This little babe did tend.
From hand to hand, fair forms of light,
Sweet faces o’er him bend.”
S. Erc, Bishop of Slane, seems to have been Itha’s principal adviser and friend; and when the five years of Brendan’s fostering were over, Erc took the little boy away to teach him the Psalms and the Gospels. S. Erc found it rather hard to keep the boy supplied with milk, but a hind with her fawn, so says the legend, was caught, and gave her milk to Brendan.
It may be asked, What was the mode of life of the community of S. Itha?
Unhappily we do not know so much of that of the religious women as we do of that of the monasteries of men, yet we cannot doubt that the rule of the house for women much resembled that in the others. Here is an account of the order as given in the life of S. Brioc, an Irishman by race, though born in Cardigan.
“At fixed hours they all assembled in the church to celebrate divine worship. After the office of vespers (6 p.m.) they refreshed their bodies by a common meal. Then, having said compline, they dispersed in silence to their beds. At midnight they rose and assembled to sing devoutly psalms and hymns to the glory of God. Then they returned to their beds. But at cockcrow, at the sound of the bell, they sprang from their couches to sing lauds. From the conclusion of this office to the second hour (8 a.m.) they were engaged in spiritual exercises and prayer. Then they cheerfully betook them to manual labour.”
Happily one of the monastic offices of the early Irish Church has been deciphered from a nearly obliterated leaf of the Irish MS. Book of Mulling: it consisted of the Magnificat. What preceded this is illegible: some verses of a hymn; the reading of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, a hymn of S. Secundinus, a commemoration of S. Patrick, a portion of a hymn by S. Hilary of Poitiers, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s prayer, and a collect.
The work of the day consisted in teaching the young girls their letters, in needlework, tending the cattle—in which each, abbess included, took turn—grinding corn in the handmill, and cultivating the garden.
Numerous visitors arrived to consult S. Itha, and she most certainly had fixed hours in which to receive them.