The childhood of St Brigid Lorraine Mulholland
We know about saints’ lives through monks called hagiographers. Scholars say that you must bear in mind before you read the stories below, that hagiographers wrote about a saint’s way of life, rather than history as we know it today.
One of St Brigid’s seven hagiographers, for example, was St Cogitosus, who wrote the Vita Sanctae Brigidae, around 650 AD. He set out to emphasise St Brigid’s purity, her love for the outcast, and her copious miracles involving lots of animals.
Brigid’s power
Indeed, most of the 80 different stories written in her lives show how supernaturally bountiful and powerful Brigid was.
Scholars also note that a battle was going on for supremacy in the Church in Ireland. Around the same time as Cogitosus wrote about St Brigid, Armagh was championing St Patrick. In the 7th Century, St Muirchú and St Tírechán wrote about the legends of St Patrick.
While Armagh said Patrick was number one Irish saint, St Brigid’s hagiographers set out to fight the case that Brigid was number one!
It is said that (her father) presented her with two suitors, one a king and the other a poet”
Cogitosus’s Life claimed Kildare to be the “head of almost all the Irish churches with supremacy over all the monasteries of the Irish and a paruchia (parish) which extended over the whole of Ireland reaching from sea to sea”.
On the agenda was proving how pure, and totally dedicated to God, St Brigid was. The stories below also emphasised Brigid’s status by the high rank of her two suitors (this is despite being born a slave).
And in the process, we are also told about her powers of prophecy and ability to procure exceptional miracles. What better person to have as number one patron saint of Ireland?
Brigid was of age and her father presented her with potential suitors who he had chosen for her to marry. It is said that he presented her with two suitors, one a king and the other a poet. One rich in money, the other also of very high status in early Ireland.
Dubthach
The poet was none other than Dubthach maccu Lugair. He became the top poet in Ireland, chief Ollam. He was also an expert lawyer in old Irish law, the Brehon laws.
But Brigid put her foot down and told him she couldn’t accept his proposal. However, she put her gift of prophecy to good use and told him, “Go to the woods behind your house where I know for sure that you would find a beautiful maiden to marry! The maiden’s parents will be very pleased to allow you to marry her”.
So, Dubthach the poet-lawyer followed Brigid’s instructions, and everything happened as she had said. Dubthach at some point even became a Christian; Brigid probably had a hand in that too!
However, there is another version of the story and perhaps this is about the king who came to woo her. What comes next is shocking – Brigid thought to God that she didn’t care about how she looked.
She prayed that God would make her ugly! All the better for focusing on her true destiny, a bride of Christ; spending her time serving God alone. Well, the next morning, she awoke to discover her entire face swollen like a balloon.
The beautiful eye which is in your head will be betrothed to a man, though you like it or not”
There is also a story that Brigid had brothers and that, at this, they were annoyed at the loss of a bride price (money paid by the groom to the bride’s family).
While Brigid was outside carrying some firewood past a group of poor people, some began to laugh at her. A man named Bacene (some say he was her brother) said to her, “The beautiful eye which is in your head will be betrothed to a man, though you like it or not”.
Brigid’s response was to push her finger into her eye. She said, “Here is that beautiful eye for you. I deem it unlikely that anyone will ask you for a blind girl!”
Her brothers tried to help her and wash away the blood from her wound, but there was no water to be found. Brigid said to them, “Put my staff about this sod (of earth) in front of you”.
After they did, a stream came out from the ground. Then Brigid said to Bacene, “Soon your two eyes will burst in your head”. And it all happened as she said. Later, however, Brigid’s eye was miraculously replaced. Once both suitors withdrew, Brigid got her good looks back.
Do the shocking stories make more sense now that you know about scholars’ views on hagiographers and Kildare’s battle with Armagh? At the end of the day, these are stories of faith. If you liked the two stories, you could read more of her traditional tales in my book – I don’t spoil the fun in it by talking about hagiographers and religious battles!
