[39] Here is a short passage from the Tripartite, which will show the language in which it is written: "Fecht ann occ tuidhecht do Patraic do Chlochur antuaith da fuarcaib a thren-fher dar doraid and, _i.e._, Epscop mac Cairthind. Issed adrubart iar turcbail Patraic: uch uch. Mu Debroth, ol Patraic ni bu gnath in foculsin do rad duitsiu. Am senoir ocus am lobur ol Epscop Mac Cairthind," which would run some way thus in the modern language: "Feacht [uair] do bhi ann, ag tigheacht do Phádraig go Clochar (i gcondae, Tir-Eóghain) ón tuaidh, d' iomchair a threán-fhear é thar sruth do bhi ann, eadhoin Easbog Mac Cairthind. Is eadh adubhairt tar éis Padraig do thogbháil "Uch, uch!" Mo Dhebhroth [focal do bhi ag Padraig, ionnann agus "dar mo láimh" no mar sin], níor ghnáth an focal sin do rádh duit-se. Táim im sheanoir agus im lobhar ar Easbog Mac Cairthind." _See_ O'Curry MS. Materials, p. 598. CHAPTER XIV ST. BRIGIT St. Brigit was--after St. Patrick himself--probably the most noted figure amongst Irish Christians in the fifth century. She must have attained her extraordinary influence through sheer ability and intellectuality, for she appears to have been the daughter of a slave-woman,[1] employed in the mansion of a chief called Dubhthach [Duv-hach, or Duffach], who was himself tenth in descent from Felimidh, the lawgiver monarch of Ireland in the second century. The king's wife, jealous of her husband's liking for his slave, threatened him with these words, "Unless thou sellest yon bondmaid in distant lands I will exact my dowry from thee and I will leave thee," and so had her driven from the place and sold to a druid, in whose house her daughter, Dubhthach's offspring, soon afterwards saw the light. She was thus born into slavery, though not quite a slave; for Dubhthach, in selling the mother into slavery, expressly reserved for himself her offspring, whatever it might be. She must have been, at least, early inured to hardship, as St. Patrick had been. The druid, however, did not prevent her from being baptized. She grew up to be a girl of exceeding beauty, and many suitors sought her in marriage. She returned to her father's house, but refused all offers of matrimony. She aroused the jealousy of her father's wife, as her mother had done before her, and Dubhthach, indignant at her unbounded generosity with his goods, decided upon selling her to the king of North Leinster. Her father's abortive attempt to get rid of her on this occasion is thus quaintly described in her Irish life in the Leabhar Breac. "Thereafter," says the life, "Dubhthach and his consort were minded to sell the holy Brigit into bondage, for Dubhthach liked not his cattle and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit used to do. So Dubhthach fared in his chariot and Brigit along with him.