#StPatricksDay Special: Peig the Healer
It has been a hectic few months, getting together three new books and recovering from The Great Flood, which washed most of the house away, but to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day at home, here is a little slice of Peig the healer:
caked in light limewash, the eves ornamented with bundles of rosemary and lavender, the stone supports for the outer walls bending slightly, the posts wilting under the weight of a fine peat thatch, the top still green and blooming. A faint amber glow emanated from the windows, the hearth giving life into the small sitting room, the many trinkets and memorandums of a hard-earned domestic life garlanding the mantelpiece, the timid and unattended fire breathing upwards, the chimney teeming in ribbons of smoke, the few birds nesting round the rain catch preening themselves against the warm stack twittering to themselves. The home seemed empty for the present, any movement from the residents happening just beyond the door, the cramblings of an old woman drawing the querant’s eye: she was a fulsome but elderly woman, one who had been used to hard work in her youth and was now bent over a small cooking fire, sitting on low stool before a small cauldron, with a pile of sallies and rushes on one side of her and several bundles of gathered herbs on the other. A wide apron adorned her lap, her feet leaning against the flat hearthstone, her brow bent in stern arborescence, her hands full of business, at once taking herbs and tying them over the cauldron, and then examining the piles of rushes, delineating so many for each of the sallies. She sat in quiet contemplation, her hands moving mechanically, the motions of a lifetime spent foraging done unconsciously now, her worn hands tying twice around the bundles and separating the sallies. A few yew shrubs enveloped the front of the house, the rose and buckthorn under the windows serving as a discouragement to anyone who should near the sills, and just beside the small garden at the side of the house was a old whitethorn, its limbs ponderous with age, its fulmination of flowers mantling over the old woman, the bees bombilating in and around the boughs, wending around the trims of cloth and linen left on the tree by visitors long gone.
Myndil neared and examined the house, the symbol above the lintel catching his eye: it was a stone figure of what he thought was an amphibious creature lying sideways and opening its mouth, but when he narrowed his gaze and looked again, he saw a female figure, one that was crouching and holding open a rather cavernous purse.
“Hrm…” Myndil thrummed, approaching the house, noticing a small milking cow grazing in the garden.
A few cordoned fruit trees were trained along a low fence, rows of root vegetables dotted the raised beds, and as the cow lowed and moved toward the cabbages, Myndil saw a small sign in front of the house which read: TRIED REMEDYS YE’LL RYSE IN TH’ NIGHT FER.
“I shouldn’t like to be up again when I have only just lain down,” Myndil mused. “It is so dreadfully hard to get comfortable sometimes, especially in winter, and when I have just got warm with the blanket wrapped snuggly around me, it’s rather bothersome to have to get out of bed to do what God and nature intended.”
There was a pause, and then the voice ventured, “WHY DOST THOU NOT KEEP A CHAMBER POT?”
“Well, I did, but Brother Fowler said my pot had an odd scent to it in the mornings, and then he made me do all the pots in the dormitory, because he said my midnight micturitions were always the loudest. I whistled to keep from everyone hearing me, but apparently this didn’t help much.” Myndil canted his head and read the sign again. “I wonder if that sign is meant for the undead, though I wonder how many of them are able to read. It’s very kind of her to include them in her remedies. Not many think of those like Mr Dullahan these days—Hello!” waving and calling out to her, “Yes, hello there!”
He was not so far away as to warrant hallooing at her, and as the woman saw him coming half a mile off, she separated the rushes in her hand and grunted, “Hullo yerself, son.”
“I see from your sign that you have tried remedies,” said Myndil, by way of aimable conversation.
The woman did not look up from her work. “I do so. Look like yer needin’ a few of ‘em, willowy measure o’ meadow-water like you.”
Myndil neared her and investigated the small cottage. “Is this your lovely home?”
“Better be, else what I am doin’ here?”
“Yes-- I meant rather to wonder whether this was a shop or an inn.”
“Neither. This here’s my home and I heal folk in it, and I don’t deal in coin. I heal people what’re ailin’.”
“Oh, that is noble of you. So you are a cleric then, healing by the power of your gods?”
It was innocently said and inquisitively meant, but the old woman, seeing Myndil’s dress and being under the aegis of his oppressive smiles, felt it as a slight.
“I heal by the power of my patience, son,” said she, in a firm hue, glaring up at him, “and yer sure tryin’ it.”
Myndil was undeterred by this, and thinking that she was only cross with him for having interrupted her work, he sidled her and said, “I see you have much to do. May I join you?”
The old woman humphed. “If you can make yerself useful.”
“Well, I am useful—at least the abbot says I am, when I am mucking out for the pigs, and raking in the mash for the scrumpy, and cleaning out the latrine, and dusting the bookshelves in the library—” He counted on his fingers and stopped to think. “—And when I’m weeding the garden, and when I’m turning the flower boxes—”
“Aye, son,” said the old woman stoutly. “About as useful as soot-sullied pan.”
“Only my clothes are cleaner-- and I also help with the laundry and the ewery, but abbot says I do leave streaks on the glassware.”
The word ‘abbot’ caught her ear, and after another examination, the old woman leaned away from him and arched a brow. “Yer wan o’ them, aincha?”
“One of whom?”
Myndil smiled with unchecked delirium, and the old woman sighed and turned aside.
“Gods’ teeth,” said the woman, in a plaintive voice, “everythin’s at me this mornin’. First the cow can’t be bothered to milk, then it rains on the rushes, and now I got the blow-in’s at me hinderin’ the work. Only fer somethin’ should the sky fall down.”
Myndil glanced up and studied the passing clouds. “I think the sky is quite firmly in place—that’s why it’s referred to the firmament.”
The old woman rested her elbows on her knees and glared at him. “You got a purpose, or you just aff wandein’ the fields, son?”
“I do hope I have a purpose—God as a plan for all of us-- only I hope His plan for me does not involve anything overly painful.”
“This here god o’ yers give you a name?”
“Myndil. Myndil Plodostirr.”
He held out his hand, and the old woman flouted and tapped it with her rushes.
“Brigid’s Blessin’s and others besides,” she offered, in a careless voice.
“Oh, Brigid! I know that name. The abbot said the heathens—”
“The what?” said she sharply, with a vicious look.
“Pagans!” Myndil declared, correcting himself. “Yes, you are pagan, and this is the land of Gaels and Vikings, who are all pagans—so you are pagan. I can tell by the—what is that?” pointing to the grotesque above the door. “Is that a depiction of Brigid?”
The old woman looked up at the figure perched above the lintel. “That’s Sile.”
“Oh. Is she also one of your gods? It looks as though she is holding something open—is it two sides of a purse she is holding onto?”
The woman looked up at the grotesque mantling over the threshold, its knees in the air, its arms bending around raised legs, its fingers coiling around an oval orifice. “Aye, we’ll say that’s what it is, ‘cause I see you got the simpleness at you.”
“She must bring you luck with such a wide opening. Do you worship her by making offerings and putting them into her—”
“How’s about you tell me whatcha came here for, son, ‘cause my ears are after achin’ with all this here chatterin’ yer doin’,” the woman demanded.
“Well, I did have something to ask you—that’s why I approached-- but I saw that you needed help-- and since the abbot said I should be as helpful to as many people as I possibly could along my way, I thought I might talk to you whilst I help you with your rushes.”
Here was a suspicious look. “Aye, well,” she said, softening a little, “suppose I’ll practice my listenin’ while you do the talkin’,” and then, seeing how delighted Myndil was at being allowed to go on, she amended, “…Brigid give me the strength.”
“So you do worship Brigid,” Myndil happily exclaimed. “Or is it Brigit? Or Brig? Maybe Brid? I’m not sure of the orthography, but I did read that her name has something to do with work and fire. I know that she has something to do with blacksmithing—and I understand she has a cow, rather like the one you have there, only I don’t think it hers had any markings on it.”
The cow raised its head, slottered on a bunch of heather it had torn from the nearby hedge, flicked its tail, and turned away, wholly unconcerned with anything that was not munching.
“I appreciate yer curiosity inna my beliefs and such,” the old woman continued, “but there’s work what needs doin’, and all this here yammerin’ won’t sortin’ the rushes, so you just tell me whatcha come about.”
“I am looking for your king.”
The old woman nearly dropped her rushes. “You been kicked in the head, boy?”
Myndil deliberated momentarily. “Well, I was jostled about by your countrymen.”
“Which king are you wantin’ anyway?” and then, with some derision, the old woman added, “We got a whole collection.”
“Well, this is Áth Cliath, so the king here. I think the people I met before coming here said his name is Olaf.”
“You mean Amlaíb?”
Myndil blinked. “Is this another one of those orthographic things?”
“Why’d you wanna see him anyhow? He’s always fightin’ and plunderin’ and shoutin’ about some nonsense. Just came back from capturin’ whatshisname in Limerick. Too sour about losin’ the place across the way to the biggun in the south, so he’s gotta take over all the other kingdoms here, just prove what big bainne he’s got to everybody else.”
Myndil was not sure what she meant, but he was sure it was nothing pleasant. “Is he not a good king, then?”
The old woman gave him a flat look. “No.”
“Oh.”
The old woman took another sally and wrapped a bundle of dried rushes around it. “A good king looks after his people, protects the borders, and defends his lands. Only thing Amlaíb mac Gofraid looks after is his pride and retakin’ land that his father took from someone else. His only interest is conquerin’ and mallacht take his people besides. He’s not really one o’ us anyhow. He came from over there,” motioning eastward, across the sea, “and we just have to live with him, ‘cause we don’t got a way o’ gettin’ rid of him. Dunno why you want to see him.”
“The heathe—pagans I just came from told me that if I wanted the Word of God to spread throughout the island, I would need to speak to him. I want to show him the Good Book and let him know that God loves him, even though he’s a-- Would you like to hear some? There are some really lovely passages, especially at the beginning--”
“Better not, son.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“I got the allergy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear of it. I’ve never met anyone who has an allergy to hearing scripture before.”
“You’ll find there’s a lot of us here,” said she flatly.
“Will not one of your remedies cure you?”
The old woman murmured something about there being no cure for the spread of ‘pig ignorance.’
Myndil wondered about this, but he assured her that the Good Book was “healthsome and rather entertaining,” with parts of it being “absolutely riveting, especially about the plagues.”
“Sure as daylight it’s a good tale to be tellin’,” she asserted, “but my ears are like to fall off if you start readin’, so better keep yer stories to yerself. I get the itchin’ somethin’ fierce when men in robes start readin’ their books at me. That all you’re doin’ here in Aith Cliath? Walkin’ around with that there book o’ yers, puttin’ the stories on people?”
“They aren’t stories—they’re the Word of God-- and I’m a missionary—well, a missionary in training.”
“A whatinary?” said the woman, with incredulity. “Never heard talkin’ of anyone doin’ that. That a payin’ job er what?”
“Of course it is. It pays me very well, rewarding me in abundance with God’s Divine Affection.”
“Huh,” she snuffed. “That ain’t no god I ever heard of. Yer god got money? ‘Cause none o’ ours do, I’ll tell ye that fer nothin’.”
“Well, money can be helpful, but it cannot get one into God’s Good Graces. Good deeds are the only way to incur favour--”
“Good. You’ll help an auld woman and incur favour, or whatever. Yer book say somethin’ about helpin the elderly?”
“Oh, yes. It says many things--”
“Then obey yer god’s word and take these.”
She forced two sallies into his hand and put a bundle of dried rushes into his lap.
“Oh.” Myndil took up a few of the rushes. “What do I do with them?”
“Folla me, son. Hold up yer sallies with the one hand,” she directed him, holding up her own hand and watching him follow, “and then take yer rushes in the other, and start foldin’. Wend it through one side, fold it over, wend it through again, and fold again. That’s it. Once you have three sides done, hold it here at the openin’, turn it, and start again on that side.”
“Oh, I love arts and crafts!” Myndil reveled, gleefully tapping his feet. “I used to do them all the time before I was sent to the monastery. Now I only do them in winter, when the abbot sends me to my cell for quiet contemplation. Abbot says idle hands lead to busy mouths, and if my hands are busy, my mouth stops moving for a while, albeit only for a few seconds, because I still need to breathe.”
The old woman somehow doubted that Myndil’s lips ever stopped moving; he was one of those who the more you give them to do, the more questioned they asked, but he caught on to the method of folding quickly, and she therefore said nothing. He folded and turned and folded again, tying the rushes at the ends and tucking the sallies into place, and when he was finished, he had created a full three-pronged star with a woven triangle in the middle. He was immediately supplied with more rushes and bid to continue.
“Why are we making these?” he asked, weaving and folding the rushes round the sallies.
“To honour Brigid and give her thanks. It’s her feast day th’morra.”
“Oh. Is this meant to be an offering of some kind? Does she like rushes? I didn’t know they were particularly wholesome--”
“They’re not offerin’s and no one’s eatin’ ‘em, boy. Hush yerself now and get to foldin’.”
Myndil, having more rushes on his lap than he did for the last one, used them all, packing them together and weaving them round, and when he finished his next star and he held up his star for appraisal, it was a , the centre gradually becoming a tragedy as it went on, and sunk deplorably to one side.
“Shall I redo this one? I’ll just redo this one,” Myndil insisted, but the old woman plucked the ornament from his hands and tossed it onto the small pile of three-sided ornaments beside him.
“Go on to the next one,” said she, putting more rushes into his lap. “Only six rushes, ‘cause the sallies can hold no more than that.”
“Is this a craft your people usually make around this time? Is it like a corn dolly, to ask for a good harvest for the coming year?”
“We put ‘em on the house, to keep it from catchin’ fire.”
“Oh. So it’s a sort of charm, a trinket to repel ill luck.”
“It is.”
“Like the ribbons you have on the tree there?”
He turned toward the whitethorn overlooking the house and marked the many bowed ribbons ornamenting boughs.
“Those’re for the daoine sidhe, the good folk what mind the land,” the old woman explained. “Folk come here to ask ‘em for a favour and leave somethin’ in return.”
“Do you ask them for favours?”
“Never. You ask somethin’ of the good folk when you don’t care what yer gettin’. Aye, you might ask fer a child, and they might give it to you, but it might be a changeling, and that’s a thing nobody’s wantin’ now. No,” in a more serious hue, “best avoid askin’ ‘em for things if you can help it, else I’d ask them to help me with the work and take you aff besides.”
“Oh. Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask them then.”
“They got the good folk where you’re from?”
“We have none at the monastery that I’ve seen, but we have plenty of other beings that wander about the grounds, like thingunderthebed and Mr Dullahan. He comes round the front archway every morning about dawn, just to say good morning and look for his head.”
Myndil said it so cheerfully that the old woman paused and gave him a sideways glance. He liked his odd and ghostly neighbours at the monastery, considering them all his friends and was glad of seeing them every day, their superstitiosities supplying him with a comfort rarely afforded in difficult times. He smiled and hummed to himself, finishing another three-pronged charm in all the certainty of his own situation, and held it up for the old woman to assess, turning it about and ruminating over the spiraling whorl at the centre.
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