I like Saint Bride (or Brigid), of whom many improving and domestic
miracles are told concerning mead, cows, milk, lepers and devils.
Here's one:
...A certain man of good kin (came) to Dubthach to ask for his daughter
in marriage. Dubthach and his sons were willing, but Brigid refused. A
brother of her brethren said to her: "Idle is the pure eye in your head,
not to be on a bolster beside a husband".
Brigid said: "The Son of the Virgin knoweth, it is not healthy for us if
it bring harm upon us."
Then she put her finger under the eye and plucked it out of her head, so
that it lay upon her cheek. When Durbach and her brethren beheld that,
they promised that she should never be told to go to a husband save the
husband whom she would like. Then Brigid put her palm to her eye, and it
was healed at once.
An early blow for feminism, of a kind, I guess; tho self mutilation still
persists as a resistance, and without the miraculous healing.
Best
Alison
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