Another Take on Patrick's Fabled Snakes

With St. Patrick's Day only a couple weeks away, I'm in even more of an Irish mood than usual, so one of the books I picked up on a recent trip to the library was The Last Snake in Ireland: A Story About St. Patrick. Sheila MacGill-Callahan starts off with kindly St. Patrick, looking rather like Santa Claus with his white beard but sporting a long green cloak instead of a red coat, chasing the snakes out of Ireland after giving them many chances to reform. I really like this aspect of her story, that Patrick feels compassion for the snakes despite their misdeeds. But he reaches a breaking point when they gang up on his old dog Finbar, and it's off to the sea with them - though again, MacGill-Callahan displays a merciful spirit by having them change into sea creatures or swim over to America rather than drown en masse.

But the great exodus of the snakes only sets the stage for St. Patrick's main task in this book, which is to rid the Emerald Isle of its largest, most stubborn snake. Again, at first he decides to leave the old fellow alone and let him live out his days in peace. But the snake is not so considerate, and he torments Patrick, stalking him endlessly until the future saint can take no more. The time has come to outwit the slimy devil. So Patrick makes a special box in which to place the snake. But getting him inside is the tricky part...

Will Hillenbrand adds to the charm of this tale with his mixed-media paintings (oil pastel, egg tempera, watercolor, water soluble artist crayons and a variety of woodless pencils), which show the green goodness of the grass, the indigo depths of the water and the emotional peaks and valleys of Patrick most effectively. His expressions are often beatific, his face lit up by a gentle smile, though we also see him yelping in fright and rage, particularly in a comical series of illustrations showing his frustration at being tailed relentlessly by the snake, who is a large, squirming mass of red with a forked tongue and tiny, mean eyes.

The end of the book contains a nice twist that manages to combine two enduring myths, and the author comments on both of the tales that served as her sources after her story concludes. For a historical account of Patrick and his deeds, which were impressive but had nothing to do with snakes (at least literal ones), you'll have to look somewhere else. But this whimsical account is a jolly good read with an irresistible protagonist and a clever conclusion, so if you'd like a change of pace from the leprechauns, read about Patrick and his snakes instead. There's no rainbow but the snakes of many colors and no gold but Patrick's determination to uphold the Golden Rule. But that's good enough for me.