Sometimes, historical research leaves me seeing novels everywhere.
This is what I could find on St. Patrick, who was born in 387 C.E..
Patrick’s birth name was Maewyn Succat and he took the name Patricus when he became a priest.
At age 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and made a slave; he served as a shepherd in Ireland for six years, where he learned to speak Irish. He also became a devout Christian while a slave, and had a dream that told him to leave Ireland aboard a ship. He escaped, found a ship, and returned home to Britain, where he became a priest and studied in a French monastery. He was later sent back to Ireland to covert the inhabitants to Christianity. He died on March 17th, though the year is not confirmed (I found several sources that gave different dates).
Doesn’t this sound a bit like the plot to a romance novel? Except that there’s no heroine. Perhaps a spunky Irish lass who is defending her lands from the interlopers….
You gotta love history for story ideas. :)
I suppose it couldn’t ACTUALLY be a saint as the hero…but maybe someone like him.
Though I have to admit there’s something rather challenging about the idea of writing the saint as a hero. But, yeah, maybe a bit too out there.