A friend of mine posted about St. Patrick and the snakes being an allegory for the pagans. The friend wrote that it had been an outright genocide of the pagans, along with burned villages and forced conversions. That being said there are loads of people thinking of St. Patrick literally shooing snakes into the ocean.
The first story is easy to dispel, the idea that Saint Patrick drove literal snakes into the sea with his staff, all of them. Ignoring the logistics, snakes never lived on Ireland at all, they’re not in the fossil record. Ireland was a lump of ice during the Ice Ages and cold water around it besides. Snakes couldn’t get there. England has three but that’s because they started thawing early.
Then there’s the hardest one to untangle. Were the snakes of Ireland symbol of the pagans? I’ve heard it’s true and I’ve heard it’s not true. But his whole story is confusing and complex. He was either born in England, Scotland, or Wales (or maybe even France) and he had roughly half a dozen names. He claims he was kidnapped by Irish raiders as a teen and worked as a herder for six years before sneaking out (under the direction of God) and returning home. Others said that’s not how the raiders worked and he was coming of age for a boring and difficult Roman office job so simply left as several others had before.
Every story says he did convert to being Christian and went around converting others. But beyond that it’s a mystery. There are so many conflicting stories: was he born in 5th century or 4th century… did he accept gifts from all the local kings? It was common practise and considered to give the king dishonour by refusing. His account said he didn’t (he wrote an extremely short autobiography), others said he only took gifts from the girls, and others said, “of course he did”. He’s got a story about fasting alone which is very similar to Jesus own fasting in the desert story. In Patrick’s tale he fasted for 40 days then had to fight off a giant serpent or a demon. Later Patrick wanted a hilltop church but the man who owned the hill refused to sell. So Patrick made the grass in his yard poisonous so the man’s horse got (sick? died?) when he grazed then the man got sick too. He realized how powerful Patrick was and sold him the hill then Patrick healed both of them.
The stories keep piling even for centuries after his death and they continue to grow wilder. Like one time he lifted a man, with thoughts alone, over jagged rocks then dropped him – killing him. In another, he asked a man for food and the man sent out his live bull, figuring Patrick would be trampled, gored, or both. Patrick touched the bull, who calmed then offered himself for the slaughter. The farmer found him cooking meat over the fire and demanded his cow back. One story says he made a mock bull out of the bones and hide while another claims he touched part of the remains and brought him back to life. He’s recording as dying at 120 years old and, for funsies there might have been two of him. He wasn’t even the first Christian to go to the Emerald Isle to convert people and, finally, it looks like the whole “getting rid of the pagans” was a lot less of a slaughter and more a long and very slow conversion. I found this quote while looking for information and thought it was interesting…
“He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully.” By David Plotz, The Slate
Someone else mentioned the Bretha Crólige, which was an early Irish law that decided what monetary value each person is worth so they know what to pay the survivors if there’s an untimely death. The Druids were placed in the same category as blacksmiths, which was pretty high regards. They were also made priests if they converted.
I have yet to see any information regarding wholesale slaughter and, honestly, that argument makes no sense. The church wanted people converted and it’s damn hard to convert the dead. I couldn’t find any evidence of kidnapped children or Druid women getting forcibly married to Christian men. And considering humanity’s apparent need to observe tragedy and violence (from a safe distant), you would think the tragic stories of a genocide would be front and centre but they aren’t. Which leads me to believe it never happened. Which is a great thing because wholesale murder is horrible.
If anyone disagrees with me, feel free to comment. If you agree you can comment too.
My favourite phone game gave a Pride gift this week to everyone who played, all you needed to do was click on their pretty rainbow bedecked box to receive it. It was a lovely gift, full of money, gold, and a few star coins. One of the players thanked the game in the game’s Facebook group, stating that her daughter was a member of the LGBTQIA2S community, and that’s when a whole lot of nastiness welled over and oozed out. A bunch of people stated they’d refused the gift entirely. Some were disgusted because the game was getting political. “They’ve never celebrated anything else on here before” was a phrase I read several times. I’ve only been playing since March but so far I’ve seen gifts and promotions for Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, and Mother’s Day. Earth Day had an even bigger gift than Pride. And, of course, there was much talk of sin, how “good parents” don’t celebrate their child’s perversions, the rainbow is for God not pride, and comments about how same sex relationships had nothing to do with love, all of which got repeated again and again. Then, in the midst of it all, came someone, who probably felt she was the voice of reason, saying, “We don’t have anything against you, after all love the sinner, hate the sin.”
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