A Word About Those Snakes... Jenny jennyg@compuserve.com Sun Mar 14 11:32:50 1999 St. Patrick's Day is approaching fast. And every year I have at least one person ask me, "How can you be a Witch and still celebrate St. Patrick's Day?!? It commemorates Christianity's destruction of Paganism! Those snakes that St. Patrick drove out of Ireland were really Druids/Witches/<insert the name of your favorite Pagan group>."*p*So if these sort of concerns are what's holding you back from the green beer, let me re-assure you: the theory that St. Patrick's snakes were Pagans is a modern, unhistorical idea. The legend of St. Pat and the snakes isn't terrifically ancient, and it's NOT Irish.*p*The snake eviction legend is actually a late and foreign addition to the Patrick myth. None of the early sources mention it. From at least the 3rd century (150 years before Patrick was born) Ireland has been famous for its "snake-less" shores. This was presented as an odd, but natural and non-miraculous aspect of the island. Modern people might point out that there are indeed some legless lizards and rare snakes on the island. However in the Middle Ages Ireland was commonly known as a snake-less land.*p*We have a goodly number of early texts on Patrick's life (texts and letters written by Patrick himself, saints' lives dating back to the 7th century). None claim that Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, nor do they associate snakes with Pagans or Pagan deities. In fact, since Ireland has few snakes, snakes don't play a prominent role in Irish mythology.*p*The tale of Patrick and the snakes first appears in the 12th century, in saints lives written by Norman invaders. The Normans came from France where snakes were common. To them, Ireland's "snakeless-ness" was weird and needed explanation. The explanation the Normans chose was a French one. The French saint Honoratus supposedly drove the snakes from the isle of Lerins. The Normans imported this legend, and credited St. Patrick with performing the same miracle in Ireland. The connection was facilitated by the fact that Patrick had reputedly studied in Lerins for a time.*p*In some of the earliest versions of this legend, Patrick drove out a number of unpleasant animals, not just snakes. For instance, the 12th century Norman author Gerald of Wales says: "Of all kinds of reptiles only those that are not harmful are found in Ireland. It has no poisonous reptiles. It has no serpents or snakes, toads or frogs, tortoises or scorpions. It has no dragons. It has, however, spiders, leeches and lizards -- but they are entirely harmless. Some indulge in the pleasant conjecture that St. Patrick and other saints of the land purged the island of all harmful animals. But it is more probable that from the earliest times, and long before the laying of the foundations of the Faith, the island was naturally without these as well as other things."*p*I'm not sure when "Pat vs the snakes" became a popular legend, but it was at least a couple centuries *after* its creation. For instance, _The Golden Legend_ (the most popular medieval collection of saints' lives, written around 1260) makes no mention of this myth.*p*I've never seen any historical evidence to support the idea that these snakes were "really" Pagans. Most advocates of this theory argue that snakes "always" represent the Goddess, therefore the eviction of the snakes must represent the triumph of patriarchal religion over matriarchal spirituality. However since a) snakes do not play a prominent role in Pagan Irish mythology; b) the legend didn't arise until long after Ireland converted to Christianity; and c) the legend is clearly based on a French tale imported in the High Middle Ages, this theory seems highly unlikely. It's more probable that this is simply an invader's attempt to explain why their new country was so unusual.*p*So don't let it hold you back from the beer. <g>*p*Jenny*br*