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Many stories told about saints have the flavour of myth to them, which is hardly surprising given that the Catholic Church only recognizes someone as a saint when it can be “proved” that they have performed at least two miracles, and “myth” and “miracle” have always been close companions.
The further back one goes in history, the more mythical the stories become, simply because the stories have suffered from the “Chinese whispers” effect of being told many times over with extra details being added each time.
One such story concerns St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, who lived in the 5th century. It is said that it is thanks to him that there are no snakes in Ireland. They apparently annoyed him when he was conducting a 40-day fast and he waved his staff to command them all to slither into the sea and never return.
It should not take too much application of common sense to appreciate that this would be highly unlikely – the action of one man inducing collective suicide by every snake over hundreds of square miles – but the story can be disproved even more easily by pointing out that there never were any snakes in Ireland for Patrick to banish!
<a href="http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Saint_Patrick" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
The event that banished snakes from the whole of north-western Europe was the Ice Age that ended 10,000 years ago. When it ended, snakes returned from further south but could not reach Ireland because it was already an island (the land bridge between Britain and Europe lasted long enough for some snake species to slither across).
Ireland is not the world’s only snake-free zone. The same applies to Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica and – perhaps more surprisingly – NewZealand.
The story of St Patrick and the snakes may have been intended purely symbolically, in that snakes were traditionally regarded as embodiments of evil – hence the serpent in the Garden of Eden – and what Patrick was credited with was banishing the Devil and all his works.
Whatever the truth of the matter, you won’t see any snakes in Ireland other than in zoos!
Nice post!!!! Good job
Let’s keep it going- St. Augustine banished pandas from Italy…
And we all know why England is mercifully free of dragons – St George, of course!
Technically, he rid the world of dragons. When was the last time you heard of one anywhere? So even though his holiday is much more popular, St. Patrick is not nearly as cool as St. George…
Are you sure about that? What about the dragons in Harry Potter – which we all know is every bit as true as the legend of St George! Those dragons are either Scottish or Norwegian, so maybe I’m correct about the lack of English ones!
On the other hand, Odin promised to rid the world of frost giants and did a hel of a job from what I can tell. Still, they’ll never make him a saint
This reminds of how being credited with something can actually be a false accusation, something St. Patrick became quite familiar with before he died.
This is a very interesting thing to read! But by the way, how was the beginning of the Chinese whispering going on? Is there a little note that ever mentioned it?
There are never notes of whispers – whispers are spoken, notes are written.
Haha… Yes, you are right. I’m just curious, my friend. I mean, maybe somebody ever wrote about those whispers as you also write “that’s whispering Chinese” this time. But if this article you have written through the whispers that you have heard, I quite understand.
Historical Post Nice…!
Great post, I didn’t know this 🙂
I love your posts!
I really enjoyed the historical reality!
I always learn something new with your posts, well done.
Oh you myth-buster, you! 😀