
Virtutum miribillia
Quae nostris nunquam auribus
Si sint facta audivimus
Nisi per istam virginem
Mariae sanctae similem.
Of this the following English rendering may be given:— “This hymn, of the most angel-like and most saintly, Brigit is unable to speak of all the marvellous works of power, such as we have never heard of as been wrought, except through this virgin, like unto the Holy Mary.”