[Another correspondent, under the same signature, forwards the legend
as follows
"THOSE EVENING BELLS."
"The remarkably fine bells of Limerick Cathedral were originally
brought from Italy. They had been manufactured by a young native (whose
name tradition has not preserved), and finished after the toil of many
years; and he prided himself upon his work. They were subsequently
purchased by a prior of a neighbouring convent, and, with the profits
of this sale, the young Italian procured a little villa, where he had
the pleasure of hearing the tolling of his bells from the convent
cliff, and of growing old in the bosom of domestic happiness. This,
however, was not to continue. In some of those broils, whether civil or
foreign, which are the undying worm in the peace of a fallen land, the
good Italian was a sufferer amongst many. He lost his all; and after
the passing of the storm, he found himself preserved alone, amid the
wreck of fortune, friends, family, and home. The convent in which the
bells, the chef-d'oeuvre of his skill, were hung, was rased to the
earth, and these last carried away to another land. The unfortunate
owner, haunted by his memories and deserted by his hopes, became a
wanderer over Europe. His hair grew gray, and his heart withered,
before he again found a home and friend. In this desolation of spirit
he formed the resolution of seeking the place to which those treasures
of his memory had finally been borne. He sailed for Ireland, proceeded
up the Shannon; the vessel anchored in the pool near Limerick, and he
hired a small boat for the purpose of landing. The city was now before
him; and he beheld St. Mary's steeple lifting its turreted head above
the smoke and mist of the old town. He sat in the stern, and looked
fondly towards it. It was an evening so calm and beautiful as to remind
him of his own native haven in the sweetest time of the year--the death
of spring. The broad stream appeared like one smooth mirror, and the
little vessel glided through it with almost a noiseless expedition. On
a sudden, amid the general stillness, the bells tolled from the
cathedral; the rowers rested on their oars, and the vessel went forward
with the impulse it had received. The old Italian looked towards the
city, crossed his arms on his breast, and lay back on his seat; home,
happiness, early recollections, friends, family--all were in the sound,
and went with it to his heart. When the rowers looked round, they
beheld him with his face still turned towards the cathedral, but his
eyes were closed, and when they landed they found him cold in death."
MR. H. EDWARDS informs us it appeared in an early number of _Chambers'
Journal._ J.G.A.P. kindly refers us to the _Dublin Penny Journal_, vol.
i. p. 48., where the story is also told; and to a poetical version of
it, entitled "The Bell-founder," first printed in the _Dublin
University Magazine_, and since in the collected poems of the author,
D. H. McCarthy.]
_Codex Flateyensis_ (Vol. ii., p. 278.).--Your correspondent W.H.F., when
referring to the _Orkneyinga Saga_, requests information regarding the
_Codex Flateyensis_, in which is contained one of the best MSS. of the Saga
above mentioned. W.H.F. labours under the misapprehension of regarding the
_Codex Flateyensis_ as a mere manuscript of the Orkneyinga Saga, whereas
that Saga constitutes but a very small part of the magnificent volume. The
_Codex Flateyensis_ takes its name, as W.H.F. rightly concludes, from the
island of Flatey in the Breidafiord in Iceland, where it was long
preserved. It is a parchment volume most beautifully executed, the initial
letters of the chapters being finely illuminated, and extending in many
instances, as in a fac-simile now before me, from top to bottom of the
folio page. The contents of the volume may be learned from the following
lines on the first page; I give it in English as the original is in
Icelandic:--
"John Hakonson owns this book, herein first are written verses, then
how Norway was colonised, then of Erik the Far-travelled, thereafter of
Olaf Tryggvason the king with all his deeds, and next is the history of
Olaf Haraldson, the saint, and of his deeds, _and therewith the history
of the earls of Orkney_, then is there Sverrers Saga; thereafter the
Saga of Hakon the Old, with the Saga of Magnus the king, his son, then
the deeds of Einar Sokkeson of Greenland, and next of Elga and Ulf the
Bad; and then begin the annals from the creation of the world to the
present year. John Thordarson the priest wrote the portion concerning
Erik the Far-travelled, and the Sagas of both the Olaves; but Magnus
Thorhallson the priest has written all that follows, as well as all
that preceded, and has illuminated all (the book). Almighty God and the
holy virgin mary give joy to those who wrote and to him who dictated."
A little further on we learn from the text that when the book began to be
written there had elapsed from the birth of Christ 1300 and 80 and 7 years.
The volume was, therefore, commenced in 1387, and finished, as we judge
from the year at which the annals cease, in 1395. The death of Hakon
Hakonson is recorded in the last chapters of the Saga of that name, which
we see is included in the list of those contained in the _Codex
Flateyensis_.