July 25, 1907] 



NA TURE 



295 



THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK SCIENTIFIC- 

 ALLY TREATED.' 



pATRICIUS MAGONUS SUCATUS, the Roman- 



-»■ Briton from South Wales who became the 

 apostle and patron saint of Ireland, was a great man, 

 who occupies a large place in history, and Prof. Bury 

 has presented us with a great biography, worthy of 

 the subject and of the brilliant equipment brought to 

 bear on it. 



Our " fabulous " lives of saints are full of facts, 

 often strangely disguised and misplaced. The vener- 

 able records deserve the most thorough scientific 

 treatment, of which this book is a noble illustration. 

 Our remarks by way of review will be confined to 

 some points of interest to astronomers and archa- 

 ologists. 



We were curious to learn when and how St. 

 Patrick's Day, March 17, became a fixed festival. It 

 is with Patrick, as with many another saint, that 

 while the circumstances of his death are very obscure, 

 the day stands forth with a positiveness which at once 

 challenges inquiry. The saint died in 461 a.d. He was 

 "buried quietly in an unmarked grave." " The pious 

 excitement about his bones arose long after his 

 death." In searching this book for information about 

 the day, a very curious state of things discloses itself. 

 The author says that the legendary date of the saint's 

 death "had become vulgar In the seventh century," 

 but the earliest reference we can find is the statement 

 of a scribe who died in S46 .a.d., a postscript to a copy 

 of Patrick's "Confession." "Hue usque uolumen 

 quod Patricius manu conscripsit sua : .septem decima 

 Martii die translatus est Patricius ad cselos " (p. 227). 

 That was written ^85 years after the saint's death. 

 Though we should have liked to have the matter 

 more clearly explained, we make it no point to doubt 

 that March 17 was observed before the ninth century. 

 \\"hat strikes us is the fact that in 846 a.d. that was 

 the date of the vernal equinox. It is hard to believe 

 that the Irish of the ninth centurv could have cele- 

 brated .St. Patrick's Day without noticing the coinci- 

 dence. 



Turning to the legend of the saint's death, we find 

 him converted into a solar hero. An angel predicted 

 that his death would " set a boundary against night 

 that no light might be wasted on him : Up to the 

 end of the year there was light, that was a long day 

 of peace " (p. 264). .Another version has it that " after 

 his death there was no night for twelve davs, and the 

 folk said that for a whole year the nights were less 

 dark than usually." The one version seems to refer 

 to the equinox, and the other to the summer solstice 

 when for twelve days before and twelve davs- after 

 the sun's declination is within its highest northward 

 degree. 



It is of interest to note that our two native British 

 patron saints, Patrick and Dewi, seem to have been 

 made solar heroes. In the legend of the death of 

 Dewi, or David, we have a midsummer festival de- 

 scribed in Christian terms, and there is ample evi- 

 dence that Dewi's day was June 24 before it was fixed 

 on March i. 



^A'hen Patrick became a solar hero, assuming that 

 he did, he became entitled to the shamrock. .About 

 the only thing one finds it fiard to forgive in our 

 author is that he never mentions the shamrock. How 

 can we think of Patrick and March 17 without the 

 shamrock? We must have it brought in. The story 

 of how Patrick utilised the popular triadic herb to 

 teach the Irish the fundamental dogma of his faith 

 bears the stamp of truth as clearly as anything known 

 of him. He found the plant in great popularity among 



1 "Th<! Life of St. Patrick, and hi* Place in History." By Prof. I. B 

 Bury. Pp. X+404- (London: Macm'llan and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 



NO. 1969. VOL 76] 



the " pagan " Irish, as well as among his Brythonic 

 countrymen. The Welsh bards used to decorate their 

 spring Gorsedd with the trefoil, and, as we shall see, 

 Patrick had a great deal to do with the Gorsedd. TO' 

 Celts, who thought in threes, the plant had possibly 

 no rival as an emblem. 



We have now associated an equinox and solstice 

 date, a solar hero, and a Gorsedd emblem which our 

 modern bards state was used at the equinox. But 

 our modern bards have evidently changed the order 

 of festivals, substituting the solstitial quarter days 

 for those of the May-year. The shamrock must have 

 belonged originally to the May-day festival, as Feb- 

 ruary would be too early for it. Patrick found in Ire- 

 land the May-year in its glory, and he set about chang- 

 ing it into the Church-year, as part of his mission. 

 Legend represents him lighting a fire on Easter Eve 

 in open defiance of the fire lit on the selfsame night at 

 Tara in connection with a high pagan festival. Our 

 author rightly interprets the legend.. 



" The idea is that Easter is to replace Beltane, the 

 Church to overcome the heathen fire, and it is a matter 

 of no importance that the day of Beltane was the first 

 day of summer, which could never fall on Easter Eve " 

 (p." 107). 



" We can detect here, in the very act as it 

 were, the process by which pagan superstitions which 

 insisted on surviving were sometimes adapted into 

 the Christian calendar " (p. io8). 



The legend of the saint's death has quite a Beltane 

 setting. " A thorn-bush burst into flame on the way- 

 side and was not consumed. .And an angel spoke 

 and turned him back " to .Saul, to die there rather 

 than at .Armagh. .A thorn-bush bursting into flame, 

 i.e. flowers, before March 17 reminds us of the Glas- 

 tonbury thorn-bush flowering at Christmas. There 

 is also a legend of an Irish saint presenting a queen 

 with a dish of blackberries at the Easter festival. Over 

 and over again the early Church festivals are spoken 

 of in Beltane and .All Hallows terms. The chief reason 

 seems to be that for a long time the early British and 

 Irish Christians had no effective substitutes for the 

 May-year festivals. 



Descriptions of British pagan and early Christian 

 festivals should be read with the aid of whatever light 

 the bardic Gorsedd, which was once common to all 

 parts of the British Isles, can lend us. Where Patrick 

 lav dead, angels who kept watch over his body dif- 

 fused " sweet odours of wine and honey," which is 

 dangerously like representing the angels holding a 

 typical Irish wake. The angels are the bards who, 

 dressed in white, presided over the ceremonies of the 

 Beltane feast, and wine and honey were their cus- 

 tomary dues on such an occasion, liberal quantities of 

 which consumed at the feast diffused sweet odours. 

 The legend strives to harmonise the pagan feast, the 

 Church festival, and the anniversary of Patrick's 

 death. 



This brings us to a very instructive episode in the 

 saint's life, his attack on the "King Idol of Erin."" 

 In the plain of Slecht was a famous idol, " apparently 

 of stone covered with silver and gold, standing in a 

 sacred circuit, surrounded by twelve pillar stones."' 

 " It was told in later times that the firstlings, even 

 of human offspring, used to be offered to this idol, in 

 order to secure a plenteous yield of corn and milk, 

 and that the high kings of Ireland themselves used 

 to come at the beginning of winter to do worship 

 in the plain of .Slecht." Our author thinks that " the 

 story is based on a genuine fact, but that the later 

 accoimts impute to it a significance which it did not 

 possess." The story relates that Patrick struck 

 down the idol with his staff, which. Prof. Bury ob- 

 serves, he could not have done without the consent 

 of secular powers. 



