St. Patrick's Pagan Heritage

Everyone knows the St. Patrick stories: Former slave, returned to Ireland and converted the entire island to Christianity, driving the snakes out in the process. And, oh yes, he used the clover or trefoil to explain the Blessed Trinity.

A god named Trefuilngid Tre-eochair provides more astonishing but less famous foundations for many of these St. Patrick tales.

According to Fintan, the first recorded historian of Ireland, Trefuilngid Tre-eochair was "an angel of God, or he was God himself."

That's how Fintan is quoted in the 1910 translation of The Yellow Book of Lecan, a 14th-century manuscript.

Of course, it's important to remember that the monks who authored and/or edited many early Irish documents, had their own Christian agendas. In the story of Trefuilngid Tre-eochair, this potential conflict of interest is particularly troublesome.

The arrival of Trefuilngid Tre-eochair

According to the Yellow Book..., Trefuilngid Tre-eochair appeared at Tara on the day of Jesus' crucifixion. He came from the west, at sunset, to find out why the sun had not been shining on that day. Trefuilngid Tre-eochair summarized what had happened to Jesus, and explained that the sun "had stepped past them after that deed, and has not shone upon them, and that is what has brought me to the setting to find out what ailed the sun."

Trefuilngid is a huge person, physically. He is probably about 30 feet tall, perhaps taller. He is surrounded by something that appears like a crystal veil, and has golden yellow hair falling in curls past his waist. When he arrived at Tara, he carried stone tablets in one hand, and a branch with three unripe fruits on it, in the other hand.

He said, "It is I who causes the rising of the sun and its setting...".

He lives where the sun rises, "the Paradise of Adam is the threshold over which it rises."

Upon arriving at Tara, Trefuilngid Tre-eochair asked the Irish what their race is, and where they've come from. Conaing Bec-echlach said, "from the children of Mil of Spain and from the Greeks are we sprung."

Trefuilngid Tre-eochair then asked where Spain was. Finally, he asked if all of the people of Ireland could be gathered at Tara. This was agreed, but there was concern abou the food and beverage necessary to sustain a man the size of Treuilngid Tre-eochair while waiting the forty days and nights necessary for the Irish to arrive.

Trefuilngid Tre-eochair replied, "the fragrance of this branch which is in my hand will serve me for food and drink as long as I live."

The gathering at Tara, and establishment of storytellers

After 40 days and nights, the people of Ireland had gathered in

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