True
history and legend are intertwined when it comes to St. Patrick.
It is
known that he was born in Scotland and was kidnapped and sold in
Ireland as a slave. He became fluent in the Irish language before
making
his escape to the continent. Eventually he was ordained as a
deacon,
then priest and finally as a bishop. Pope Celestine then sent him
back to
Ireland to preach the gospel. Evidently he was a great traveller,
especially
in Celtic countries, as innumerable places in Brittany, Cornwall,
Wales,
Scotland and Ireland are named after him.
Here it is where actual history and legend become difficult to
seperate.
Patrick is most known the world over for having driven the snakes
from
Ireland. Different tales tell of his standing upon a hill, using
a wooden staff
to drive the serpents into the sea, banishing them forever from
the shores
of Ireland. One legend says that one old serpent resisted, but
the saint
overcame it by cunning. He is said to have made a box and invited
the
reptile to enter. The snake insisted the box was too small and
the
discussion became very heated. Finally the snake entered the box
to
prove he was right, whereupon St Patrick slammed the lid and cast
the
box into the sea. While it is true there are no snakes in
Ireland, chances
are that there never have been since the time the island was
seperated
from the rest of the continent at the end of the ice age. As in
many old
pagan religions serpent symbols were common, and possibly even
worshipped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic
of
putting an end to that pagan practice. While not the first to
bring
Christianity to Ireland, it was Patrick who encountered the
Druids at Tara
and abolished their pagan rights. He converted the warrior chiefs
and
princes, baptizing them and thousands of their subjects in the
Holy Wells
which still bear that name. According to tradition St. Patrick
died in A.D.
493 and was buried in the same grave as St. Bridget and St.
Columba, at
Downpatrick, County Down. The jawbone of St. Patrick was
preserved in
a silver shrine and was often requested in times of childbirth,
epileptic fits
and as a preservative against the evil eye. Another legend says
St.
Patrick ended his days at Glastonbury and was buried there. The
Chapel
of St. Patrick still exists as part of Galstonbury Abbey. There
is evidence
of an Irish pilgrimage to his tomb during the reign of the Saxon
King Ine in
A.D. 688, when a group of pilgrims headed by St. Indractus were
murdered.
The great anxiety displayed in the middle ages to possess the
bodies, or
at least the relics of saints, accounts for the many discrepant
traditions
as to the burial places of St. Patrick and others. And St.
Patrick and the
shamrock?
The
Shamrock, at one time called the "Seamroy", symbolises
the cross
and blessed trinity. Before the Christian era it was a sacred
plant of the
Druids of Ireland because its leaves formed a triad. The well
known legend
of the Shamrock connects it definitely to St. Patrick and his
teaching.
Preaching in the open air on the doctrine of the trinity, he is
said to have
illustrated the existence of the Three in One by plucking a
shamrock from
the grass growing at his feet and showing it to his congregation.
The
legend of the shamrock is also connected with that of the
banishment of
the serpent tribe from Ireland by a tradition that snakes are
never seen on
trefoil and that it is a remedy against the stings of snakes and
scorpions.
The trefoil in Arabia is called shamrakh and was sacred in Iran
as an
emblem of the Persian triads. The trefoil, as noted above, being
a sacred
plant among the Druids, and three being a mystical number in the
Celtic
religion as well as all others, it is probable that St. Patrick
must have
been aware of the significance of his illustration.