Irish Snakes and a Saint in a Snit

 My illustrations for the 2025 Year of the Snake Useful Calendar are coming along gradually—although I have managed to complete about half of them so far. Here's a look at one.

For March, I wanted to depict Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, which is, as you may know, total bunk. More on that below.

I looked at several classic depictions of the patron saint of Ireland, including some where he's pointing at some sorry-looking snakes cowering at his feet, but in my sympathy-for-the-snakes mindset, I kept imagining a defiant snake being banished by an authoritarian saint who had had it with their attitude. 

All of which made me think of the Queen of Hearts confronting Alice, who does not look cowed, as illustrated by John Tenniel, when the queen is pointing and yelling, "Off with her head!"

I imagined the saint getting similarly fed up with a sassy Irish snake and its impudence.

The fossil record shows that there never were any snakes in Ireland, and the story that Patrick drove them away first appeared in the 12th century, invented by an English monk named Jocelin of Furness, who also amplified earlier stories about how Patrick slayed Druids by invoking the power of God the Smiter, which had been invented by another hagiographer in the seventh century. Patrick, who lived in the fourth century, was literate and left behind his own story, known as his "Confessio," in which he does not mention Druids or snakes, but I guess that just wasn't exciting enough. 

So my sassy Irish snake is purely a figment of my imagination. But then, the snakes in the traditional depictions of Patrick driving them away can only be figments of those artists' imaginations, too. 

To some modern pagans, the "snakes" are a metaphor for the Druids who, they say, were driven underground or slaughtered by Patrick and his comrades. But there are so many problems with that, beginning with an absence of anything in the historical record associating Irish Druids with snakes either physically or symbolically. As described on the website Irish Central, Druids were more like scholars and keepers of oral tradition than occultists or magicians.

According to Irish Central, St. Patrick and other Christian clerics helped preserve the many oral traditions of the Druids by writing them down. It's because of them that we know anything about the laws, mythologies, and histories established long before Christianity showed up on the island. 

Which means that I am being unfair to the good and probably mild-mannered saint in my depiction of him. But why let a few historical facts get in the way of a good story, right? At least I'm being transparent about the alternative facts here! For more on what can be known about the actual history of St. Patrick and the Druids, read this blog (which cites sources) and this commentary (which calls on many of the same sources). 

"I've had it with your attitude!"

 

Moving Along to September Things

 

I could say that I've been busy with gardening, road-tripping, and doing creative things since I last posted anything here (in April), which is mostly true except the "busy" part. My aversion to being busy is the reason I did not keep at the 100 Day Project for the full 100 days. It got to feeling like an obligation, especially trying to do regular blog posts about it — there's nothing quite like obligatory creativity to sap my creative energy. 

Plus, it was time to turn my attention to my biggest creative commitment: making the Useful Calendar, which I feel the need to start working on in the spring. I begin by going through my 24-page Word document called "Holidays by Topic," updating all the ones that change, reviewing notes and websites with information about most of the holidays, and learning more about some of them as I go, because that's one of the things that distinguishes this calendar—the information it contains. I also dig in to researching the Chinese zodiac animal that will be featured. If you'd like to know the story behind the Useful Calendar and how it came to be, see this page.

It's not that all that preparation is a full-time job for months on end, it's that I prefer to work on it at a reasonable pace (see above about being "busy"), especially studying the animal, which has become an enjoyable journey of discovery for me, and creating 12 different illustrations.

I confess that I almost decided to put an end to featuring the zodiac animal when I realized that 2025 is the year of the snake. Like far too many people, I did not have warm feelings for those slithering animals. But with a little encouragement from my husband, I began by looking for natural history resources about them, and came upon a memoir, Saving Snakes, by naturalist Nicolette L. Cagle. Her sympathy and affection for them soon won me over and persuaded me that these maligned and misunderstood animals were worthy of my time and attention. 

Perhaps the illustrations and captions in my calendar, and whatever zines I manage to spin off from this project, can persuade some people to grant them a little respect and sympathy, as I have learned to do.

Plus, there is so much mythology, folklore, and history about snakes, full of intrigue and metaphor, comprising a rich tapestry of traditions I never knew about. Hello, all you snake gods and goddesses! I see you now.

Although I have begun doing the illustrations earlier than previous years, I have still let that part fall toward the end of the process, which means I end up feeling a little too rushed during the most creative phase of this project, which really does annoy me. And I have no one but myself to blame!

So I'm thinking that maybe next year I will sign on to the 100 Day Project again, only this time my "project" will be to focus on learning about, sketching, and making the illustrations for the next Useful Calendar, which for 2026 is the year of the horse.

At least, right now, that seems like a good idea.