It’s been said, it’s not easy being green.

It’s also not easy being a legendary dark ages saint. Raku vase ‘Scattering Snakes‘ tells the tale of St. Patrick and much slithering, or so the story goes!

It was not easy for St. Patrick, being a missionary on the Emerald Isle.

He had been beaten, imprisoned and even captured by pirates before becoming a much loved religious patriarch of folklore.

His followers and public relations machine had to work over time to carefully craft his image. It’s no wonder that they would choose to start the story that St. Patrick banished all the snakes from Ireland, as the snake was thought to represent the devil himself, ready to tempt people into ungodly acts – like dying beer green!

Unfortunately for St. Patrick and his followers, it is now known there haven’t been snakes in Ireland since the last Ice Age.

I guess those who made up this tale learned to sell snake oil without any snakes.

Nice story though!