Saint of Ireland Saint Brigid

As she grows older, Brigid performs many miracles, including healing and feeding the poor. According to one tale, as a child, she once gave away her mother's entire store of butter. When on the bank of Inny, Brigid was given a gift of apples and sweet sloes. She later entered a house where many lepers begged her for these apples, which she offered willingly. The woman who had given the gift to Brigid was irritated by this saying that she had not given the gift to the lepers. Brigid was angered at the nun for withholding from the lepers and cursed her trees so they would no longer bear fruit. Yet another woman also gave Brigid the same gift, and again Brigid gave them to begging lepers.'


One of the more commonly told stories of is of Brigid asking the King of Leinster for land. She told the king that the place where she stood was the perfect place for a convent. It was beside a forest where they could collect firewood and berries. There was also a lake nearby that would provide water and the land was fertile. The king laughed at her and refused to give her any land. Brigid prayed to God and asked him to soften the king's heart. Then she smiled at the king and said "will you give me as much land as my cloak will cover?" The king thought that she was joking and to get rid of her importunity he agreed. She directed four of her sisters to take up the garment, but instead of laying it flat on the turf, each sister, with face turned to a different point of the compass, began to run swiftly, the cloth expanding in all directions. The cloak grew immediately and began to cover many acres of land. "Oh, Brigid!" said the frighted king, "what are you about?" "I am, or rather my cloak is about covering your whole province to punish you for your stinginess to the poor." "Call your maidens back. I will give you a decent plot of ground." The saint was persuaded, and if the king held his purse-strings tight on any future occasion she had only to allude to her cloak to bring him to reason. Soon afterwards, the king became a Christian and also started to help the poor and commissioned the construction of the convent. Legend has it, the convent was known for making jam from the local blueberries which was sought for all over Ireland. There is a new tradition beginning among followers of St. Brigid to eat jam on 1 February.