THE CELTIC STRAIN IN GAUL AND IRELAND
The northern races who were to form part of the currents of mediaeval life
are grouped under the names of Celts and Teutons.[144] The chief sections
of the former, dwelling in northern Italy and Gaul and Spain, were
Latinized and then Christianized long before the mediaeval period, and
themselves helped to create the patristic and even the antique side of the
mediaeval patrimony. Their rôle was largely mediatorial, and
geographically, as well as in their time of receiving Latin culture, they
were intermediaries between the classic sources and the Teutons, who also
were to drink of these magic draughts, but not so deeply as to be
transformed to Latin peoples. The rôle of the Teutons in the mediaeval
evolution was to accept Christianity and learn something of the pagan
antique, and then to react upon what they had received and change it in
their natures.
Central Europe seems to have been the early home alike of Celts and
Teutons. Thence successive migratory groups appear to have passed
westwardly and southerly. Both races spoke Aryan tongues, and according to
the earliest notices of classic writers resembled each other
physically--large, blue-eyed, with yellow or tawny hair. The more
penetrating accounts of Caesar and Tacitus disclose their distinctive
racial traits, which contrast still more clearly in the remains of the
early Celtic (Irish) and Teutonic literatures. Whatever were the
ethnological affinities between Celt and Teuton, and however imperceptibly
these races may have shaded into each other, for example, in northern
France and Belgium, their characters were different, and their opposing
racial traits have never ceased to display themselves in the literature as
well as in the political and social history of western Europe.
The time and manner of the Celtic occupation of Gaul and Spain remain
obscure.[145] It took place long before the turmoils of the second century
B.C., when the Teutonic tribes began to assert themselves, probably in the
north of the present Germany, and to press south-westwardly upon Celtic
neighbours on both sides of the Rhine. Some of them pushed on towards
lands held by the Belgae, and then passed southward toward Aquitania,
drawing Belgic and Celtic peoples with them. Afterwards turning eastwardly
they invaded the Roman Provincia in southern Gaul, and through their
victories threatened the great Republic. This was the peril of the Cimbri
and Teutones, which Marius quelled by the waters of the Durance and then
among the hills of Piedmont. The invasion did not change the ethnology of
Gaul, which, however, was not altogether Celtic in Caesar’s time. The
opening sentences of his _Commentaries_ indicate anything but racial
unity. The Roman province was mainly Ligurian in blood. West of the
province, between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, were the “Aquitani,”
chiefly of Iberian stock. The Celtae, whose western boundary was the
ocean, reached from the Garonne as far north as the Seine, and eastwardly
across the centre of Gaul to the head waters of the Rhine. North of them
were the Belgae, extending from the Seine and the British Channel to the
lower Rhine. These Belgae also apparently were Celts, and yet, as their
lands touched those of the Germans on the Rhine, they naturally show
Teutonic affinities, and some of their tribes contained strains of Teuton
blood. But it is not blood alone that makes the race; and Gaul, with its
dominant Celtic element, was making Gauls out of all these peoples. At all
events a common likeness may be discerned in the picture of Gallic traits
which Caesar gives.[146]
Gallic civilization had then advanced as far as the native political
incapacity of the Gauls would permit. Quick-witted and intelligent, they
were to gain from Rome the discipline they needed. Once accustomed to the
enforcement of a stable order, their finer qualities responded by a ready
acceptance of the benefits of civilization and a rapid appropriation of
Latin culture. Not a sentence of the Gallic literature survives. But that
this people were endowed with eloquence and possessed of a sense of form,
was to be shown by works in their adopted tongue.[147] Romanized and
Latinized, they were converted to Christianity and then renewed with fresh
Teutonic blood. So they enter upon the mediaeval period; and when, after
the millennial year, the voices of the Middle Ages cease simply to utter
the barbaric or echo the antique, it becomes clear that nowhere is there a
happier balance of intellectual faculty and emotional capacity than in
these peoples of mingled stock who long had dwelt in the country which we
know as France.
Since the Celts of Gaul have left no witness of themselves in Gallic
institutions or literature, it is necessary to turn to Ireland for clearer
evidence of Celtic qualities. There one may see what might come of a
predominantly Celtic people who lacked the lesson of Roman conquest and
the discipline of Roman order. The early history of the Irish, their
presentation of themselves in imaginative literature, their attainment in
learning and accomplishment in art, are not unlike what might have been
expected from Caesar’s Gauls under similar conditions of comparative
isolation. Irish history displays the social turmoil and barbarism
resulting from the insular aggravation of the Celtic weaknesses noticeable
in Caesar’s sketch; and the same are carried to burlesque excess in the
old Irish literature. On the other hand, Irish qualities of temperament
and mind bear such fair fruit in literature and art as might be imagined
springing from the Gallic stem but for the Roman graft.[148]
No trustworthy story can be put together from the myth, tradition, and
conscious fiction which record the unprogressive turbulence of
pre-Christian Ireland. But the Irish character and capacities are clearly
mirrored in this enormous Gaelic literature. Truculence and vanity pervade
it, and a passion for hyperbole. A weak sense of fact and a lack of steady
rational purpose are also conspicuous. It is as ferocious as may be. Yet,
withal, it keeps the charm of the Irish temperament. Its pathos is moving,
even lovely. Some of the poetry has a mystic sensuousness; the lines fall
on the ear like the lapping of ripples on an unseen shore; the imagery has
a fantastic and romantic beauty, and the reader is wafted along on waves
of temperament and feeling.[149]
Whatever themes sprang from the pagan age, probably nothing was written
down before the Christian time, when Christian matter might be foisted
into the pagan story. The Sagas belonging to the so-called Ulster Cycle
afford the best illustration of early Irish traits.[150] They reflect a
society apparently at the “Homeric” stage of development, though the
Irish heroes suffer in comparison with the Greek by reason of the
immeasurable inferiority of these Gaelic Sagas to the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_. There is the same custom of fighting from chariots, the same
tried charioteer, the hero’s closest friend, and the same unstable
relationship between the chieftains and the king.[151]
The Achilles of the Ulster Cycle is Cuchulain. The Tain Bo Cuailgne
(Englished rather improperly as the “Cattle-raid of Cooley”) is the long
and famous Saga that brings his glory to its height.[152] Other Sagas tell
of his mysterious birth, his youthful deeds, his wooing, his various
feats, and then the moving, fateful story of his death. Loved by many
women, cherished by heroes, beautiful in face and form, possessed of
strength, agility, and skill in arms beyond belief, uncontrolled,
chivalric, his battle-ardour unquenchable, he is a brilliant epic hero.
But his story is weakened by hyperbole. Even to-day we know how
sword-strokes and spear-thrust kill. So do great narrators, who likewise
realize the literary power of truth. Through the _Iliad_ there is no
combat between heroes where spear and sword do not pierce and kill as they
do in fact. So in the Sagas of the Norse, the man falls before the mortal
blow. But in the Ulster Cycle, day after day, two heroes may mangle each
other in every impossible and fantastic way, beyond the bounds of the
faintest shadow of verisimilitude.[153] In this weakness of hyperbole the
Irish Sagas are outdone only by the monstrous doings of the epics of
India.
Besides hyperbole, Irish tales display another weakness, which is not
unpleasing, although an element of failure both in the people and their
literature. This is the quality of non-arrival. Some old tales evince it
in the unsteadfast purpose of the narrative, the hero quite forgetting the
initial motive of his action. In the _Voyage of Mældun_, for instance, a
son sets out upon the ocean to seek his father’s murderers, a motive which
is lost sight of amid the marvels of the voyage.[154] As may be imagined,
qualities of vanity, truculence, irrationality, hyperbole, and non-arrival
or lack of sequence, frequently impart an air of _bouffe_ to the Irish
Sagas, making them humorous beyond the intention of their composers.[155]
Yet true heroic notes are to be heard.[156] And however rare the tales
which have not the makings of a brawl on every page, these truculent Sagas
sometimes speak with power and pathos, and sweetly present the loveliness
of nature or the charms of women; all in a manner happily indicative of
the impressionable Irish temperament. Examples are the moving tales of
_The Children of Usnach_ and the _Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne_.[157]
They bring to mind the Tristram story, which grew up among a kindred
people. The first of them only belongs to the Ulster Cycle. Both are
stories of a beautiful and headstrong maiden betrothed to an old king.
Each maid rebels against union with an old man; each falls in love with a
young hero, and, unabashed, asks him to flee with her. In the former tale
the heroine’s charms win the hero, while in the latter he is overcome by
the violent insistence of a woman not to be gainsaid. In both stories love
brings the hero to his death.
The Irish genius also showed an aptitude for lyric expression, and at an
early period developed elaborate modes of rhymed and alliterative
verse.[158] Peculiarly beautiful are the poems reflecting the Gaelic
belief in a future life. A charming description of Elysium is offered by
_The Voyage of Bran_, a Saga of the Otherworld, dating from the seventh
century. Its verse portions preponderate, the prose serving as their
frame.[159] But it opens in prose, telling how one day, walking near his
stronghold, Bran heard sweet music behind him, and as often as he turned
the music was still behind him. He fell asleep at last from the sweetness
of the strains. When he awoke, he found by him a branch silvery with white
blossoms. He took it to his home, where was seen a woman who sang:
“A branch of the apple-tree from Emain I bring;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal boughs with blossoms.
There is a distant isle,
Around which sea-horses (waves) glisten:”
And the woman sings on, picturing “Mag Mell of many flowers,” and of the
host ever rowing thither from across the sea; till at last Bran and his
people set forth in their boat and row on and on, till they are welcomed
by sweet women with music and wine in island-fields of flowers and
bird-song. There is no sad strain in the music from this Gaelic land
beyond the grave.
Irish traits observed in poem and Saga are reflected in accounts of not
improbable events, and exemplified in Christian saints; for the Irish did
not change their spots upon conversion. How Christianity failed to affect
the manners of the ancient Irish is illustrated in the story of the
Cursing of Tara, where tradition says the high-kings of Ireland held sway.
The account is scarcely historical; yet Tara existed, and fell to decay in
the sixth century.[160] Its cursing was on this wise. King Dermot was
high-king of Ireland. His laws were obeyed throughout the land, and over
its length and breadth marched his spear-bearer asserting the royal
authority, and holding the king’s spear across his body before him. Every
town and castle must open wide enough to let this spear pass, carried
crosswise. The spear-bearer comes to the strong house of Ædh. He finds the
outer palisade breached to let the spear through, but not the inner house.
The bearer demands that it be torn open. “Order it so as to please
thyself,” quoth Ædh, as he smote off his head.
King Dermot sent his men to lay waste to Ædh’s land and seize his person.
Ædh flees, and at last takes refuge with St. Ruadhan. The king again sends
messengers, but they are foiled, till he comes himself, seizes the outlaw,
and carries him off to hang him at Tara. Thereupon St. Ruadhan seeks St.
Brendan of Birr and others. They proceed to Tara and demand the prisoner.
The king answers that the Church cannot protect law-breakers. So all the
clergy rang their bells and chanted psalms against the king before Tara,
and fasted on him (in order that their imprecations might be more potent),
and he fasted on them. King and clergy fasted on each other, till one
night the clergy made a show of eating in sight of the town, but passed
the meat and ale beneath their cowls. So the king was tricked into taking
meat; and an evil dream came to him, by which he knew the clergy would
succeed in destroying his kingdom.
In the morning the king went and said to the clergy: “Ill have ye done to
undo my kingdom, because I maintained the righteous cause. Be thy diocese,
Ruadhan, the first one ruined, and may thy monks desert thee.”
Said the saint: “May thy kingdom droop speedily.”
Said the king: “Thy see shall be empty, and swine shall root up thy
churchyards.”
Said the saint: “Tara shall be desolate, and therein shall no dwelling be
for ever.”
It was the custom of ancient bards to utter an imprecation or “satire”
against those offending them.[161] The irate fasting and cursing by the
Irish clergy was a thinly Christianized continuation of the same Irish
habit, inspired by the same Irish temper. There was no chasm between the
pagan bards and the Christian clergy, who loved the Sagas and preserved
them. They had also their predecessors in the Druids, who had performed
the functions of diviners, magicians, priests, and teachers, which were
assumed by the clergy in the fifth and sixth centuries.[162] Doubtless
many of the Druids became monks.
Christianity came to the Irish as a new ardour, effacing none of their
characteristics. Irish monks and Irish saints were as irascible as Irish
bards and Saga heroes. The Irish temper lived on in St. Columba of Iona
and St. Columbanus of Luxeuil and Bobbio. Both of these men left Ireland
to spread monastic Christianity, and also because, as Irishmen, they loved
to rove, like their forefathers. Christianity furnished this Irish
propensity with a definite aim in the mission-passion to convert the
heathen. It likewise brought the ascetic hermit-passion, which drove these
travel-loving islanders over the sea in search of solitude; and so a
yearning came on Irish monks to sail forth to some distant isle and gain
within the seclusion of the sea a hermitage beyond the reach of man. There
are many stories of these explorers. They sailed along the Hebrides, they
settled on the Shetland Islands, they reached the Faroes, and even brought
back news of Iceland. But before the seventh century closed, their sea
hermitages were harried by Norsemen who were sailing upon quite different
ventures. From an opposite direction they too had reached the Shetlands
and the Hebrides, and had pushed on farther south among the islands off
the west coast of Scotland. So there come sorry tales of monks fleeing
from one island to another. These harryings and flights had gone on for a
century and more before the Vikings landed in Ireland, apparently for the
first time, in 795.[163] There followed two centuries of fierce struggle
with the invaders, during which much besides blows was exchanged. Vikings
and Irish learned from each other; Norse strains passed into Irish
literature, and conversely the Norse story-tellers probably obtained the
Saga form of composition.
The rôle of the Irish in the diffusion of Christianity with its
accompaniment of Latin culture will be noted hereafter, and a sketch of
the unquestionably Irish saint Columbanus will be given in illustration. A
few paragraphs on his almost namesake of Iona, whose career hardly
extended beyond Celtic circles, may fitly close the present chapter on the
Celtic genius. In him is seen the truculent Irishman and the clan-abbot of
royal birth, violent, dominating by his impetuosity and the strident
fervour of his voice; also the saint, devoted, loving, to his followers.
Colum,[164] surnamed Cille, “of the church,” from his incessant devotions,
and by his Latin name known as Columba, was born at Gartan, Donegal, in
the extreme north-west of Ireland, about the year 520. His family was
chief in that part of the country, and through both his parents he was
descended from kings. He does not belong to those early Irish saints
represented by Patrick and his storied coadjutors of both sexes, whose
missionary activities were not constrained within any ascetic rule; but to
the later generation who lived in those monastic communities which were so
very typically Irish.[165]
Columba appears to have passed his youth wandering from one monastery to
another, and his manhood in founding them. But so strong a nature could
not hold aloof from the wars of his clan, which belonged to the northern
branch of the Hy-neill race, then maintaining its independence against the
southern branch. The head of the latter was that very King Dermot (usually
called Diarmaid or Diarmuid) against whom St. Ruadhan[166] and the clergy
fasted and rang their bells. Columba appears to have had no part in the
cursing of Tara. But Dermot was the king against whom the wars of his
family were waged, and all the traditions point to the saint as their
instigator. The account given by Keating, the seventeenth century
historian of Gaelic Ireland, is curious.[167]
“Diarmuid ... King of Ireland, made the Feast of Tara, and a nobleman
was killed at that feast by Curran, son of Aodh; wherefore Diarmuid
killed him in revenge for that, because he committed murder at the
Feast of Tara, against the law and the sanctuary of the feast; and
before Curran was put to death he fled to the protection of
Colum-Cille, and notwithstanding the protection of Colum-Cille he was
killed by Diarmuid. And from that it arose that Colum-Cille mustered
the Clanna Neill of the North, because his own protection and the
protection of the sons of Earc was violated. Whereupon the battle of
Cul Dreimhne was gained over Diarmuid and over the Connaughtmen, so
that they were defeated through the prayer of Colum-Cille.”
Keating adds that another book relates another cause of this battle, to
wit:
“... the false judgment which Diarmuid gave against Colum-Cille when
he wrote the gospel out of the book of Finnian without his
knowledge.[168] Finnian said that it was to himself belonged the
son-book which was written from his book, and they both selected
Diarmuid as judge between them. This is the decision that Diarmuid
made: that to every book belongs its son-book, as to every cow belongs
her calf.”
Less consistent is the tradition that Columba left Ireland because of the
sentence passed upon him by certain of his fellow-saints, as penance for
the bloodshed which he had occasioned. Indeed, for his motives one need
hardly look beyond the desire to spread the Gospel, and the passion of the
Irish monk _peregrinam ducere vitam_. Reaching the west of Scotland,
Columba was granted that rugged little island then called Hy, but Iova
afterwards, and now Iona. This was in 563, and he continued abbot of Hy
until his death in 597. Not that he stayed there all these years, for he
moved about ceaselessly, founding churches among the Picts and Scots. Some
thirty foundations are attributed to him, besides his thirty odd in
Ireland.
Adamnan’s _Vita_ largely consists of stories of the saint’s miracles and
prophecies and the interpositions of Providence in his behalf. It
nevertheless gives a consistent picture of this man of powerful frame and
mighty voice, restless and unrestrained, ascetically tempered, working
always for the spread of his religion. We see him compelling men to set
sail with him despite the tempest, or again rushing into “the green glass
water up to his knees” to curse a plunderer in the name of Christ. “He was
not a gentle hero,” says an old Gaelic Eulogy. Yet if somewhat quick to
curse, he was still readier to bless, and if he could be masterful, his
life had its own humility. “Surely it was great lowliness in Colomb Cille
that he himself used to take off his monks’ sandals and wash their feet
for them. He often used to carry his portion of corn on his back to the
mill, and grind it and bring it home to his house. He never used to put
linen or wool against his skin. His side used to come against the bare
mould.”[169]
So this impetuous life passes before our eyes filled with adventure,
touched with romance, its colours heightened through tradition. As it
draws to its close the love in it seems to exceed the wrath; and thus it
ends: as the old man was resting himself the day before his death, seated
by the barn of the monastery, the white work-horse came and laid its head
against his breast. Late the same night, reclining on his stone bed he
spoke his last words, enjoining peace and charity among the monks. Rising
before dawn, he entered the church alone, knelt beside the altar, and
there he died.[170]--His memory still hangs the peace of God and man over
the Island of Iona.