In some recent reading, I came across another instance of the Virgin
Mary's involvement in childbirth. I half-remembered it before, but wasn't
quite sure. In Archbishop Gregersson's Officium Sanctae Birgittae (which
I know from the Middle English version included in Roger Ellis's edition
of Birgitta's Liber Celestis) there is an account of Mary's aiding
Birgitta in a difficult delivery. The passage in Middle English is as
follows (thorns are normalized as "th"):
Fell in one tyme that scho was in dispaire of hir life in trauellinge of
childe, and sodanli thare entirde one woman, the faireste that euir sho
sawe, clothed in white silke, and laide hir hand on all the partise of hir
bodi, and als sone as that woman was wente furth againe sho was deliuered
withouten any perell: and sho wiste wele it was oure ladi, als sho schewed
vnto Bride eftirward.
Nancy Warren
Department of English
University of Michigan
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