"Old Life of St Brigit" (Bethu Brigte) translated by M.A. O’Brien

• See also Vitae or "Lives" of Saint Brigit: Great Places to Learn Lots About Her
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Three Loaves of Bread

This is lovely.

4 Then eight other virgins also received

the veil together with saint Brigit and the

virgins with their parents said, 'Don't leave

us. Instead stay with us and make your

home in these parts.'

5 Thereafter saint Brigit stayed with them.

 One day there came to Brigit

and her nuns three devout men who were

pilgrims and she regaled them with bread

and cooked bacon. The men ate the bread

but hid the three portions of bacon as they

did not want to eat it.

2 The following day Brigit greeted them

and said, 'See how much bread you have

left over!' When they looked they saw that

the three portions of bacon were three

loaves of bread.

From "Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae Background and Historical Value", by Sean Connolly. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 119 (1989), pp. 5-49.

Image: By L.Kenzel (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Hymn to Saint Brigid of Brogan-Cloen (Broccan's Hymn)

I like to reread the Lives of Saint Brigit from time to time, and other ancient writings such as prayers dedicated to her. Even more, I like to be read to. So I have recorded a couple and listen to them from time to time, and am always delighted by bits I had forgotten.

To further that end, today I recorded Broccan's Hymn, and in my zeal decided to add a visual aspect (still images of the manuscript and an icon of Saint Brigit) so that I could upload it as a video. I still don't know how to simply upload a sound file to the blog, or I'd do that.

Here is the "video", for those who are interested. Apologies for any fumbling of the Latin and Irish. Most of it is English and I manage that fairly well.

For a writeup on the hymn and the translation that I have used (by Whitley Stokes) please visit the excellent blog Trias Thaumaturga, which is dedicated to the three patron saints of Ireland.

Broccan's Hymn is mostly a poetic summing up of many of the tales from the earliest Life of Saint Brigit, by Cogitosus. If it doesn't make complete sense to you it will if you read that Life.

Well, I'll be darned. I can't find a free download of it online. I do have a pdf, so if you want a copy leave your email address in the comments (I won't publish it) and I'll email it to you.

"We put trust in my Brige — may she be a protection to our host !

May her patronage work with me ! may we all deserve escape !"

Brigit and Blindness

Votive offering representing eyes.

Musée Archéologique de Dijon

On hearing that a friend and follower of Brigit is developing cataracts, I remembered reading a number of tales of Saint Brigit that concern blindness. I wanted to look back through those stories to see if there was anything that might be of use for her. I often find some subtle insight offered if not in the tale’s intended message, then in some detail within it. This is a personal thing, and I doubt we would all find the same meanings, or any at all, necessarily. I have not offered all of these to her—it is probably not the time—but I will offer a few to you in case they are of use.

***

Brigit is no stranger to blindness. In a gruesome story from the 8^th century "Irish Life of Brigid", the Bethu Brigte, Brigit blinds herself in order to block her forced marriage. She is miraculously healed with the aid of a stream created by her own staff, but all attempts to marry her against her will are ended. (She takes violent eye-related revenge on one of her brothers for his malicious part in all of this.)

There are many references in her Lives to Brigit healing the blind. In Faughart, her supposed birthplace, one of her bullaun stones has the power to heal spiritual blindness.

But she didn't always cure the affliction. In the Leabhar Breac (Speckled Book) of the 15th century, it says, “She bettered the sheep: she tended the blind: she fed the poor.” Tended does not necessarily mean cured. If caring for, and not curing, is what is meant here, this suggests to me that there are times when she finds it preferrable to leave things as they are. In looking at my own life, I know that, painful as it is, sometimes we don’t gain the outcome we want and pray for—yet sometimes another outcome, very much unwanted, leads to a different blessing altogether.

A couple of her tales hint at this.

Once, Brigit relied on a blind man to assist her when no one else was able¹. Inspired by a vision, Brigit wished to have the whole Roman ritual and liturgy brought to her. Three times she sent disciples to Rome to fetch it. Twice they returned having forgotten everything they learned. The third time she included with the disciples a “certain blind protégé” of hers who was blessed with the ability to remember everything perfectly. En route the pilgrims met with a storm and dropped anchor; they were afterwards unable to retrieve it. Drawing lots, the blind man was given the job of diving deep to recover the anchor, but although the ship was freed, he did not return. He was lost until the crew met the same difficulty on another day, being forced to drop anchor in the same place. When they hauled the anchor aboard he climbed up with it, carrying the Roman Rite and a bell that came to be known as the “bell of the blind son.” This story was meant to show Brigit’s support for the Roman versus the Irish Christian traditions,which I suspect wasn’t a big interest of Brigit’s, given when she lived. What I find interesting, though, is that the only person with the wisdom and vision to perform her miracle is the one man without sight.

Colgan, in his Trias Thaumaturga, Vita Quarta S. Brigidæ, tells a particularly moving story about blindness (also related in O’Hanlon’s Life of St Brigid):

“One evening, she sat with Sister Dara, or Daria, a holy nun, who was blind², as the sun went down; and they talked of the love of Jesus Christ, and the joys of Paradise. Now, their hearts were so full, the night fled away whilst they spoke together, and neither knew that so many hours had sped. Then the sun came up from the Wicklow mountains, and the pure white light made the face of earth bright and gay. Bridget sighed, when she saw how lovely were earth and sky, and while she knew that Dara s eyes were closed to all this beauty. So she bowed her head and prayed. She extended her hand and signed the dark orbs of the gentle sister. Then the darkness passed away from them, and Dara saw the golden ball in the east, while all the trees and flowers glittered with dew in the morning light. She looked a little while, and then, turning to the abbess, said: “Close my eyes again, dear mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is seen less clearly to the soul.” So Bridget prayed once more, and Dara’s eyes grew dark again.”

1Life Of St. Brigid, First Abbess Of Kildare, Special Patroness Of Kildare Diocese, And General Patroness Of Ireland by the Rev. John O'Hanlon, M.R.I.A. (1877)

2Apparently she was blind from birth.

Life of St. Brigid, virgin : first abbess of Kildare, special patroness of Kildare Diocese, and general patroness of Ireland (1877)

Life of Saint Brigid, Virgin, First Abbess of Kildare. The full text of this 1877 book by John Hanlon can be found online at the Internet Archive. Click above for a selection of formats.

Saint Brigit the Austere

A different view of Saint Brigit than is commonly considered today:

Quoted from The Irish Way, edited by F. J. Sheed, 1933.

SAINT BRENDAN NAVIGATOR
(483-577)
By DONAL O'CAHILL

...The Ireland into which Brendan had been thus ushered
was fraught with great change. War's terrible intoxication
was losing its attraction for the Irish, who were everywhere
accepting the doctrines of Christ. The descendants of
warriors who had harried the Romans to the Alps had
yielded to the pleadings of Patrick and were even then
raising throughout their land the foundations of a Spiritual
Empire that was to last to the end of time.

When Brendan was a year old Ere, complying with custom
and desirous of keeping him within his own jurisdiction, had
him sent to fosterage in Killeedy, County Limerick, There
but a very few years before, Saint Ita the youthful Brigid
[sic] of Munster had founded her convent and gathered a
number of women whose austerities and ministrations won
the esteem of many saints. The nun whose mortifications
inspired St. Cummian's writings naturally exercised a
profound influence over Brendan. Her special interest
in him is perhaps proof of the promise given even by his
earliest years. He returned her affection by a devotedness
that deepened with time and drew him back to her in later
life for sympathy and counsel in all his undertakings...

...Brendan's return about the year 540 is invested with the
mystery that surrounded his departure. From the con-
flicting accounts there emerges, however, one fact : that he
brought with him many disciples, one of whom bore princely
rank. It is stated that Brendan visited Saint Brigid after
his return, but as her death occurred twenty- five years earlier
this chronology is manifestly wrong. Whatever the date
of his visit, its purpose is interesting. During his travels
abroad Brendan had heard Saint Brigid's help invoked
with astonishing success. Greatly edilied [sic], he composed a
hymn in her honour and on returning home he visited the
Saint. Being asked the reason of her great power, she
replied that never for a moment was her attention diverted
from God. Whereupon Brendan, no doubt magnifying
his peccadilloes, confessed his remissness and was sweetly
reproved. The meeting is important because it shews the
great humility which ran as a leit-motif through the lives
of all the Irish Saints, Brendan's life was a prolonged
striving after perfection ; it is not wholly figurative to say
he hid from ecclesiastical honours or knelt in penance
before a nun...

The entire text of the book The Irish Way can be found, scanning errors and all, at the Internet Archive. Further, it can be viewed as a virtual book, downloaded as a pdf, or ordered as print-on-demand. Or you could just buy it from an independent bookseller through ChooseBooks or BookFinder.