The Legend of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland

The Legend of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland Patricks father, Calpornius, held both civic and clerical offices when Patrick was born to him in the late fourth century (c. A.D. 390). Although the family lived in the village of Bannavem Taberniaei, in Roman Britain, Patrick would one day become the most successful Christian missionary in Ireland, its patron saint, and the subject of legends. The Story of St. Patrick Patricks first encounter with the land to which he would devote his life was an unpleasant one. He was kidnapped at age 16, sent to Ireland (around County Mayo), and sold into slavery. While Patrick worked there as a shepherd, he developed a deep faith in God. One night, during his sleep, he was sent a vision of how to escape. So much he tells us in his autobiographical Confession. Unlike the work of the same name by the theologian, Augustine, Patricks Confession​ is short, with few statements of religious doctrine. In it, Patrick describes his British youth and his conversion, for although he was born to Christian parents, he did not consider himself Christian before his captivity. Another purpose of the document was to defend himself to the very church that had sent him to Ireland to convert his former captors. Years before Patrick wrote his Confession,​ he wrote an angry Letter to Coroticus, the British King of Alcluid (later called Strathclyde), in which he condemns him and his soldiers as compatriots of the demons because they had captured and slaughtered many of the Irish people Bishop Patrick had just baptized. Those they didnt kill would be sold to heathen Picts and Scots. Although personal, emotional, religious, and biographical, these two pieces and Gildas Bandonicus Concerning the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) provide the main historical sources for fifth-century Britain. Upon Patricks escape from his approximately six years of slavery, he went back to Britain, and then to Gaul where he studied under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre, for 12 years before returning again to Britain. There he felt a calling to return as a missionary to Ireland. He stayed in Ireland for another 30 years, converting, baptizing, and setting up monasteries. Various legends have grown up concerning St. Patrick, the most popular of the Irish saints. St. Patrick was not well-educated, a fact he attributes to early captivity. Due to this, it was with some reluctance that he was sent as a missionary to Ireland, and only after the first missionary, Palladius, had died. Perhaps its because of his informal schooling in the meadows with his sheep that he came up with the clever analogy between the three leaves of the shamrock and the Holy Trinity. At any rate, this lesson is one explanation for why St. Patrick is associated with a shamrock. St. Patrick is also credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland. There were probably no snakes in Ireland for him to drive out, and it is very likely that the story was meant to be symbolic. Since he converted the heathen, the snakes are thought to stand for the pagan beliefs or evil. Where he was buried is a mystery. Among other places, a chapel to St. Patrick at Glastonbury claims he was interred there. A shrine in County Down, Ireland, claims to possess a jawbone of the saint which is requested for childbirth, epileptic fits, and to avert the evil eye. While we dont know exactly when he was born or died, this Roman British saint is honored by the Irish, especially in the United States, on March 17 with parades, green beer, cabbage, corned beef, and general revelry. While there is a parade in Dublin as the culmination of a week of festivities, Irish celebrations on St. Patricks Day itself are predominantly religious. Sources Sub-Roman Britain: An IntroductionGildas: from Concerning the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae)From Medieval Sourcebook, chapters 23-26 of Gildas work on the fall of Britain.Ecole Glossary entry on Gildas the Wise

10 Fascinating Facts About Ants

10 Fascinating Facts About Ants In many ways, ants can outwit, outlast, and outnumber humans. Their complex, cooperative societies enable them to survive and thrive in conditions that would challenge any individual. Here are 10 fascinating facts about ants that just might convince you that while you wouldnt welcome them to your next picnic, theyre still pretty amazing creatures. 1. Ants Have Super-Human Strength Ants can carry objects 50 times their own body weight in their jaws. Relative to their size, their muscles are thicker than those of larger animals- even humans. This ratio enables them to produce more force and carry larger objects. If you  had muscles in the proportions of ants, youd be able to heave a Hyundai over your head! 2. Soldier Ants Use their Heads to Plug Holes In certain ant species, the soldier ants have modified heads, shaped to match the nest entrance. They block access to the nest by sitting just inside the entrance, with their heads functioning like a cork in a bottle to keep intruders at bay. When a worker ant returns to the nest, it touches the soldier ants head to let the guard know it belongs to the colony. 3. Ants Can Form Symbiotic Relationship with Plants Ant plants, or myrmecophytes, are plants that have naturally occurring hollows in which ants can take shelter or feed. These cavities may be hollow thorns, stems, or even leaf petioles. The ants live in the hollows, feeding on sugary plant secretions or the excretions of sap-sucking insects. What does a plant get for providing such luxurious accommodations? The ants defend the host plant from herbivorous mammals and insects and may even prune away parasitic plants that attempt to grow on it. 4. The Total Biomass of Ants The Biomass of People How can this be? After all, ants are so tiny, and were so much bigger. That said, scientists estimate there are at least 1.5 million ants on the planet for every human being. Over 12,000 species of ants are known to exist, on every continent except Antarctica. Most live in tropical regions. A single acre of Amazon rainforest may be home to 3.5 million ants. 5. Ants Sometimes Herd Insects of Other Species Ants will do just about anything to get the sugary secretions of sap-sucking insects, such as aphids or leafhoppers. To keep the honeydew in close supply, some ants herd aphids, carrying the soft-bodied pests from plant to plant. Leafhoppers sometimes take advantage of this nurturing tendency in ants and leave their young to be raised by the ants. This allows the leafhoppers to raise another brood. 6. Some Ants Enslave Other Ants Quite a few ant species take captives from other ant species, forcing them to do chores for their own colony. Honeypot ants even enslave ants of the same species, taking individuals from foreign colonies to do their bidding. Polyergus queens, also known as Amazon ants, raid the colonies of unsuspecting Formica ants. The Amazon queen finds and kills the Formica queen, then enslaves the Formica workers. The slave workers help the usurping queen rear her own brood. When her Polyergus offspring reach adulthood, their sole purpose is to raid other Formica colonies and bring back their pupae, ensuring a steady supply of slave workers. 7. Ants Lived Alongside Dinosaurs Ants evolved some 130 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period. Most fossil evidence of insects is found in lumps of ancient amber, or fossilized plant resin. The oldest known ant fossil, a primitive and now extinct ant species named Sphercomyrma freyi, was found in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey. Though that fossil only dates back 92 million years, another fossil ant that proved nearly as old has a clear lineage to present-day ants, which suggests a much longer evolutionary line than previously assumed. 8. Ants Started Farming Long Before Humans Fungus-farming ants began their agricultural ventures about 50 million years before humans thought to raise their own crops. The earliest evidence suggests ants began farming as early as 70 million years ago, in the early Tertiary period. Even more amazing, these ants used sophisticated horticultural techniques to enhance their crop yields, including secreting chemicals with antibiotic properties to inhibit mold growth and devising fertilization protocols using manure. 9. Ant Supercolonies Can Stretch Thousands of Miles Argentine ants, native to South America, now inhabit every continent except Antarctica due to accidental introductions. Each ant colony has a distinctive chemical profile that enables members of the group to recognize one another and alerts the colony to the presence of strangers. Scientists recently discovered that massive supercolonies in Europe, North America, and Japan all share the same chemical profile, meaning they are, in essence, a global supercolony of ants. 10. Scout Ants Lay Scent Trails to Guide Others to Food By following pheromone trails laid by scout ants from their colony, foraging ants can gather and store food efficiently. A scout ant first leaves the nest in search of food, wandering somewhat randomly until it discovers something edible. It then consumes some of the food and returns to the nest in a direct line. It seems scout ants can observe and recall visual cues that enable them to navigate quickly back to the nest. Along the return route, the scout ants leave a trail of pheromones- which are special scents they secrete- that guide their nestmates to the food. The foraging ants then follow the path designated by the scout ant, each one adding more scent to the trail to reinforce it for others. Worker ants continue walking back and forth along the trail until the food source is depleted.