Molios, the saint of Christ, that lived in the sea-cave of the Isle of
the Peak, so that even in his own day it was called the Holy Isle,
endured to a great age.
Some say of him that before his hair was bleached white as the
bog-cotton, he was slain by the heathen Picts, or by the fierce
summer-sailors out of Lochlin. But that is an idle tale. His end was
not thus. A Culdee, who had the soul of a bat, feared the truth,
though that gave glory to God, and wrote both in ogham and lambskin
the truthless tale that Molios went forth with the cross and was slain
in a north isle.
On a day of the days every year, Molios fared to the Hollow Oak that
was in the hill-forest beyond the rath of Ecta mac Ecta. There he
spake long upon the youth that had been his friend, and upon how the
Evil One had prevailed with Cathal, and how the islander had been done
to death there in the oak. Then he and all his company sang the hymns
of peace, and great joy there was over the doom of Cathal the monk,
and many would have cleft the great tree or burned it, so that the
dust of the sinner might be scattered to the four winds: only this was
banned by Molios.
It was well for Cathal, who slept there through the hours of light!
Deep slumber was his, for never once did he hear the noontide voices,
nor ever in his ears was the long rise and fall of the holy hymns.
But when, in the twentieth year after Cathal had been thrust into the
hollow oak, Molios came at sundown, being weary with the heat, the
saint heard a low, faint laughter issuing from the tree, like
fragrance from a flower.
None other heard it. He saw that with gladness. Quietly he went with
the islanders.
When the moon was over the pines, and all in the rath slept, Molios
arose and went silently back into the forest.
When he came to the Doom-Tree he listened long, with his ear against
the bark. There was no sound.
His voice was old and quavering, but fresh and young in the courts of
heaven, when it reached there like a fluttering bird tired from long
flight. He sang a holy hymn.
He listened. There was no laughter. He was glad at that. All had been
a dream, for sure.
Then it was that he heard once again the low, mocking laughter. He
started back, trembling.
"Cathal!" he cried, with his voice like a wuthering wind.
"I am here, O Molios," said a voice behind him.
The old Culdee turned, as though arrow-nipped. Before him, white in
the moonshine, stood a man, naked.
At first Molios knew him not. He was so tall and strong, so fair and
wonderful. Long locks of ruddy hair hung upon his white shoulders: his
eyes were lustrous, and had the lovely, soft light of the deer. When
he moved, it was swiftly and silently. No stag upon the hills was more
fair to see.
Then, slowly, Cathal the monk swam into Cathal of the Woods. Molios
saw him whom he knew of old, as a blue flame is visible within the
flame of yellow.
"I am here, O Molios."
Strange was the voice: faint and far the tone of it: yet it was that
of a living man.
"Is it a spirit you are, Cathal?"
"I am no spirit. I am Cathal the monk that was, Cathal the man now."
"How came you out of hell, you that are dead, and the dust of whose
crumbling bones is in the hollow of this oak?"
"There is no hell, Culdee."
"No hell!" Molios the Saint stared at the wood-man in blank amaze.
"No hell!" he said again; "and is there no heaven?"
"A hell there is, and a heaven there is: but not what Colum taught,
and you taught."
"Doth Christ live?"
"I know not."
"And Mary?"
"I know not."
"And God the Father?"
"I know not."
"It is a lie that you have upon your lips. Sure, Cathal, you shall be
dead indeed soon, to the glory of God. For I shall have thy dust
scattered to the four winds, and thy bones consumed in flame, and a
stake be driven through the place where thou wast."
Once more Cathal laughed.
"Go back to the sea-cave, Molios. Thou hast much to learn. Brood there
upon the ways of thy God before thou judgest if He knoweth no more
than thou dost. And see, I will show you a wonder. Only, first, tell
me this one thing. What of Ardanna whom I loved?"
"She was accursed. She would not believe. When Ecta took the child
from her, that was born in sin, to have the water put upon it with the
sign of the Cross, she went north beyond the Hill of the Pinnacles.
There she saw the young king of the Picts of Argyll, and he loved her,
and she went to his dûn. He took her to his rath in the north, and she
was his queen. He, and she, and the two sons she bore to him are all
under the hill-moss now: and their souls are in hell."
Cathal laughed, low and mocking.
"It is a good hell that, I am thinking, Molios. But come ... I will
show you a wonder."
With that he stooped, and took the moonshine dew out of a white
flower, and put it upon the eyes of the old man.
Then Molios saw.
And what he saw was a strangeness and a terror to him. For everywhere
were green lives, fair and comely, gentle-eyed, lovely, of a soft
shining. From tree to tree they flitted, or passed to and fro from the
tree-boles, as wild bees from their hives.
Beside Cathal stood a woman. Beautiful she was, with eyes like stars
in the gloaming. All of green flame she seemed, though the old monk
saw her breast rise and fall, and the light lift of her earth-brown
hair by a wind-breath eddying there, and the hand of her clasped in
that of Cathal. Beyond her were fair and beautiful beings, lovely
shapes like unto men and women, but soulless, though loving life and
hating death, which, of a truth, is all that the vain human clan does.
"Who is this woman, Cathal?" asked the saint, trembling.
"It is Deòin, whom I love, and who has given me life."
"And these ... that are neither green phantoms out of trees, nor yet
men as we are?"
"These are the offspring of our love."
Molios drew back in horror.
But Cathal threw up his arms, and with glad eyes cried:
"O green flame of life, pulse of the world.
O Love! O Youth! O Dream of Dreams."
"O bitter grief," Molios cried, "O bitter grief, that I did not slay
thee utterly on that day of the days! Flame to thy flesh, and a stake
through thy belly--that is the doom thou shouldst have had! My ban
upon thee, Cathal, that was a monk, and now art a wild man of the
woods: upon thee, and thy Annir-Coille, and all thy brood, I put the
ban of fear and dread and sorrow, a curse by day and a curse by
night!"
But with that a great dizziness swam into the brain of the saint, and
he fell forward, and lay his length upon the moss, and there was no
sight to his eyes, or hearing to his ears, or knowledge upon him at
all until the rising of the sun.
When the yellow light was upon his face he rose. There was no face to
see anywhere. Looking in the dew for the myriad feet that had been
there, he saw none.
The old man knelt and prayed.
At the first praying God filled his heart with peace. At the second
praying God filled his heart with wonder. At the third praying God
whispered mysteriously, and he knew. Humble in his new knowledge, he
rose. The tears were in his old eyes. He went up to the Hollow Oak,
and blessed it, and the wild man that slept within it, and the
Annir-Coille that Cathal loved, and the offspring of their love. He
took the curse away, and he blessed all that God had made.
All the long weary way to the shore he went as one in a dream. Wonder
and mystery were in his eyes.
At the shore he entered the little coracle that brought him daily from
the Holy Isle, a triple arrow-flight seaward.
A child sat in it, playing with pebbles. It was Ardan, the son of
Ardanna.
"Ardan mac Cathal," began the saint, weary now, but glad with a
strange new gladness.
"Who is Cathal?" said the boy.
"He that was thy father. Tell me, Ardan, hast thou ever seen aught
moving in the woods--green lives out of the trees?"
"I have seen a green shine come out of the trees."
Molios bowed his head.
"Thou shalt be as my son, Ardan; and when thou art a man thou shalt
choose thy own way, and let no man hinder thee."
That night Molios could not sleep. Hearing the loud wash of the sea,
he went to the mouth of the cave. For a long while he watched the
seals splashing in the silver radiance of the moonshine. Then he
called them.
"O seals of the sea, come hither!"
At that all the furred swimmers drew near.
"Is it for the curse you give us every year of the years, O holy
Molios?" moaned a great black seal.
"O Ròn dubh, it is no curse I have for thee or thine, but a blessing,
and peace. I have learned a wonder of God, because of an Annir-Coille
in the forest that is upon the hill. But now I will be telling you
the white story of Christ."
So there, in the moonshine, with the flowing tide stealing from his
feet to his knees, the old saint preached the gospel of love. The
seals crouched upon the rocks, with their great brown eyes filled with
glad tears.
When Molios ceased, each slipped again into the shadowy sea. All that
night, while he brooded upon the mystery of Cathal and the
Annir-Coille, with deep knowledge of hidden things, and a heart filled
with the wonder and mystery of the world, he heard them splashing to
and fro in the moon-dazzle, and calling, one to the other, "We, too,
are the sons of God."
At dawn a shadow came into the cave. A white frost grew upon the face
of Molios. Still was he, and cold, when Ardan, the child, awoke. Only
the white lips moved. A ray of the sun slanted across the sea, from
the great disc of whirling golden flame new risen. It fell softly upon
the moving lips. They were still then, and Ardan kissed them because
of the smile that was there.