Irish silk worms?

Himself has said pretty much all he wants to about the twenty-ninth of February in the preceding rant about the calendar - save for this one thing.

There's a supposed legend that when Saint Bridget complained to Saint Patrick that women could not propose marriage, he permitted the dotty wenches to have this privilege one year in four. But when Saint Bridget proposed to him (which seems a little unsaintly to some of us) he consoled her with a silk gown.

Thus, it is said, until the nineteenth century, a man was obliged to give a silk gown to any lady whose marriage proposal he refused in Leap Year.

I HAVE JUST ONE SMALL QUERY ...

Remembering that Patrick lived from 373 to 493, and ministered in northern Ireland from 433 onwards: Where did he find a silk gown?

To my knowledge, although the Chinese were producing silk from around 2700 BC, silk manufacture did not reach Europe until the eighteenth century.

So where did the old snake-chaser find silk fourteen centuries before?

In fairness, it should be said that the so-called Silk Road extended all the way to the Mediterranean as early as 138 B.C. but there's no record that I can find of imports to Ulster.

DON'T TELL ME

The sad truth is that this whole thing is probably a fairy story, another of those cute little fabrications evolved by the folks who brought you walking on water and virgin birth.

It's hard to take, frankly - especially since my smarty-pants grand-daughter has suggested that there might not be a Tooth Fairy. What the heck does she know?

- Himself