John of AllFaith's Blog: Happy Maewyn's Dygwyl!

Happy Maewyn's Feast Day, March 17, 2008

Happy Maewyn's Day!
(AKA Another Welshman Makes Good!)

Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland, but around 385 CE he was born in my ancestral homeland, Cymru (Wales) and named Maewyn. If this universes is God's Garden as I say in my poem, then Wales is surely his Sacred Grove!

Saint Patrick wasn't known for his scholarship, indeed he almost didn't become bishop of Ireland because he was considered undereducated!

Maewyn was a good Cymru Pagan until events beyond his control led him into the Church. When Maewyn was 16 years young his village was raided by Irish marauders and he was sold into slavery. After six years however he escaped and fled to Gaul. There he studied in the monastery under Saint Germain (the bishop of Auxerre) for twelve years. During his training Maewyn embraced the Roman Catholic faith and began converting other Pagans to his new found religion.

He requested a transfer to Ireland so as to convert to the Pagans there to the Church (arguably in revenge for his having been enslaved by them). His request was declined however and Saint Palladius was appointed instead. Two years later Palladius was transferred to Scotland however and Patrick, as Maewyn was now known (the Church often renamed people whose names hinted of their non-Catholic past), was appointed the second bishop to Ireland.

Saint Patrick was very successful as a bishop and had silver tongue. He managed to convince many Pagans that Jesus had actually been prophesied by their ancient traditions; thus as good Celtics they were honor bound to embrace his Church! Sheer genious! Many Celts still believe this and hold it as a matter ethnic pride.

The Pagans of the Misty Isles had many ancient legions about the "Once and Future King" that predated the Church and its Sangreal mysteries but these had nothing to do with the coming of Master Y'shua nor the Catholic Jesus. These traditions were effectively utilized however and Ireland fell to Christianity will relative ease.

This doesn't mean there was not opposition however! The Druids were convinced that Patrick was deceiving the Irish by citing these traditions out of context and they opposed him dogedly. On several occasions they placed the missionary cleric in prison, but each time he managed to escape and his fame grew among the populace. As the victors write the histories, many of Maewyn's exploits and escapes are coated with myth and legions that those who are interested in the Mysteries of the Sangreal and the coming Merovingian (or Meroving) King are Wise to consider. The Grail traditions hold much truth.

In time of course "Saint Patrick" established churches, chapels, schools and monasteries throughout the country and squelched the indigenous faith of the people to the point that today the Old Religion of the Misty Isles appears to be virtually non-existent.

As the Pagans of the Isles fell before the onslaught of the Roman Church amazing stories arose about Bishop Patrick. In many of these stories one can see glimpses of the earlier Pagan beliefs as if the tellers, believing the Old Religion would one day arise from the ashes of the Church, embedded pointers and hints to aid in the reemergence of Old Ways. This can be a most facinating and surprizingly relevant study!

We are told for instance that Saint Patrick raised the dead, that once he gave a sermon on a hilltop so powerful that it drove all the snakes from Ireland... his life spawned many such stories. But... what do such tales conceil? Who or what are these "dead" whom he raised? What can we learn from "the hill" and "the snakes?" There is much grist for the mill in Maewyn's mythologies for those with patience and demination!

Likewise the Shamrock. It is commonly believed that Saint Patrick used a three leafed shamrock to explain the notion of the Holy Trinity to the amazement of the people, however the significance of tri-unity is not lost on Pagans! They utilized this symbolic significance long before the Church embraced the anti-biblical teaching from their Pagan predecesors! While most people today don't understand the mystical significances of the Law of the Three protreyed in the Three Leafed Clover, some still do and when they publicly display this image on Maewyn's feast day they are referencing the Christian Trinity! The Old Ways are conceiled but they have never died.

After 3o years of effective ministry Maewyn retired to County Down and on March 17th, the day known as Saint Patricks Day, he left his body and continued his sojourn as must we all.

In 1762 New Yorkers celebrated the first Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Originally it was observed by Irish veterans in the English army, however soon other New World Irish folk joined in and eventually it was declared that on this day "Everyone is at least a wee bit Irish!" It is ironic that a man who so fiercely opposed Paganism and insisted on Christian propriety should be the father of a holiday dedicated to drunken revelry that would make any Welsh or Irish Pagan proud, a hedonist celebration that is second only to another Roman Catholic holiday for its spirit of abandonment, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)!

In Ireland the feast is honored, but historically the pubs were ordered closed and there was no green beer or ale available! Saint Patricks Day was a day for pious reflection and re-dedication of oneself to Christian purity and piety!

This has been changing since 1970's however and around 1995 the Irish government began pushing the holiday for the tourist dollar. Today over a million people party hardly in Dublin each year in honor of the pious, tea toteling Saint!

It seems that Christian piety isn't what it once was!

It appears the Snakes are again finding a welcoming environment in Ireland! Hehe

The "official" color for Saint Patrick is blue by the way, not green, however due to the amount of rainfall (said to symbolize God's blessings on the land) Ireland is green year round and hence (in part) is known as the Emerald Isle. It is for this reason that those "who wear the green" are said to be blessed, especially on Saint Patrick's Day. Green has long been the national color of the Irish of course.

But beware you who don't Wear the Green on this day! If the children don't pinch your bum for this horrific offense, the Green Man may do worse than that