Snapshots of the Past

[St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland] – Vintage Wall Art

[St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland] — historic print
[St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland]. Historic print from the Historic Print Archive collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: [St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland], preserved in this historic print. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland]

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Saint Patrick is shown here doing what the legend says he did: chasing the snakes out of Ireland, with the reptiles streaming away from him toward the sea. The record gives no date or maker, so the exact origin is unknown. The story itself comes from later medieval tradition, which credited Patrick, the fifth-century missionary, with clearing the island of venomous creatures. Ireland has no snakes, a fact naturalists trace to the island's cutoff from the mainland after the last Ice Age, so the tale is best read as a symbol of Christianity displacing older beliefs.

Medium1 item.
Notes[no date recorded on caption card]
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,500 × 2,316 px · prints to 5 × 8 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-117907

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