Today we will talk a little more about Patrick, but not about the Saint, but about the Dark One.

Tradition tells of him as a poor peasant from Donegal, a mountainous area in the north of Ireland; on the slope of the Karnauin Mountains he has a small potato field (only 2 acres of land); nothing is known about his parents and family.

He looks like a black-eared man of small stature; he is not old, but also not young; he is poor dressed, walks with a stick of thorns, to which is attached a knot of a red scarf, where all his belongings lie.

Dark Patrick (Croagh Patrick) became famous for his amazing selfless wisdom, the ability to resolve any unsolvable issues, thanks to which he managed to help people more than once and even save Ireland in difficult years for her.

This is what the narrators say about him:

“Although he never set foot in any college, and he never even had to hold books in his hands, everyone around him was aware of his clear and sober mind. He solved many amazing riddles when he was asked about it, but remained as modest as he was poor. He lived peacefully in a small hut, cultivating his piece of land, and wanted nothing better than the respect of his neighbors, poor people like himself.”

Seamus McManus interpreted ancient texts in Irish folklore, which explains the relatively modern formulations found in his text. There were no colleges in Ireland at the time.

The nickname "Dark" is given to this hero because of the darkness and black hair and beard. Also, researchers believe that other reasons for the nickname are possible:

• first, this is how his common folk origin is emphasized: he is a dark, that is, an uneducated peasant who has never studied the sciences as his contemporaries understand them;
• secondly, he, being a peasant, is closely connected with the land, with ancestors, with a tradition going back centuries, to distant ancient, "dark" times, as legends say about this;
• third, this nickname emphasizes the magical, not entirely human, "other" nature of this character, to whom the secrets of the world are revealed, buried in "darkness", unknown to other people, even kings and university scientists.

So in the fairy tale “Lord of the Crows” (Long Cromachy of the Crows), he manages four times to remove the curse from King Conall and his unlucky sons, imposed by the terrible black sorcerer Kromakhi. Long Kromahi got his name for his unusually large stature, and he was called the ruler of crows for being an unsociable sorcerer, he settled in a hut near a grove of crows.

Crows played a special role in the curses of Cromaha: after the curse was uttered, one of the crows sat next to the cursed one and did not leave it until the curse took effect.

One day, the king’s children closed Kromakhi’s smoke stove with a stone slab, for which the anger of the sorcerer was called out. Despite King Conall's pleas, Cromachy put a curse on each of the princes: one he promised the fate of a murderer, another a thief, and the third a beggar. The fourth curse was the king’s grief and sorrow for the future fate of his possessions.

After no scientist husband was able to cope with the problem, Dark Patrick decided to visit the palace and offer his solution to the problem. One of the princes Dark Patrick offers to go to study law (lawyer) in order, thereby, to fulfill the curse of the thief and robber, the second - to become a doctor / doctor (the fate of the cursed second son - to become a murderer), the third - to the theological seminary to become a priest (his curse - all his life to beg and beg).

There were no medical or legal schools in Ireland at the time, only monastic schools. In the English-language interpretation of 1919, Dark Patrick tells the princes to take everything they need, leave the palace in a hurry, and not stop until one becomes a lawyer (thief), the second a medic (doctor), and the third a priest (spiritual).

A detailed description of the story of Dark Patrick and Long Cromaha can be found in the 1919 book Lo, and Behold Ye by Irish writer Seamus McManus.

This English-language text does not demonstrate a negative assessment of education, medicine, or the clergy as is often assumed in Russian-language texts. Of course, the confrontation between the learned husbands and Patrick takes place, but only in the key of the unique abilities of Patrick and the conservatism of the learned husbands. An Irish source emphasizes Dark Patrick’s modesty, which is an important aspect of his success.

The victory of inventive common sense over black magic, the recognition by the demonic world of the bright rightness of the rural philosopher elevate the image of Dark Patrick to the heights of the national spirit. His wisdom is the ancient and secret knowledge of the initiate, the hierophant, the good wizard who has a special understanding and vision of being.

The collection of Celtic folklore of Seamus McManus presents several stories about Dark Patrick:

• The Day of the Scholars (Fiorgal)
• "Honorary Lord Mayor and Most Venerable Master of the Inn"
• "Long Cromachy of the Crows"
• "The Three Wise Men of Mungret"
• How Dark Patrick saved the Bank of Ireland

In 1939, McManus published a separate collection of tales about Dark Patrick.

The plot of the fairy tale “Honored Lord Mayor and Most Venerable Master of the Inn” is interesting. It is generalized in the following event scheme: an offended innkeeper requires the offender to pay money for the smell of dishes from his inn.

A lawsuit begins, which can not be resolved, and then the sage intervenes in the court, unusually resolving the case: he orders to bring money and rings them over the plaintiff's ear.

To the surprised question about the payment, the sage answers the plaintiff something like this: “He smelled the smell of your dishes, and you heard the ringing of his money.

Now you are counting.” That's what Dark Patrick did. It is interesting that the same story is presented in the corpus of stories about a folk philosopher who lived in a completely different country - in Persia, and his name is Khoja Nasreddin.

In fiction, it was used by L. Soloviev in the novel “The Outrage of Tranquility” from the dilogy “The Tale of Hodge Nasreddin”. So the fate of Dark Patrick, thanks to the Indo-European wandering plot, crossed with a related image of the Tajik-Persian sage.

Source: vk.com/wall-20713003_24453?lang=en