All schoolgirls are taught about Padraigh. The first one, not all the millions who got his namesake.

No, the small deerthing that started as a trade of goods somewhere in Avonshire, and floated down a river into the clutches of Clovis and the She-wolf of Rome

His name could have been Paddy, Padtricius, Padme, LilyPad, or simply Worm.

The Romans didn't care for our cousins, the wrestless tribe across the sea that faught us at every turn but seemed to have no fear of turning against their kings.

Padrigh came to Ireland in a great cloud, a curragh of simplie means cradling a book of Latin pictures and commentaries on the Holy Animals and their Books of quadruple accounts.

With each dainty step, he likely seeded a new clod of oxalis up and down the hills of Wrexford until he came onto the house of Connaught.

The Connaught men were feirce and said to have had knives out for the foreigner

As Padraig began to hold out his hooves, he said a prayer of of protection thus encasing his body in a bubble of blue exceptions. The Connaught men, saw this and instantly knew this was an unusual ungulate.

Later, the king hired him as a holy druid, intermediary for both God, Oghma, Dagda, and the Cailleach.

See, a druid was like the accountant, the family doctor, the priest and presbyter all rolled into one.

But the King didn't know Padraigh had a Godmote in him so big that would thwart the dwindling magic in the landscape with a few hefty pushes of the lungs.

So with that, he breathed out some gold bits onto the court one evening and all saw the bonny Christ appear in dreams that night.

Some saw him on a great wave, while others saw the figure upon a great Eagle holding unreadable scrolls.

All came back the next day to chatter about their dreams. Padraigh said nothin as he was only half awares of his potency as a cloven hoof mystic.

The King and his daughter swear that the Eagle and the Bull, and the Man and the Lion all came to visit them in the night. They then poured out their hearts to the tetragrammaton and put it on record that all their swords were to be fashioned into jewelry-crosses with a circlet upon themselves.

A decade tumbles out, he is fashioned a makeshift mitre and tiara as he is now the first indiginous bishop of the Celtic lands ever. Of course, no one knew what a bishop was yet so he still held his title at most holy wizard of the green grove. He was seen riding his mount, an eight meter battle cat said to be descended of the Boar Ysgithwyn of Wales, so far the only cat to brave the waves of Anglesea across the harrowing channel. 

Pangur Bhan was not by inches the housecat one expects. Clandestine though behemoth, quiet though thunderous, voracious though never seen eating. She was the the white sheet of the hill fort still said to lurk the Galtees looking for birds who don't pray before meals.

Now, when time came that the other druids became jelaous of their powers being stirred up by the boybucks mitre, they took to their enchantments and deadhand's satchels to hex the bishop of his potency.

The joke was on them. For you see Christians aren't savvy with the carnal pursuits. 

Their chief then took from his spell staves an ancient implication of sending feral bears after their enemies.

Knowing what was upon him, Padraighthen went to the River Boyne and ate up thirty of the finest filberts from the oldest Hazels on the banks. He found himself the very next morning having regressed to his feralform buck now the sizes of eight thatched roofs.

The bears, not knowing what to do, converted instantly to Christianity and they became bishops themselves eventually, though no one understood them. 

Of course, Padraigh was now himself a wild animal incapable of speaking with the upright Animals of Eire. Furthermore, he was now a gargantuan eight-hundred point buck draped in his prelate's vestabule stitched from the skirts of his converted nuns. 

Knowing his time on earth was nearing to an end, he coughed up his godly electuary and crossed himself in the shape of the anneagram with his antlers and lept from off of mount Sandal never to be seen on earth again. 

The morals he taught us centuries later was to always make sure the things you cough up in old age are beautiful to yourself and others.

Also kindness to bears. And possibly cats.

Beir beannacht,

S. O'Sullivan