I told you about this, right? the story about my Irish alter-ego? Well, here it is. It may not be historically accurate, but I like it.
My name is Brighid. I’m called Brighid in the Heart of the Land.
I make my home in Ireland, the year 523 AD. I was born on November second, in 510.
I live with my mother and father, and my two brothers on our farm.
we grow all sorts of things that fetch a good price in the market. We’re rather well off, and we even have quite a few cows. We keep a few sheep, and I am their shepherdess.
Father says that tending the land is man’s work, but shepherding is respectable enough for a young lady to take up. The land my father owns is dotted all over with meadow buttercup, and some years the fields look more yellow than green!
When I go to watch over the sheep as they graze, I always bring my drop spindle so as to occupy me. Shepherding is such dreadfully boring work.
Sometimes, when I can sneak one out without father noticing, I bring a book to read. I’m not supposed to know how to read, but my Uncle is a priest, and a very learned man. He gives my brothers lessons and I always make sure I’m in the back of the room listening.
I’ve learned all sorts of things this way, for my father has his own library in his study. He wouldn’t like it if he knew I was borrowing his books, though, so I have to be careful.
Sometimes while I’m tending the sheep I’ll dig up some flowers and take them home to plant around our house. Mother can’t figure out why there are so many flowers around our house!
I do know a bit about plants myself. Sometimes I get peckish while I watch the sheep, and I know just which wild plants I can pick and eat and which will give me a bellyache. Of course I always bring along a bit of bread and cheese for a midday meal. I can’t subsist on herbs alone.
Life here is rather nice and I’ve made good friends with the sheep. I can tell them apart at a glance, though even father can’t seem to tell one from the other. Their wool makes warm clothes for us, and we’re all quite grateful. It still saddens me when father kills one for a meal, though. I suppose I’ll never get used to that.
And just because father won’t let me tend his crops doesn’t mean I don’t get to garden. Mother has a kitchen garden just outside our house with all sorts of good and fragrant herbs in it, and she lets me help with watering and weeding.
We live a good way out from town, since we own a farm, but I have a few friends who live close enough that I can walk to their homes. And of course O’Duinn visits us every day. O’Duinn is a friend of the family, a good man of about fifty years old. He comes every day to talk with us, and often brings confections of some sort. Once on a holiday he brought over corned beef! How we celebrated that day! I still wonder how he got to afford it.
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