A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Brigid (2)
St. Brigid (2), Feb. 1, born about the middle of the 5th century, died in or before 525 (Breeyith, Bride, Bridget, Brighit, Brigida, Briid, Britta, Bryde, Brydock; in France, Brigitte; in Holland, Brie, Brighe; the Mary of Ireland), the “Fiery Dart.” Patron of Ireland, Leinster, Kildare, of the family of Douglas, and of cattle and dairies. The dedications in her name are very numerous in Ireland and on the western side of Great Britain.
Represented (1) with flames playing round her head; (2) with a cow and a large bowl.
The greatest of all the Irish saints, except St. Patrick. Founder of the first nunnery in Ireland, and chief over many monasteries for both sexes. Bishop Conlaeth, or Conlian, at the time head of the bishops and abbots, attended to the spiritual interests of her nuns and the services of her church.
Montalembert says that Ireland was evangelized by two slaves, Patrick and Bridgid; that Brigid was twice sold, was flogged, insulted, and subjected to the hardest labour required of a female slave in those days; she learnt mercy in the school of suffering and oppression; she became a nun, but by no means a recluse; she travelled all over Ireland, and had frequent and important intercourse with all sorts and conditions of persons, but always in the interest of souls, or with a view to helping the unfortunate. She was honoured with the friendship and confidence of the holiest and most learned Irishmen of her time, among whom tradition places St. Erc, bishop of Slane, St. Mel of Ardagh, Cailaet, bishop of Kildare, St. Ailbe of Emly, St. Brendan of Clonfert, St. Gildas, who sent her a small bell cast by himself. St. Finnian was also her contemporary, and once preached before her and her nuns at Kildare. She is believed to have been contemporary with St. Patrick, although much younger. There is considerable uncertainty as to her dates, and still more as to his. She died, upwards of seventy, in or before 525. In an old Life of St. Patrick, it is said that she fell asleep while he was preaching, and that he made her tell her dream, which he interpreted as referring to the future history of Ireland. One legend says that he taught her to play on the harp, and that she embroidered a shroud for him at his own request, and took it to him at the monastery of Saball; he then charged her to bless Ireland for thirty years after his death.
Here are some of the countless traditions concerning St. Brigid. She was the daughter of Dubtach, a nobleman of Leinstor, who was descended from Eochard, brother of King Conn of the Hundred Battles; her mother was Broetseach or Brocessa O’Connor, his slave. Dubtach’s wife had several sons, but no daughter, and her jealousy of Brocessa was increased by the prophecy that Brocessa would give birth to a daughter who should be very illustrious. She insisted that Brocessa should be sent away. So Dubtach sold her to a magician or bard at Faugher, near Dundalk, with the condition that her child should be returned to him. The night that she arrived in her new home, a holy man came begging for hospitality. He passed the whole night in prayer, and in the morning told his host he had seen a globe of fire resting over the place where the servant slept. One day the bard invited his king and queen to supper, but the queen could not come because she was hourly expecting to have a child. The friends and servants of the king inquired of the bard what sort of child the queen would have, and when it would be born. He told them that it would have no equal in Ireland if it were born at sunrise, neither in the house nor out of the house. At midnight the queen gave birth to a son. Very early in the morning, Brocessa went and milked the cows as usual. She returned with a large pail of milk. As she entered her master’s door, having one foot in the house and one foot out, she fell down on the threshold, and there, at the moment of sunrise, she was delivered of a daughter, Brigid, whose infancy was illustrated by prodigies, and who was evidently under the immediate protection of Heaven. Flames often filled her room or surrounded her head, but did not hurt her or destroy anything. No food was found to suit her until the magician set apart a beautiful white cow for her use, and got a Christian woman to milk it. According to agreement, the bard sent the child Brigid to her father. Once she went to help her mother, who was making butter and taking care of the cows some distance from her master’s house. As fast as the butter was made, Brigid. who said, “Every guest is Christ,” gave it all away to beggars and travellers. After a time the magician and his wife came to the farm to fetch the butter. When Brigid saw what a large cask they had brought to carry it away in, she was much embarrassed, knowing she had only the supply of one day and a half; however, she received them cheerfully, washed their feet, and gave them food. She then went to her own cell and prayed, and afterwards brought the butter she had to the bard’s wife, who laughed at her and said, “Is that all the butter you have made in so many days?” Brigid said, “Fill the cask: you shall have butter enough.” The woman began putting the butter into her large receptacle out of Brigid’s little one, and very soon it was quite full. When the magician saw that miracle, he said to Brigid, “You shall have all the butter for yourself, and the twelve cows which you have milked shall be yours also.” Brigid said, “Keep your cows, and give me my mother’s freedom.” The magician answered, “The cows and the butter and your mother are yours.” Then he believed in Christ and was baptized, and Brigid gave all his gifts to the poor, and returned to Dubtach with her mother. Her father offered to sell her to the king, saying that he wished to get rid of her because she gave to the poor everything she could lay her hands upon. While they were in the house discussing the matter, Brigid was left in the carriage at the door. A beggar asked her for alms, and as she had no money she gave him her father’s sword, which was a gift from the king. When he came back, she said that what she gave to the poor she gave to Christ, that her father and the king ought to be glad that the sword was so honoured, and that if she could, she would give them both, and everything that belonged to them, to Christ. The king then gave her a new sword for her father.
Some Christians, travelling through the country, were taken by Dubtach’s followers. As they could not give a satisfactory account of themselves, they were condemned to death as rogues and spies. Brigid said they were minstrels, and bade them play on her harp. “Alas,” said the strangers, “we have never learnt music.” “Fear not,” replied Brigid, “play.” And she blessed their hands, laying her own upon them; whereupon the strangers played and sang more beautifully than any minstrels that had ever been heard in that hall.
When she was sixteen, her wisdom and beauty were praised throughout the land. Her father, who had no other daughter, wished her to make an advantageous marriage; but Brigid, being determined to consecrate her life to the service of God and to works of mercy, prayed that some deformity might come upon her to deliver her from liability to marriage. Immediately one of her eyes burst in her head, thus destroying all her beauty. Dubtach then permitted her to take the veil. As she knelt to receive it, the wood of the altar became green at her touch, and for years afterwards effected miraculous cures. At the same time, her lost eye was restored, and a pillar of fire appeared above her head. Her enthusiasm soon led other women to join her. At first they lived together at Kilbrighde, or Kilbude, near the sea. There are many places of this name in Ireland, but this is supposed to be the one in the county Waterford. After a time, Brigid built herself a cell under a goodly oak, and added a church and other buildings for her nuns. This was Kildare, Kil Dara, the cell or chapel of the oak. There were already communities of men, and there were churches and Christian schools, but this was the first convent of women in Ireland. The dwellings of the nuns were probably a number of huts or cells close to the church. The church was divided into three parts, one for monks, one for nuns, and one for the people.
Brigid always showed a deep and tender sympathy for slaves and captives, whose troubles she knew by experience. Once she went to ask for the liberty of a captive; the master was absent, but she made friends with his foster-father and brothers by teaching them to play the harp, and had already a strong party in her favour when the chief came home. Charmed by her music, he begged her blessing, which was granted on condition of his setting his prisoner at liberty.
She took a great interest in young persons, and delighted to encourage them in virtue and piety. One day, as she was standing outside the monastery with some of her nuns, she saw a young man, named Nennidh, running very fast. “Bring that youth to me,” commanded the abbess. He came with apparent reluctance. “Whither so fast?” asked Brigid. Nennidh answered, with a laugh, that he was running to the kingdom of heaven. “I wish,” said Brigid, “that I were worthy to run there with you to-day. Pray for me, that I may arrive there.” The young man, touched by her words, begged her to pray for him, and resolved to embrace a religious life. Brigid then foretold that he was the person from whom she should receive the holy viaticum on the day of her death. He took great pains to keep his hand worthy of so great an honour, and was called Nennidh, the clean-handed. He wrote a hymn in honour of St. Brigid, preserved in Colgan’s Acts of the Saints, Jan. 18. He is numbered among the saints, but is not the great St. Nennidh, surnamed Laobh-deare, the one-eyed, or squinting.
Many of the stories of the life of St. Brigid relate to the journeys and excursions she used to make in her carriage. On one of these journeys she saw a poor family carrying heavy burdens of wood, and with her usual kindness gave them her horses. She and her sisters sat down by the wayside, and she told them to dig there for water. As soon as they did so, a fountain sprang from the earth, and presently a chieftain passed by and gave his horses to Brigid.
Another time she happened to be alone in a friend’s house when some persons came begging for bread. She looked about for any of the household, but could see no one except a boy lying on the ground. He was deaf and paralytic, but Brigid did not know it. She said to him, “Boy, thou knowest where the keys are?” He said, “Yes, I know.” The holy woman then told him to go and serve these poor persons, which he did, and had his faculties ever after.
In a time of famine she went with some of her nuns and asked for provisions from Bishop Ybar. He had no bread, so he set before her a stone with some lard. The stone became bread, and Brigid and the bishop were satisfied to make a meal of it, but two of the virgins, desiring to eat flesh, hid it, and they found it turned into serpents. Brigid rebuked them, and on their repentance the serpents again became bread.
She had power over wild beasts. Once when a wolf had killed a sheep-dog, she made him take the place of his victim, and drive the sheep without frightening them.
Cows, calves, milk, and butter figure largely in the legends of this saint. A number of strangers arrived at her home, and as she had nothing to give them but what she could get from one cow, she milked it three times, and it gave as much as three cows. It is in allusion to this legend that she appears in some pictures holding a large bowl.
She seems to have shown severity or inflicted punishment only when the objects of her anger were guilty of unkindness. For instance, when a woman refused to wash a leper whom Brigid intended to heal, she transferred the leprosy to the unkind one, but afterwards prayed for her, and thereby healed her. One day two lepers came begging, and she gave them a calf. One of them said he did not want half a calf, and did not care to have it unless he might have it all to himself. Brigid bade him take the animal, and said to the other, “Wait with me a little while, and see if God will send you anything to make up for your share of the calf.” She procured another calf for him, and be went and overtook the ungrateful leper. They soon came to a great river, and the good leper and his calf arrived safely at the other side, but the thankless one and his calf were washed away and drowned.
Her hospitality and charity were unbounded. The fame of her holiness, her miracles, and her prophetic powers extended to Scotland. It is said that King Nectan, being driven out of Scotland, went to Ireland, and there visited Brigid, and asked for her prayers. She promised that if he went back to his own country God would have mercy upon him, and he should possess the kingdom of the Picts in peace.
She was upwards of seventy when she died. She was buried at Kildare, and translated to Downpatrick, where she was laid beside St. Patrick and St. Columba.
It is a mistake to identify her with St. Brigid of Glastonbury or St. Brigid of Abernethy. Several other saints of the same name, contemporary with her, or nearly so, are mentioned by Colgan. She is honoured in many places and calendars on the Continent, but is perhaps not so universally known there as St. Brigid of Sweden.
After her death, the sacred fire, which she had kept perpetually burning, and which caused the church of Kildare to be called the house of fire, was kept up on her tomb until 1220, when sundry accusations of superstition and heathenism having arisen against the custom, Henry London, archbishop of Dublin, ordered it to be put out to avert scandal. It was relighted and kept burning until the time of Henry VIII., when the nuns were banished from Kildare, their goods confiscated, and the churches desecrated.
Her Life was written immediately after her death by Brogan (called also Cloen). Another biography of her was written in the same century, another in the following, and so on. Five Lives are given in the Bollandist collection. B. M. Bede, Mart. Colgan, AA. SS. Hiberniæ Forbes, Kalendars Montalembert, Monks of the West Butler. Cahier.
For other stories of St. Brigid, see Briga (3), Dardulagha, Hinna, Lasrea.