Bishop Maccaille placed white veils on their heads, and blessed and consecrated them. Bridget was then aged eighteen. Each of the girls chose one of the Beatitudes as her special virtue, which before all others she would seek to attain; and Bridget selected as hers “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” An odd story was told in later times concerning this consecration. It was said that Maccaille opened his book in the wrong place, and instead of reading the office for the consecration of a virgin, read over her that for the ordination of a bishop. This fable was invented for a purpose. As we shall see presently, Bridget became head of an ecclesiastical tribe, and had under her jurisdiction a bishop who was amenable to her orders. This was a condition of affairs not at all uncommon among the British, Irish, and Scots, but it was incomprehensible in mediæval times to those trained under another system, when bishops were sources of jurisdiction. So this story was made up to give some justification for the exercise, by the Abbess Bridget, of authority over a bishop and priests. In the Life of S. Bridget we are assured that when she was twelve years old she met S. Patrick, and that she wove the shroud in which he was buried. According to the ordinary computation, S. Patrick came to Ireland in 432, and died in 465; but Dr. Todd has shown good reason to believe that this calculation rests on an error. Palladius, whose name was also Patricius, was sent to Ireland in 432 by Pope Celestine; but he failed in his mission, abandoned Ireland, and died at Fordun. Neither S. Patrick himself, in his Confession, nor the earliest notices of him, say a word of his having been sent by Celestine, and there is reason to believe that he really came to Ireland in 460, and died in 493. If this be the case, it is quite possible that there may be truth in the story of the meeting of Bridget and the great apostle, and that it was his influence which induced her to adopt the life she chose. Bridget was now at the head of her little community of eight virgins, and they at once devoted themselves to good works. Very soon great numbers of pious women came to her from every quarter, entreating to be received into her community and placed under her direction. We can see by the brutality of Dubtach selling the mother of his child to a heathen Druid, though he himself professed to be a Christian, and later, deliberately attempting to sell his daughter, that women at that time were treated as chattels, and no respect was paid to them. It was largely due to Bridget that an immense revulsion of feeling in this particular took place. She travelled over Ireland, and, wherever she was able, planted those who placed themselves in her hands near their own relatives and in their own country. She entered into correspondence with the bishops. She was warmly seconded by Erc of Slane, by Mel of Armagh, and Ailbe of Emly.