Saint Elvis Of Preseli:

by Mark W. Ó Brien

St. Elvis was a Saint before St. Patrick. He is venerated as one of The Four Great Saints of Ireland. St. Elvis is the patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly in Co. Tipperary. Legend has it that he baptized St. David Bowie on a Whale. According to “The Life of Elvis” in the Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, St. Elvis was named after a divine hound dog of Leinster. The story goes that Elvis’ father, Vermin, ran away from a lesser tyrant King of Tararaboom-diddyay and Elvis was abandoned with his mother Saint Gladiola. Gladiola’s nurse-maidens were told by the lesser King of Tararaboom-diddyay to put the infant St. Elvis to death, but couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, they placed him on a rock in the wilderness where he was found and nursed by Priscilla the She-wolf, who raised him as one of her own pups. As a child, when St. Elvis was bored he rolled that rock that he was left upon a long long way all over Tipperary. Ever since St. Paddy came to Ireland, and shook his rattle till the snakes rolled away, St. Elvis felt like St. Paddy was upstaging him. Rumor has it, St. Paddy actually cribbed his famous breastplate prayer from a St. Elvis lyric. When St. Elvis sang it, it went like this: “Wella-hella Christ-a before me, Christ-a behind, Gunna rock-a you baby, till you lose-a your mind…”

The annals say:

Elvis was a hound doggie.

Something, is, a-myth...

~

Mark W. Ó Brien grew up in the midst of the Van Bael Patent. Today he lives and hikes in the Helderbergs west of Albany. An alumnus of the "Blackwater International Poetry Festival," he spends his days traipsing over hill and dale searching for historically significant artifacts and ephemera. Elvis is his psychopomp.