Copy 1, Volume 1

Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar and provincial customs, ceremonies, and superstitions / by John Brand.

  • Brand, John, 1744-1806.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar and provincial customs, ceremonies, and superstitions / by John Brand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    135/570 (page 109)
    was ever afterwards worn upon this Saint’s anniversary, to commemorate the event,1— “ Chosen leaf Of bard and chief, Old Erin’s native Shamrock.” The British Druids and bards had an extraordinary venera- tion for the number three. “The misletoe,” says Vallancey, in his Grammar of the Irish Language, “ was sacred to the Druids, because not only its berries, but its leaves also, grow in clusters of three united to one stock. The Christian Irish hold the Seamroy sacred in like manner, because of three leaves united to one stalk.” Spenser, in his view of the State of Ireland, 1596, ed. 1633, p. 72, speaking of “these late warres of Mounster,” before, “ a most rich and plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattle,” says the inhabitants were reduced to such distress that, “if they found a plot of water- cresses or Shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time.” Mr. Jones, in his Historical Account of the Welsh Bards, 1794, p. 13, tells us, in a note, that “St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, is said to be the son of Calpliurnius and Concha. He was born in the Vale of Khos, in Pembrokeshire, about the year 373.” Mr. Jones, however, gives another pedigree of this Saint, and makes him of Caernarvonshire. [In fact, the various biographies of this holy personage are most con- flicting, some asserting that he was born in Scotland.] He adds: “ His original Welsh name was Maenwyn, and his ecclesiastical name of Patricius was given him by Pope Celes- tine, when he consecrated him a Bishop, and sent him missioner into Ireland, to convert the Irish, in 433. When St. Patrick landed near Wicklow, the inhabitants were ready 1 I found the following passage in Wyther’s Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1613,p. 71:- “ And, for my cloathing, in a mantle goe, And feed on Sham-roots, as the Irish doe.” Between May Day and Harvest, “ butter, new cheese and curds, and shaynrocks, are the food of the meaner sort all this season,” Sir Henry Piers’s Description of West Meath, in Yallancey’s Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, No. 1, p. 121. “ Seamroy, clover, trefoil, worn by Irishmen in their hats, by way of a cross, on St. Patrick’s Day, in memory of that great saint,” Irish-English Dictionary, in v.