472 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



invoked by women in labour.* In her church at Kildare a 

 perpetual fire was kept burning by the maidens of her choir, 

 much in the same way as by the vestal virgins in Rome Her 

 symbols are a flame, a goose and a cow. 



There is a very peculiar ballad known throughout Brittany, 

 and popular even so far south as Querci, relative to S. Bridget ; 

 according to which when Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, 

 the Virgin M other needed the assistance of some woman. None 

 offered save Bridget who was the inn-keeper's daughter, and she 

 was a cripple without either legs or arms. But because she was 

 willing to assist, the Virgin prayed, and her legs and arms 

 sprouted out, and the Virgin prophesied that the feast of Bridget 

 should thenceforth precede her own, i.e., that of Candlemas, and 

 that Bridget should become the patron saint to be invoked by 

 women in labour. We have obviously here an altered pagan 

 myth. Luzel: Soniou Breiz-izel, Paris, 189(1, 1, p. 309. In this 

 it is given as of Bertha, instead of Berhed, which is the Breton 

 for Bridget. See also Le Braz, Annales de Bretagne, 1893, IX. 

 p. 45. Also Uaymard, Chants populaires de Quercy, Cahors, 

 1889. 



I do not give the life of S. Bridget, as it does not belong to 

 Cornwall, though foundations under her rule were there. For 

 her life in full, see O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, vol. Ill; 

 but the original material is to be found in Colgan Trias Thau- 

 maturga, Louvain, 1647, in the Book of Lismore, in the Gloss on 

 the Calendar of Oengus, and in the Salamanca Codex. 



I am giving the life, — if not as fully yet a little more 

 critically than some others have been given, — in my " Lives of 

 the Virgins, Saints and Martyrs," shortly to be published. 



Brtchan, King, Confessor, 



This great father of a saintly family deserves to be here 

 considered, not that any church is dedicated to him, but because 

 we happily possess a fragment of his legend, preserved by 

 William of Worcester, in 1478, when he visited Cornwall. He 

 then extracted it from a manuscript at S. Michael's Mount. 



* See under Breaca. 



