Patron Saint or Practical Joker?
A bit about Saint Brigid
Saint Brigid is our patron. February 1st is her feastday. But who was she?
It pains me that so few of you modern folk know of this saint who has been venerated throughout the Gaellic lands of Ireland and Scotland for centuries. Why you ask? Well, she's highly apocryphal for starters, but so many of the best things in life are.
Not much is known about her - at least not for certain - and there are a lot of legends that crop up whenever she is mentioned. So I invite you to sit back and allow me to spin you the yarn of Saint Brigid. And everything I'm about to say is true... It must be. You read it on the internet, right?
Brigid was a canny soul with the typically dry Irish sense of humor. Proof if any were needed that it is true that God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world. And he invented Scotch to keep the Scots from... wearing pants.
But I digress.
Saint Brigid had the basic Saintly upbringing. She was good and kind and talked to the animals as all future saints must do. She was a chieftain's daughter who early on displayed a knack for finding mischievous ways to be saintly. This is an early sign of sainthood, being a naughty child.
Don't believe me?
Read The Confessions of Saint Augustine sometime.
The prank that got her well on her way to sainthood was when her father had taken her to be sold to another king. (Oh the good old days...) While they were dickering over the price, she got bored and wandered away with her father's sword and gave it to a leper. What the leper was supposed to do with it is anyone's guess, but considering the general state of affairs in Ireland at the time, it probably didn't go over too well with her old man. The king she was supposed to be sold to saved her from her father's wrath because he thought it was funny. (why else would he do it?)
He saved her, but he wasn't dumb enough to take her off her old man's hands, so home they went. The chieftan didn't have much use for an unmarried girl, so he tried to find a use for her. First he tried making her run his dairy. Brigid gave away all the milk. He tried to marry her off. She took vows as a nun. Come to think of it, by that point, her dad was probably perfectly satisfied with this arrangement.
At least she wouldn't be arming the local lepers anymore.
When seeking land on which to build her abbey, she asked the King of Leinster (who is the man who had saved her only a few paragraphs ago) for only so much land as her cloak would cover. Miraculously, her cloak swelled and spread until it covered the entirety of the land of Curragh.
Thus was spandex invented. And the abbey lived well on the proceeds of the patent and licensing fees.
As Abbess she continued to find ways to be good in only the most questionable ways. Her abbey was on a main road and one day down the road came a group of Bishops and Cardinals, resplendant in their crimson finery. It was so expensive to maintain a large coterie of men around you that nobles and high-ranking churchmen often took to the road to tour their demesne. Of course, in keeping with tradition, those they visited were obliged to show the officials and their entourage all due hospitality for the duration of their stay. So it was that the nuns and monks of Brigid's Abbey were expected to fete these visiting lords of Christendom.
Alas, It had been a lean year for the Spandex industry (bicycle shorts hadn't been invented yet), and the appetites of the churchmen was great. In no time at all, the abbey's stores were depleted, especially the beer kegs. When the taps ran dry and the thirst of their august vistors could not be slaked, the nuns ran to their Abbess and asked what they could do. The abbey larder was bare!
The wily Chieftain's daughter was not one to be caught out by gluttons who knew nothing of the ascetic ways of her order. Brigid sent novices to fill the pitchers from her bath and serve it to the cardinals and their men. Apparently the men didn't notice as it had miraculously turned into beer.
So was our chieftain's daughter a deft hand at the bluff ("Why no your grace, the beer tastes fine to me" pretends to take a sip "Why do you ask?") or did the bathwater really did turn into beer? Personally, I rather like the idea that she served a bunch of stuffy Cardinal-types tankards of bathwater, but that says more about me than her, I suppose.
Whatever the case, she is definitely the most creative Saint on record, or at least has the most creative benediction of any prayer ever attributed to any saint I've ever heard of...
"... I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity."
Patron saint of milkmaids, brewers and practical jokers everywhere, this is why Saint Brigid is also patron of our Renaissance Faire troupe. So if you are the sort of lad or lass that is given to raising a pint of ale from time to time, when next the bottom of your mug rises, give a moment's pause for Saint Brigid... and her bathwater.
Your beer will never taste the same.
Page contents Copyright 2006, Scott W Perkins except where noted
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