Virgin Saints and Martyrs

by S. Baring-Gould

On her return, Bridget found Brotseach very ill and unable to attend to her work. It was summer, and she had been sent with the cattle to a mountain pasture, such as in Wales is called a hafod, whereas the winter habitation is the hendrê. There were twelve cows to be milked, and their butter to be made. Bridget undertook the supervision of the dairy with energy, and some verses have been preserved which it is said she sang as she churned: “Oh, my Prince, who canst do all things, and God, bless, I pray Thee, my kitchen with Thy right hand—my kitchen, the kitchen blessed by the white God, blessed by the Mighty King, a kitchen stocked with butter. Son of Mercy, my Friend, come and look upon my kitchen, and give me abundance.”

It was reported to the Druid that Bridget gave the buttermilk to the poor, and he and his wife started for the mountain dairy to see that she was not wasting their substance; but they found that the butter she had made was so good and so plentiful that they were satisfied. Indeed, the kindly old man at once gave Brotseach and Bridget their liberty, to go where they would. He and his wife had been won by their piety and blameless life, and gladly consented to be baptised.

Bridget and her mother left with thanks and tears, and went to Leinster to Dubtach, who was well connected and rich, but avaricious. Bridget particularly annoyed him by her readiness to give food to the poor. To what extent she was justified in this may be questioned. But it must be remembered that the period was one in which no provision whatever was made for the poor, who starved unless assisted; and the girl’s tender heart could not endure to see their sufferings and not to relieve them.

At last Dubtach could stand it no longer, and he took her in his chariot to sell her into slavery, to grind at the quern for Dunlaing, son of the King of Leinster. On reaching the king’s dun, or castle, Dubtach went within and left Bridget outside in the chariot. A squalid leper came up, begging. Bridget, whether out of impulsive charity, or more probably in a fit of mischievous cunning, knowing that her father was selling her like a calf or a sheep, gave to the leper the sword which Dubtach had left in the chariot. The poor man at once disappeared with the gift. Next moment the prince and her father issued from the dun; the prince desired to look at the girl before purchasing her. Instantly Dubtach discovered that his sword was gone, and he asked after it. “I have given it away for your soul’s good,” said Bridget, with a twinkle in her eye. “On my word!” exclaimed the prince, “I cannot afford to buy such extravagant slaves as this.”

Dubtach drove home in a fury, and he made his house so intolerable that she resolved to embrace the monastic life. She sought Bishop Maccaille, taking seven companions with her, all desiring to unite in the service of God and in ministering to the sick and needy.

Bishop Maccaille placed white veils on their heads, and blessed and consecrated them. Bridget was then aged eighteen.

Each of the girls chose one of the Beatitudes as her special virtue, which before all others she would seek to attain; and Bridget selected as hers “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

An odd story was told in later times concerning this consecration. It was said that Maccaille opened his book in the wrong place, and instead of reading the office for the consecration of a virgin, read over her that for the ordination of a bishop.

This fable was invented for a purpose. As we shall see presently, Bridget became head of an ecclesiastical tribe, and had under her jurisdiction a bishop who was amenable to her orders. This was a condition of affairs not at all uncommon among the British, Irish, and Scots, but it was incomprehensible in mediæval times to those trained under another system, when bishops were sources of jurisdiction. So this story was made up to give some justification for the exercise, by the Abbess Bridget, of authority over a bishop and priests.

In the Life of S. Bridget we are assured that when she was twelve years old she met S. Patrick, and that she wove the shroud in which he was buried. According to the ordinary computation, S. Patrick came to Ireland in 432, and died in 465; but Dr. Todd has shown good reason to believe that this calculation rests on an error. Palladius, whose name was also Patricius, was sent to Ireland in 432 by Pope Celestine; but he failed in his mission, abandoned Ireland, and died at Fordun. Neither S. Patrick himself, in his Confession, nor the earliest notices of him, say a word of his having been sent by Celestine, and there is reason to believe that he really came to Ireland in 460, and died in 493. If this be the case, it is quite possible that there may be truth in the story of the meeting of Bridget and the great apostle, and that it was his influence which induced her to adopt the life she chose. Bridget was now at the head of her little community of eight virgins, and they at once devoted themselves to good works.