Gabriella Kalapos author of "Fertility Goddesses, Groundhog Bellies and the Coca-Cola Company discusses the folktale behind the popular holiday Saint Patrick's Day.
March 17th is dedicated to celebrating the life of some guy named Patrick who became one of Christianity’s best-known and best-loved saints. Patrick has so many legends attached to him that his life seems more fairy tale than real life. The fact is, when it comes to his life we can’t really separate history from fable, but our inability to do so doesn’t matter anyway; his life is a good story— fact or fiction.
One of Saint Patrick’s most famous legends was that he banished all snakes from Ireland. He is often depicted holding a shamrock in the act of ostracizing the snakes. It has long been recounted that during his mission in Ireland, Saint Patrick once stood on a hilltop and with only a wooden staff and his faith, banished all the snakes from Ireland.
Yes, it is true there are no snakes in Ireland but it was not Saint Patrick that got rid of them, it was an ice age. Starting 1.8 million years ago in an icy period called the Pleistocene epoch, a series of great ice caps covered all of Northern Europe and North America practically down to the Missouri. During this time of the glaciers, Ireland was buried under a deep sheet of ice. No snake would be able to survive this and any snakes that existed in Ireland at this time met a cold icy death. Only after the great freeze finally ended in Ireland some fifteen thousand years ago would a snake have been able to survive in Ireland and by then twelve miles of icy North Channel Ocean barred the way to Ireland for any snakes thinking of making the trip. There are no snakes in Ireland today for the simple reason of there being no way for the critters to get there.
So chances are Ireland’s snake folklore is just a metaphor for the elimination of pagan ideology from Ireland, the last stronghold for pagan nature-based religions in all of Europe. With the coming of Saint Patrick and other missionaries, many of the old pagan rites were linked to days of importance in the Christian calendar. The traditions remained pretty much the same but the message was changed over the centuries. The pagan vernal equinox/springtime celebration was gradually replaced by St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.
Saint Patrick’s Day is when Christians and non-Christians, Irish and non-Irish, cast off the dark shroud of winter and welcome the warmth of the sun and the rebirth of nature. Our modern-day society does not really have a festival or any other significant marker for the spring equinox, so St. Patrick’s Day has become our opportunity to share a pint and shed our winter skin to mark this change of season.
Written By: Gabriella Kalapos author or Fertility Goddesses Gruondhog bellies and the coca-cola company
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