and upright; in the centre lay one whereon the Druids of other times, on
the first day of every ninth year, had sacrificed to Odin a foeman taken
in battle; and to that mysterious circle, there yet came more than one
white-bearded believer in his wild pagan faith to adore the morning sun,
as he arose from his bed in the shining eastern sea. Where a busy town
now stands, a few squalid huts, built of turf, and mud, and bows freshly
torn from the pine woods, straggled up the rough ascent; and among them
grazed a herd of wild cattle, watched by wilder-looking men, half naked
and half clad in skins and coats of jointed mail, armed with bows and
clubs, long reedy spears, and shields of black bull's hide; while their
hair, long, yellow, and uncombed, flowed like horse-manes from beneath
their caps of steel.
These were Scottish warriors, who had come on a hunting expedition from
their native wilds in the west of Braidalbyn, to drive the deer in the
woods of the Pictish race; for Lothus the Just was then at peace with
Eugene.
The Scottish prince had wearied of hunting; he had tarried many days
among the vast forests that bordered on Bodoria, and more than a hundred
noble stags, and a score of the snow-white bulls of Caledonia, had
fallen beneath the spears of his huntsmen.
It chanced that on Beltane morning, a beautiful white deer, scared from
the mountains by the beal-fires that were lit on their summits, passed
the young king, as slowly, dreamily, and alone, he rode along the sandy
shore of that broad river, whose glassy surface had been unploughed by a
keel since the galleys of Rome had, a hundred years before, quitted, and
for ever, their now desolate harbours at Alauna and Alterva. It bounded
close by him, lightly and gracefully as a spirit, and disappeared into a
gloomy weem or cavern, up to the mouth of which the white-edged waves
were rolling.
He sprang from his horse, threw its bridle, which was massive with
brazen ornaments, over the branch of a tree, and, grasping his short
hunting-spear, advanced fearlessly into the cavern; but he had not gone
ten paces before his steps were arrested, and, removing his steel cap,
which was encircled by the rude representation of an ancient diadem, he
knelt before St. Thena, the recluse of that desert, and as yet nameless,
solitude.
No man knew from whence St. Thena came; she was the daughter of a
distant race, and her beauty, which was very great, had doubtless made
her seek the wilderness, that there, separated from the temptations of
the world, she might dedicate her days to God. For years her food had
been barley bread and a few wild-beans, to which, in times of great
scarcity, she added a little milk, and now and then a small fish, when
the receding waves left it on the shore near her cavern. Her prayer was
continual, and her tears often flowed for the benighted and still Pagan
state of many of her countrymen. She was good and gentle, and her face,
which was seldom seen (for, like her form, it was enveloped in her long
sackcloth garment), was said to be one of wondrous beauty. Many feared
but more loved her; and the wild huntsmen, and wilder warriors, when
they tracked either the foe or the red deer, through the vast woods or
along the desert shores of that far-winding river, avoided to disturb
the recluse, and blessed her peaceful life, after their own rude
fashion.
The fame of her virtue spread abroad; and through all the land of King
Lothus, from the waters of the Tay to those of the Abios, among the
northern Saxons, she became known for the austerity of her fasts and
other mortifications. Some averred she was the daughter of a king, and
that, like the blessed St. Ebba, she had fled to avoid an evil marriage;
others, that she was an angel, for the man who obtained even a glimpse
of her figure, with its floating garments, never bent the bow nor threw
the net in vain that day.
She stood with one arm around the neck of the deer, to protect it from
the intruder; that arm was bare to the elbow, and its whiteness was not
surpassed by the snowy coat of the fugitive. Her face was concealed by
the overshadowing hood; a rosy little mouth and one long ringlet of
golden hair were visible. The young king saw with pain, that her tender
feet had no protection from the flinty floor of the cavern--that flinty
floor whereon she knelt daily, before a rough wooden cross, which St.
Serf of Lochleven had fashioned for her with his own holy hands.
Timidly she gazed on the young Scottish king, whose strong and graceful
form was clad in a close-fitting hauberk of steel scales, and a tunic of
bright-coloured breacan, that reached to his knees, which were bare; his
sandals were covered with plates of polished brass, and were plaited
saltirewise to within six inches of his tunic. A crimson mantle hung
from his left shoulder, and on his right were his bow, fashioned of yew
from the forest of Glenure, and his arrows, feathered from the wings of
the swift eagles of Lochtreig.
"Warrior!" said the Recluse, "spare me this deer; it is the only living
thing that clings to me, or to which my heart yearns in this
wilderness."
"It is spared," replied the huntsman, lowering the bright point of his
spear; "but whence is it, gentle voice, that so much beauty and goodness
are hidden from the world; and that one so fair, so young, and so
queen-like, is vowed to this life of austerity and seclusion."
"Because my heart told me it was my vocation; and now, warrior, I pray
you to leave me, for I may not, and must not hold converse with men."
"Saint Thena, thou seest that I know thee," replied the young man
gently; "I am Eugene, the King of the fierce Scottish tribes that dwell
beyond the Grampians. Even there, among these distant mountains, we have
heard of thy holiness and piety; and I will bless the hour that led me
to thy cavern, for I have looked on a form that will never be
forgotten."
"And, king, what seekest thou here among these woods?"
"The white bull with its eyes of fire, and the great stags and wild elks
of this rich land of the Cruitnich; but say, gentle Thena, may I not
come again to have thy blessing ere I return to the wilds and wars of my
own dark mountains in the land of the west?"
The saint paused, and the young king saw that her bosom heaved. Another
long golden tress fell from her dark hood, and he could perceive, when
her lips unclosed, that her teeth were white as the pearls of his
diadem; again he urged, for an unholy curiosity burned within him, and
the poor Recluse replied,--
"Why should I shun thee? come, yes, and I shall bless thee; go, and I
shall bless thee likewise. God's will be done! I am armed against
temptation; but, O king! I am not above the tongue of reproach."
"Art thou not Thena, the saint, and the holy one?" replied the young
king; and, fearful lest she should retract her promise, he withdrew,
and, still more slowly and thoughtfully than before, pursued his way by
the echoing strand to the camp, where his bare-kneed Dalriads were
stretched on the grassy sward, with their bucklers cast aside and bows
unstrung, wiling away the sunny hours with bowls of blaedium, while the
harpers sang of the wars of Fingal of Selma, and Fergus the son of Erc.
But a spell had fallen upon the Recluse, and after the king was gone,
his voice seemed to linger in her ear, and his stately form was still
before her; with his shining hauberk, and his bright curling locks, that
glittered in the sunlight.
The next day's eve was declining.
The sun was setting, like a circle of flame, behind the western hills;
the waters of Bodoria rolled in light, and the bright green leaves of
its pathless shores were glittering with the early dew, when the king,
with a bugle in his baldrick, and a spear in his hand, again approached
the cavern of Thena. He was alone and unattended, save by his favourite
dog; one of those dark-eyed and deep-chested hounds of Albyn, rough,
shaggy, and gigantic, like the Bran of other days.
He entered softly. The saint was at prayer, and she knelt on the bare
step of her altar, which was a fragment of the living rock; a skull,
thrown by the waves upon the shore, was placed thereon; and above it
stood the cross of St. Serf. The white deer, which was asleep on the
Recluse's bed of dry leaves, sprang up on the stranger's entrance, and
cowered beside her.
Eugene paused till her orisons were over, and gazed the while with
wonder. Her hood had fallen back, and her long flowing hair, which
steel had never touched, fell in luxuriance to her knees. Reflected
from the glassy waters of the river, a ray of the setting sun entered
the cavern; her tresses shone in light, and she seemed something
ethereal, for they glittered like a halo of glory around her. The young
king was intoxicated; and a deep sigh escaped him.
It startled the Recluse, and as she turned, a glow of shame, perhaps of
anger, overspread her beautiful countenance.
The king implored her forgiveness.
And the gentle St. Thena forgave him; and in token, gave him a ring
which she had that morning found upon the shore; and the king vowed to
offer up a prayer for the donor, whenever he looked upon it.
Again and again the young king came to visit the fair inmate of that
lonely cavern. After a time she ceased to chide his visits; and though
she wept and prayed after his departure, and vowed to fly from him into
the wild-woods that covered the howe of the Lowland Ross, she still
lingered; and thus, day by day, the spell closed around her, and, day by
day, the king came to lay the unwished for, and unrequested, spoils of
the chase at her feet, until St. Thena learned to welcome him with
smiles, to wreathe her ringlets with her white fingers, to long for
evening, and to watch the fading sunlight as it died on the distant
sea--yea, to watch it with impatience, but not, as in other days, for
the hour of evening prayer.
It was surely a snare of the evil one to throw a handsome and heedless
young prince in the path of this poor recluse, who had neither the power
of St. Dunstan, when the fell spirit came to him in his cell at
Glastonbury, nor the virtue of St. Anthony, when he tempted him so
sorely in the old sepulchre wherein he dwelt at Como. Nothing short of
a blessed miracle could have saved her, and no miracle was wrought.
Her good angel covered his face with his wings, and St. Thena fell, as
her mother Eve had fallen before her......
On his caparisoned horse, with all the bells of its bridle jangling, the
wicked young king rode merrily along the sandy shore of the shining
river; and the red eyes of his great hound sparkled when he hallooed to
the dun deer, that on the distant ridges were seen against the western
sky, for it was evening now. Thus merrily King Eugene sought the camp
where his warrior huntsmen, impatient at his tarrying so long in the
land of the wheat-eaters, muttered under their thick beards that waved
in the rising wind, and pointed to the blue peak of the distant
Benlomond, that looked down on the lake, with all its wooded isles--the
lake where the fish swam without fins, the waves rolled without wind,
and the fairies dwelt on a floating islet.
St. Thena was very sad.
A deep grief and a sore remorse fell upon her; she confessed her errors
to good St. Serf, who dwelt on an isle of the lonely Leven, and the
saint blessed and absolved her, because she had sinned and repented.
Daily she prayed--yea, hourly--for the forgiveness of God; that the
youth might return no more; and, though he had seduced her from her vows
to heaven, that his presence might not be permitted to disturb her
sincere repentance.
But he came not; war had broken out on the western hills of Caledonia,
and, leaguing with Dovenald of Athole, Arthur, the son of Uther
Pendragon, was coming with his white-mantled Britons against the
bare-knee'd Dalreudini; and hastening to his home, where the seven
towers of Josina look down on the mountains of Appin, King Eugene
returned to St. Thena no more. Her remorse was bitter; but time, which
cureth all things, brought no relief to her, for she found that she had
become a mother; and there, unseen in that lonely cavern, gave birth to
a boy--the son of a Scottish king; and when she laid him on her bed of
soft leaves and dried grass, she thought of the little child Jesus, as
he lay in the manger at Bethlehem, and thought herself happy, vowing the
child to the service of God as an atonement for her own sin.
And, lo! it seemed to her as if, for a time, that the same star which
shone above Bethlehem sparkled on the pure forehead of the sinless babe,
and from that moment the heart of St. Thena rejoiced. All the mother
gushed upon her troubled soul, and she would have worshipped the infant,
for it was a miracle of beauty--and its feet and hands, they were so
tiny and so rosy, she was never tired of kissing them, and bedewing them
with her tears.
That night she felt happy, as, nestling beside her tame deer, the poor
recluse hushed her babe to sleep, and covered its little form with her
only garment, that it might not hear the wind mourning in those vast
forests that overshadowed the shore, where the waves of the eternal sea
were breaking in their loneliness.
I have said that Lothus was king of the land: he dwelt on the opposite
shore, which he called Lothian, from himself. Now it chanced that a
daughter of this king, attended by a train of maormars and ladies on
horseback, came to visit St. Thena, the fame of whose holiness had
spread from the rising to the setting sun. This princess, who was soon
to be espoused by Eugene king of the Scots, was a proud and a wicked
woman. St. Serf had recently converted her from Paganrie to the blessed
faith; but her secret love yet lingered after the false gods of her
fathers, and she still (as in her childhood) worshipped the crystal
waters of a fountain that flowed at her father's palace gate; for her
mother was of the tribe of the Lavernani, who dwelt on the banks of the
Gryfe.
Dismounting with softness and fear near the cavern, the princess paused
a moment to have her attire adjusted, that she might over-awe the poor
recluse by the splendour of its aspect. According to the fashion of the
Pictish virgins, her flaxen hair flowed over her shoulders; her tunic
was of scarlet cloth, and reached to her sandals; her mantle was of the
yellow linen then woven by the distant Gauls, and it was fastened on her
right shoulder by a shining beryl--an amulet of great virtue, which had
been given to her mother by the last arch-druid of the Lavernani, and,
filled with the vain thought of these things, she sought the presence of
St. Thena. She was sleeping.
Softly the princess drew near, and, lo! she saw the babe that slept in
the bosom of the recluse, and uttered a cry of spite and anger. St.
Thena awoke, and, while her face reddened with modest shame, she raised
one hand to shield the child, and the other in supplication.
"Hypocrite that thou art!" exclaimed the half Pagan princess, "is it for
_this_ that thou dwellest in caverns and lonely places, like the good
druids of our forefathers! Truly it was wise of thee; for thy deeds
require the cloak of darkness and obscurity. Ha!" she continued
scornfully, seeing that the saint wept, "dost thou weep in contrition
for thine abominable hypocrisy, or in terror of the punishment it so
justly merits, and which I may mete out to thee? And is it to visit
such as thee that I have endured so much in journeying through wild
places, by pathless woods and rocky rivers? Ha! if such as thou art a
priestess of the Christians' triple God, I say, welcome again be those
of Him who rideth on the north wind, and whose dwelling-place is in
yonder glorious sun, which we now see rising from his bed in the
waters."
This imperious lady, as a mark of disgrace, then ordered the beautiful
hair of St. Thena to be entirely cut off, and committed to the winds,
that the birds might line their nests with it; and she further commanded
her Pagan followers to place the poor recluse and her infant in a crazy
little currach, or boat of wickerwork and deerskin, and commit them to
the waters of the great river, that they might be borne to the distant
sea.
The boat was old and decayed; it had been used in war, and flint arrows
and spears had pierced its sides of skin. A human head and shoulders
dried in the wind, and tanned with the bark of the oak-tree, ornamented
its prow. Long ringlets of fair Saxon hair waved about its shrunken
ears, and two clam-shells filled its hollow eyelids; it was a horrible
and ghastly companion, and, when night came on, seemed like a demon of
the sea, leading the fallen saint to destruction.
Endlong and sidelong, the sport of the waves and the current, the boat
drifted down the broad Bodoria; the sun set behind the hills of the
west, and its last rays faded away from the mountain peaks that look
down on the valley of Dolour, and the waters of Sorrow and Care. The
sky grew dark, and the shores grew darker; there were no stars, but the
red sheet lightning gleamed afar off, revealing the rocky isles of the
widening estuary. Still the boat floated on, darkly and silently; and,
resigned to her fate, and pouring all her soul in prayer--but prayer
only for the poor infant that nestled in her bosom--St. Thena, overcome
with weariness, after a time sank to sleep; and then, more than ever,
did her good angel watch over her.
When she awoke, the sun had risen again; there was no motion; the little
bark was still. Thena looked around her. The currach was fast, high
and dry, upon a sandy beach; on one side, the broad and glassy river was
flowing past; on the other, were the green and waving woods of Rosse.[*]
An old man, with long flowing garments, and a beard of snow that floated
in the passing wind, approached; and in his bent form, and the
cross-staff on which he leant, she recognised St. Serf of the Isle, and
hurried to meet him, and implore his blessing on her babe. Then the
good man blessed it, and taking a little water from a limpid fountain
that poured over a neighbouring rock, he marked its little forehead with
the cross, and called the babe _Mungo_--a name which, he prophesied,
would become famous in future times.
[*] Fife, so called as it lay between the Tay and Forth; hence _Kinross_
and _Culross_, the head and back of Rosse.
And there, in that lonely place, where the fountain ran, the mother
built a cell, where she dwelt in holiness, rearing her boy for the
service of God; there she died in the odour of sanctity, and there she
was interred; and above her grave her son built an oratory, which is
called, even unto this day, by the burghers of Culross, the chapel of
St. Mungo.
His mother's feast is the 18th of July, in the Scottish calendar.
Reared by St. Serf, and trained up in the way he was to pursue, the
little boy, who imitated that man of God in all things, became, as he
waxed older, a pattern of Christian humility and piety; and those hours
which were not spent in labouring with his hands, that he might have
food and raiment to bestow on the sick, the aged, and the poor, (for he
called the poor the children of God,) he spent in prayer for the sins of
men; and long after the blessed Serf had passed to the company of the
saints, who are in heaven, the young man had waxed tall and strong,
stately in figure and beautiful in face; but the fame of his goodness
and sanctity exceeded even those of his pastor, until the simple people
of the land, who knew not he was the son of their king, began to assert
that his birth had been miraculous.
Now, after many days of deep meditation in the dark woods of Rosse, and
of prayer at the shrine of his sainted mother, for her intercession and
support, the young man took the staff of St. Serf, and set forth on a
pilgrimage to convert the benighted heathens of the south and west; for
there were many still in Mercia and the land of the Deirii, who in their
secret hearts worshipped fountains that sprung in lonely places, or made
human sacrifices in the depths of forests, and lit Beltane fires on the
lofty hills in honour of the rising sun; and so, moved by these things,
St. Mungo gave the little he possessed to the poor, and, undeterred by
the terrors of the journey, by the hostile tribes of savage men, and the
equally savage denizens of the vast forests that covered the plains and
mountains of Caledonia, the prowling wolves, the howling bulls, the
grisly bears and ravenous boars, he went forth to teach and baptize, to
convert and to save.
His under garment was sackcloth; his upper was the white skin of a
sheep; his head had no other covering than his own fair hair, which
curled upon his shoulders and mingled with his beard.
In that age there was no money in the land, save the old coins of the
Roman invaders, which the women wore as amulets, and so the saint took
no care for his sustenance. He had ever eternity before him; in the
morning reflecting that he might not see the night, in the night
reflecting that he might not see the morning. The acorns and the wild
herbs of the forest were his food; a little water in the hollow of his
hand quenched his thirst; and he regretted the time spent in these
necessities, as so much taken from the service of his Master. He
travelled throughout the whole isle of Britain, preaching, and taking no
rest; hence cometh the old proverb--Like the work of St. Mungo, which
never was done.
Now the fame of his preaching went far and wide, throughout the length
and breadth of the land, till King Eugene in his distant castle of
Dunolli, on the mountains of Midlorn, heard of the fame of St. Mungo,
and dedicated to him an island in western Lochleven, which still bears
his name, and it became the burial-place of the men of Glencoe, who name
it _Eilan Mundh_, or the Island of St. Mungo. But Eugene knew not that
the saint was his son, and as little did his queen, (with whom he lived
in continual strife,) suppose that he was the same little boy, whom,
with his mother, in that wicked moment of wrath and pride, she had
committed to the waters of Bodoria; and tidings came that he was
preaching and teaching the four gospels in the kingdom of Strathclyde,
where he was daily bringing into the fold of God those red-haired
Attacotti, who were said to be worshippers of fire and eaters of human
flesh. He brought them to repentance and a horror of their ways; they
levelled the stones of Loda, the altars of their wickedness, and
destroyed the temples of their dreadful idols. He baptized them in
thousands at a little stream that meandered through a plain to pour its
waters in the Clyde.
To the saint it seemed that this was like the place where his mother
lay; and there he built a bower among the alder-bushes, and rested for a
time from his pious labours.
Now, about this time, it chanced that the ring which St. Thena had found
upon the shore was the occasion of much discord between Eugene and his
Pictish queen; for, having bestowed it upon her as a gift at Yule-tide,
she had lost it, and thereby excited his jealousy. He swore by the
_black stones of Iona_, the great oath of the Gael, that she should die
a terrible death if the ring appeared not before the Beltane day; and,
within three days of that time, the queen in great tribulation appeared
at the bower on the Clyde, to seek the advice and consolation of St.
Mungo; for she had not evilly bestowed the jewel, but had lost it, and
knew not where or how; though she dreamt that a bird had flown away with
it, and dropped it in the sea.
Though he had learned, from his mother's prayers, of the wrong this
proud queen had done her, St. Mungo chid her not, but heard her story
benignantly; and she told him in touching language of the king's wrath,
and the value of the ring, for it had in it a pearl of great value: only
two such were found in the Dee--one was in that trinket, and the other
is at this hour in the Scottish diadem, where King Eugene placed it.
St. Mungo ordered one who stood near him to throw a baited line into the
Clyde, and, lo! there was drawn forth a noble salmon, having in its
mouth a beautiful ring. The queen knew it to be her own, and in a
transport of joy she vowed to found there a cathedral church, in honour
of God and St. Mungo, who should be first bishop of that see; and there,
where the alder-bower had stood, the great lamp of the western tribes
was founded and built, and the city that rose around was named Glasgow;
but the spot was then, as the old Cistertian monk of Furness tells us,
made pleasant by the shade of many a stately tree.
There, after preaching the gospel with St. David, and turning many away
from Pelagianism, after converting all the northern Picts, and building
an abbey at Culross, where his mother lay, St. Mungo, the first bishop
of Glasgow, passed away to the company of the saints, on the 13th day of
January, 603, having reached the miraculous age of a hundred and
eighty-five years; and there, in his cathedral church, we may yet see
his shrine, where many a miracle was wrought of old, when faith was
strong in the land, and where the pious of other days gifted many a
stone of wax for the candles at a daily mass for the repose of his soul.