the door and the hearth, and in this, in a condition
almost of nudity, the women spent the day cooking,
and making candles out of mutton suet. In the
evening they were required to hold these candles
whilst the men caroused and feasted, and then were
sent to sleep in kennels, like dogs, outside the house
as guardians, lest a hostile attack should be made
during the darkness.
The current coin seems to have been, in Ireland, a serving-maid, for all fines were calculated by cumals—that is, maidservants—and the value of one woman was the same as that of three cows.
A brother of one of the saints came to him to say that he was bankrupt; he owed a debt of seven maidservants to his creditor, and could not rake so many together. The saint paid the fine in cows. Bridget's mother was sold as a slave by the father of Bridget to a Druid, and the father afterwards tried to sell his daughter; but as the idea had got about that she was wasteful in the kitchen, he could not find a purchaser.
But this condition of affairs was rapidly altered, and it was so through the influence of the saints and the foundation of the great schools for girls by Bridget, Itha, Brig, and Buriana.
Till the times of Adamnan women were called out to fight as well as the men, and dared not refuse the summons. Their exemption was due to this abbot. He came on a field of battle and saw one woman who had driven a reaping-hook into the bosom of another, and was dragging her away thereby. Horror-struck, he went about among the kings of
