9. Saint Patrick and the Snakes

If you should ever sail across the ocean to Ireland, and travel on that Emerald Isle, you would be sure to hear many interesting stories about the good missionary, Saint Patrick. One story which was told many years ago by an old monk named Jocelin, is this:

Long, long ago, when Ireland was called Erin, and before Saint Patrick came to the island, the people were troubled with a plague of demons and reptiles. Patrick was the son of a Christian magistrate who lived in England. In the year A. D. 411, when Patrick was fifteen, some wild Irish raiders stole him and sold him as a slave in Ireland, where he remained in slavery for six years tending pigs upon the mountains. When this Christian boy, Patrick, made his escape to France, he resolved to return to Ireland and devote himself as a missionary to the conversion of the people. When he returned to Ireland to enter upon his mission, he found the country stricken because of the demons and reptiles. By means of a wondrous staff which he stretched toward heaven, and a holy bell, Fuin Foya, which when he rang was heard throughout Erin, he drove away the demons with howls of rage. Then, as he went about the land preaching and doing good to all the people, he found them still suffering with the plague of snakes and toads, which ugly reptiles he drove westward until they reached a high rock, when, with a hissing sound, they turned upon Saint Patrick and tried to poison him. But the saint was armed with his melodious bell, which had been given by the angels, and of all sounds in the world the ringing of a heavenly bell is most terrible to a reptile, and the silvery tones of this bell frightened the snakes and toads more than all the bells of the land ringing together. When Saint Patrick saw these wicked serpents making ready to sting him, and saw they all no longer obeyed his commands and his threats, he uncovered the bell and the moment they heard the first tinkle they rushed forward in a body to scramble up the side of the hill and away from the sound they hated. As soon as they reached the top they began to sway to and fro in their fright, for there, far beneath the dark rocks, lay the blue waters of the ocean. But they could not wait there long, for as soon as Saint Patrick came to the summit, he made a sign for them to come near him, and, creeping and crawling, they cowered at his feet, waiting to hear their doom. The good Saint Patrick stood over them and, lifting his staff in his hand, he pointed out far over the sea. “Forward, every one into the sea!” he commanded, “and henceforth this blessed Isle of Erin shall be free forever from your power of evil!” They lay at his feet hissing and writhing in agony, but Saint Patrick began to uncover his bell, Fuin Foya. As soon as they saw that, the reptiles rushed and tumbled down, down over the steep rocks. So, hissing and howling, they plunged into the sea and disappeared under the waves.