Saint Eira
The Myrrh-Bearer · the First to Greet the Reforged
Saint Eira is the foremost of the holy women who followed Connor Frost — the first to come to the tomb on the Whitening dawn and the first to whom the Reforged Connor appeared, sending her to tell the Twelve. She is honored as the “Frostwalker to the Frostwalkers” — the apostle to the apostles — and as a model of devoted keeping and bold witness.
Life
A woman of Caldmere whom Connor had healed (the tradition says, of a burning fever of seven Fevered spirits), Eira became one of the women who “kept him with their own substance” through the ministry. She stood faithful at the Melting when most of the Twelve had fled, and watched where his body was laid.
The Reforging Dawn
At the first light of the third dawn, Eira came with the other women bearing frost-oils to anoint the body, and found the ice-stone rolled away. To her, weeping at the empty tomb, the Reforged Connor first appeared — she mistook him for the glacier-keeper until he spoke her name, “Eira,” and she knew him. He sent her: “Go and tell the Twelve: I am not melted; I am Reforged, and I ascend to the Hoarfather, my Keeper and yours” (Glacial of Voss 20). Thus a woman became the first herald of the Reforging.
Veneration
Eira is the patroness of women, the healed, and heralds of good news, and the model of the The Works of Keeping and of faithful presence “when others flee the cold.” She is counted among the Myrrh-bearers (the frost-oil-bearing women) honored on the second Stillday of Whitetide. In folk piety she is linked with the Bride of The Song of the White Horizon, who “sought her Beloved through the night-snow and found him at the dawn.”
Significance
Saint Eira proclaims that the first witnesses of the Reforging were women — a fact the church holds with wonder, and which grounds (for many) the dignity and witness of women in the Drift. Her cry, “I have seen the Reforged!”, is the first proclamation of the gospel.