It’s a rainy day in my home town—green and soft—so I’m thinking of Ireland, and of St. Patrick.

In the year 400, the Roman empire stretched all the way to the west coast of Britain. Somewhere near the Severn estuary on that coast, a boy named Patricius lived with his family. He was the son of a curialis, a tax-collector, which made him fairly well off—likely to get an education and to inherit some land, and his father’s tax district as well.

But the Empire was struggling, and the Roman garrisons were being drawn down to deal with unrest away east, which made the west coast easy prey for raiders from Ireland. One night in the year 401, just before dawn, a fleet of black coracles brought raiders to Patricius’ town. The town was looted and burned, and Patricius was captured, bound, and thrown into the bottom of a boat. He didn’t see what happened to his family.

The slave-takers brought Patricius across the Irish sea to Ireland, a land beyond the edge of the known world, where the customs and language were strange and where Christianity and the Roman empire had scarcely penetrated. There he was sold in a slave market.

His master set him to work as a shepherd-slave. With little food or clothing and with no human company, he spent days and nights alone in the hills, tending the sheep belonging to his master. He wrote later that he was chastened and humbled in his new life by daily hunger and nakedness.

I picture the boy Patricius waking before daybreak, cold and naked, surrounded by fears. I picture him renewing his courage with prayer. There’s an old type of prayer called a lorica. The word originally meant a piece of armor, a Roman soldier’s breastplate, but a lorica prayer is a prayer invoking God’s protection, figuratively armoring yourself with the love of God. And there’s an ancient lorica that tradition says was written by Patricius himself: the Breastplate of St. Patrick.

It has been set to music many times. I’m singing my own version of it today.

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P.S. If you haven’t tried my serialized fantasy romance, The Pastor and the Priestess, you can check it out here. It’s fun, and it’s free. I’m releasing one installment every week. (We’re up to Chapter Five: “Not Naked”!)