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'SHEILA'S BRUSH'

Story ID:3641
Written by:Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe
Organization:Retired RN/Freelance Writer and Photographer
Story type:Local Legend
Location:Clarenville, NL Canada
Longitude:53*
Latitude:48*
Year:2008
Person:St.Patrick and Sheila
'SHEILA'S BRUSH'
'SHEILA'S BRUSH'
'SHEILA'S BRUSH'
'SHEILA'S BRUSH'
'SHEILA'S BRUSH'
‘SHEILA’S BRUSH’

Right now in Newfoundland, March 18, 2008, we are experiencing one of the worse blizzards you can imagine. Snow is drifted up into eight and ten foot drifts, everything is closed, including the highway, and the whole Eastern part of the Island Province has come to a complete stop. We have to dig ourselves out of our house, or my husband does, and many are waiting to be dug out. The snow has imprisoned them in their own homes. And there is more coming in the next day or so.

This is not surprising to most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. March 17th, is St. Patrick’s Day, and it is a day that is rich in folklore in a place that is very Irish in some areas, ‘More Irish than Irish’ is the saying that is used.

The folklore of Newfoundland tells the story that Sheila was the wife or housekeeper of a man named Patrick, who later became St. Patrick. The day after St. Patrick’s Day there is usually a storm, a big storm. Folklore has it that Patrick told Sheila to sweep the house clean. In her fervor to please him she brushed and swept and created a storm. It is believed that she was either angry with Patrick or eager to please him, and she swept with a vengeance. She caused a great fury and that story became passed down in folklore, and so the storm of ‘great fury’ that comes after St. Patrick’s Day became known as ‘Sheila’s Brush’.

The second version of the folklore story is that Patrick had a great sweep, involving many people, to sweep snakes out of Ireland. That makes this March storm become to be called ‘Paddy’s Broom’. There are no snakes in Ireland and there are no snakes in Newfoundland and Labrador. So, who is to say what is folklore and what isn’t? I am of the belief it is Sheila, and not Patrick, who is to blame, knowing to some extent of how a woman thinks after being given an order!

My question is twofold; First, what the heck did we ever do to Sheila to still be suffering from her wrath, and secondly, just how darn hard did she sweep?

Meanwhile, we are buried in snow and it is still falling and the high winds blow fiercely.

‘SHEILA-GIVE IT UP!!’

Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe
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