210 



Brigid, whose piety Hector Boethius so much extols.* It was at the 

 close of the fifth century, she sought to become a nun, when Macca- 

 leus, a bishop, " coeleste intuens desiderium et pudicitiam, et tan- 

 tum castitatis amorem in tali virgine, pallium album et vestem candi- 

 dam super ipsius venerabile caput imposuit •."■f on which occasion, it 

 is added, that she gave the testimony of her chastity before alluded 

 to.J No sooner was she professed, than her fame collected zealous asso- 

 ciates round her little cell at Kildare, for whose accommodation she 

 founded that celebrated abbey. § The most mysterious circumstance, 

 connected with the history of Saint Brigid, is the perpetual fire which 

 Cambrensis says she preserved at Kildare. 11 They, who rely on his 

 single and singular narrative, represent this fire as a spark of the Bel- 

 tinne, a superstition of the same primeval source with the vestal light 

 of the Romans ;** but as the rite is only put forward in his work, and 

 never even alluded to by any of the old writers of Saint Brigid's 

 biography, its authenticity seems very questionable, or if it was sanc- 

 tioned, it was most probably kindled to allure the gentiles of the 

 country with the solemnity of their favourite element, but converted 



* " Effecta est ejusdem Brigidae virginis ad posteritatem, ob pietatem insignem, Celebris 

 adeo memoria, ut Scoti, Picti, Hibernici et qui illis gentibus vicinas habent sedes Angli, earn 

 intefr foeminas, quas Christiana ecclesia in Sanctorum numerum retulit, secundum Deiparam 

 Virginem praecipua semper habuerint veneratione." — Hist. Scot. Rer. lib. 9. fo. clxiv. 



f Cogitosus, c. 3. X ^nte.jp. 179. 



§ " Tbi magnum monasterium plurimarum construxit virginum." — Fourth Life of S. 

 Brigid, lib. 2. c. 3. 



II " Apud Kildariam Lageniae urbem, quam gloriosa Brigida reddit illustrem, digna me- 

 moratu sunt miracula multa, inter quae primum occurrit ignis Brigidae, quem inextinguibilem 

 diciint, non quod extingui non possit, sed quia tam solicite tam accurate moniales et sanctje 

 mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore Virginis per tot anno- 

 rum curricula, semper manserit inextinctus ; et cum tanta lignorum strues tanto in tempore 

 sit hie consumpta, nunquam tamen cinis excreverit." — Top. Hib. Dist. 2, c. 34. 



«» See.Langhorne's edition of Plutarch's Lives, vol. 1. pp. 106, 175, 176, 178 and 323. 



