island the voyagers beheld a horse-race, and heard the shouts of the
crowd; both jockeys and spectators were demons. It has been suggested
that this incident, for which no parallel exists, so far as I am aware,
in earlier narratives, may be of Norse origin; possibly it may be
one of those loans from classical literature before referred to, and
ecclesiastical influences may have depicted in Stygian colouring the
pagan Elysium in which departed heroes continue to ply their wonted
sports.[132] At the same time, it is possible that the writer may have
dealt in a like manner with the sports of Magh Mell, in Manannán’s
Elysium, described in the _Imram Bráin_. Of course, the question of
foreign importation turns upon the other question, whether horse-races,
as well as chariot-races, were known in Ireland at the date when the
_Voyage of Maelduin_ was written.
On another island they saw a party of demon smiths forging a mass of
glowing metal, which one of them threw after the curach, as Polyphemus
threw the rock after Odysseus.[133] On another they came to a huge,
hideous mill, and the miller, huge and hideous to match, told them
that the grist which he cast into his mill was all things that had
been begrudged on earth. This demon miller is rather a favourite
symbol in Irish legend, and is not confined to professedly religious
compositions. It occurs in the story of Mongán in a slightly different
form; in the Voyage of the sons of Ua Corra, who saw all manner of
precious things cast into the mill, and the miller told them, ‘I cast
into the mouth of the mill all things for which grudging has been made,
and ’tis the Miller of Hell I am’; and it survived in local tradition
as the _Muilleann Luprachán_ (Pixies’ Mill) near Tuam.[134]
There is something weirdly picturesque in this demon miller who casts
into his Mill of Vanities, and grinds down there, all the objects of
worldly covetise; the conception reminds us rather curiously of the
mystical Wheat-sieve in the carnival hymn of the Florentine Piagnoni,
_Il Trionfo del Vaglio_.
In striking contrast to these rude sketches of the infernal realm is
a short but vivid episode in which the subjects borrowed from the
primitive Elysium are rendered by a master’s hand. One island by which
the voyagers passed was surrounded by a wall of fire, which revolved
about the island continually. ‘There was an open doorway in the side of
that rampart. Now whenever the doorway would come (in its revolution)
opposite to them, they used to see (through it) the whole island and
all that was therein, and all its indwellers, even human beings,
beautiful, abundant, wearing adorned garments, and feasting, with
golden vessels in their hands. And the wanderers heard the ale-music.
And for a long space were they seeing the marvel they beheld, and
they deemed it delightful’ (trans. W. S., _loc. cit._).[135] Never
perhaps in sacred or profane literature has a passage of equal brevity
portrayed with equal vividness that Celestial Feast which, as fact
or symbol, enters into every creed; from the gross delights of that
‘humbler heaven’ which ‘kindly Nature’ has given to the hopes of
primitive man, to the imagery wherewith higher creeds seek to picture
the indescribable _ben dell’ intelletto_. There is no superfluous
detail, and none is needed, but the picture flashes out before the
reader’s eye as it did before Maelduin and his crew--that ideal region,
cut off from the wanderers by a fiery wall which forbids their access,
but grants them a fleeting vision before they pass on their way.
This tale contains a group of incidents which are largely represented
in the Acts of the Irish Saints. On one island an old hermit, fifteenth
in descent from St. Brenainn of Birr, dwelt beside a lake. Hard by,
a great eagle, very old, alighted, bearing in his beak a branch and
berries on it. Two other eagles came and picked off the vermin which
infested the plumage of the first; they then ate of the berries and
cast others into the lake, after which the old eagle plunged into the
water, and washed until his youthful vigour returned to him, after
which they all flew away. One of Maelduin’s crew bathed in the lake
wherein the berries had been cast, and lost neither tooth nor hair,
nor suffered from any infirmity until the day of his death. As we have
seen, mystical birds abound in Irish descriptions of the Otherworld,
but in the present curious episode we can easily recognise the
classical legend of the Phœnix. Mr. Nutt well develops this point in
the essay to which we have so often had occasion to refer, and gives an
interesting parallel in an Anglo-Saxon poem on the Phœnix. For this,
and the discussion thereon, we must refer the reader to Mr. Nutt’s
work. We may note the very characteristic way in which the Irish writer
adapts the foreign incident to the accepted forms of the national
literature. The rejuvenescence of the eagle is effected not by fire
but by water, which owes its properties to certain berries dropped
therein, these evidently belonging to the species which dropped from
the quicken-trees--a variant of the hazels of Buan--into the wells
where the Salmon of Knowledge consumed them, and thereby acquired his
supernatural virtues.
Another island was covered with trees, which were the resort of birds;
and here dwelt a man, clad with his own hair. This was a pilgrim from
Ireland who had been wrecked on the island, and the birds were his
children, with whom he was to abide there till Doomsday.
Another anchorite, likewise clad with his own hair, dwelt upon an
island surrounded with a golden rampart, and the ground of the island
was white as down.[136] He was fed by a fountain, which ran on
Wednesdays and Fridays with whey or water, on Sundays and the feasts of
Martyrs with good milk, and on High Days with ale or wine.
On yet another island dwelt a hermit covered with white hair, so
that he looked like a white bird. He had been cook at the monastery
of Torach, where he used to embezzle and sell the provisions of the
community, and hoard the proceeds, until he became exceeding rich,
and waxed proud. One day he was bidden bury a peasant; on digging the
grave, he was accosted by a corpse already buried on the spot, who
forbade him to lay that sinner’s corpse atop of him, a holy man. The
cook asked the corpse what boon he would grant him for compliance;
the corpse replied, ‘Eternal life’; and the cook found another
resting-place for the peasant. Some time later, the cook felt a desire
to quit the island, so he set forth in a curach, laden with all his
ill-gotten wealth. At sea he was hailed by a man seated upon a wave,
who told him that all the air about him was thick with demons, because
of his pride and thefts, and bade him fling all his riches into the
sea. He obeyed, reserving to himself only a little wooden cup. The
man gave him seven cakes and a cupful of whey-water, which the cook
carried to a rock, and this was his only food for seven years, after
which time he had lived on salmon which an otter had brought him
periodically.[137] In the man sitting upon the wave, it is impossible
not to recognise an adaptation of Manannán Mac Lír, who drove over the
waves in his chariot to meet Bran.
The prevalence of the island-hermit incident in Irish legend is
accounted for by the early history of the Irish Church. The pastoral
duties and missionary work of the early saints necessitated frequent
voyages to the Western Isles of Scotland, to Britain and to Gaul,
while that passion for solitude and retirement, which alternated in
them with an intense activity in their calling, and even a vehement
partizanship in public life, found full gratification on the small
islands which fringe the western coasts of Ireland. These islands
naturally became the scene of those miracles which in Ireland, as
elsewhere, clustered about the names of the saints; but here, as in
other things, a strong nationality asserted itself, and recollections
of the island Paradise of antiquity entered largely into the legends
of the saints, rendering easy the transition from the island retreat
to the Paradise where the saints dwelt with Enoch and Elijah, beside
the Tree of Life, amid the songs of the bird-souls of the righteous. No
doubt a certain number of these wandering saints would be blown out of
their course to strange lands, and bring back tidings of the wonders
they had actually seen, which would lose nothing in their passage from
mouth to mouth. One such case is reported by Adamnán himself, that
of one Baitan, who set out with several others in quest of an ocean
solitude, but returned after long wanderings.[138]
In the _Voyage of the Curach of the Ua Corra_,[139] the ethical and
eschatological element is entirely in the ascendant. Conall Dearg
ua Conaill Fhinn, a rich and hospitable noble of Connacht, being
discontented at having no children, entered into a compact with the
Devil, who undertook that Conall should have children, on condition
that they should belong to himself. In due time Conall’s wife bore him
triplets, who received ‘heathen baptism’ by the names of Lochan, Einne,
and Silvester. These grew up to be mighty men of valour; howbeit,
they considered that as they belonged to the Devil, it was hard if
they might not harry his enemies. Accordingly, they set themselves to
plunder and burn the churches and monasteries of Tuam, and of half
Connacht besides. Finally, they proposed to add the last touch to their
guilt by murdering the Erenach of Clogher, their mother’s father,
and burning his church on him. The better to effect their purpose,
they visited the Erenach and partook of his hospitality, and went to
sleep, awaiting the coming of night. Then Lochan had a dream, wherein
he saw Hell with its four rivers, one of them full of toads, another
of serpents, the third running fire, and the fourth ice. He also saw
the ‘Piast of Hell,’ ‘and abundance of heads and feet on it,’ ‘the
old Dragon’ often appears in Irish sacred legend. He was then taken
to Heaven, and saw ‘the Lord Himself on His throne, and bird-flocks
of angels making music to Him,’ the sweetest singer of all being
Michael, in form of a bird. On waking, he related his vision to his
brethren, and they all, moved to repentance, vowed thenceforth to serve
God instead of the Devil. Accordingly, ‘they made staves of their
spear-shafts,’ instead of beating their spears into pruning-hooks,
and betook themselves to St. Finden of Clonard, to whom they made
confession. He instructed them in religion for a year and a day, and
then bade them go and restore the churches which they had destroyed.
This they did; and then, ‘one day when they came forth over the edge
of the haven, they were contemplating the sun, as he went past them
westwards, and they marvelled much concerning his course. “And in what
direction goes the sun,” say they, “when he goes under the sea? And
what more wondrous thing,” say they, “than the sea without ice, and ice
on every other water?”’[140]
These reflections, so typical of the old Irish attitude towards Nature,
although to us they may seem to be more in keeping with the ideas of
much more recent times, awoke in the Ui Corra that spirit of wandering,
than which, perhaps, no other Leanamhán Sidhe casts more potent spells
on man. They got a friend, a wright, to build them a ship, wherein they
embarked, with a bishop, a priest, a deacon, a shipwright, a buffoon,
and a servant, being nine in all; then, at the bishop’s bidding, they
committed themselves to the guidance of the winds.
The incidents of the voyage and the lands they visited resemble those
described in the Voyage of Maelduin, several of the islands at which
they touched exhibiting the _mise en scène_ of pagan legend, adapted
in the usual manner to the Christian drama. Thus on one of these
islands they found an orchard of fair, fragrant apple-trees, and a most
beautiful river flowing through it; and ‘when the wind would move the
tree-tops of the grove, sweeter was their song than any music’ (trans.
W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). And the apples and the river, which was of
wine, cured all wounds and sickness. Many of the adventures belong to
the common stock of wonder voyages; here, as in the Voyage of Maelduin,
mention is made of the island uplifted above the sea by a pedestal,
whence the voices of the islanders could be heard, but the speakers not
seen; of the watery arch, the pillar and net, the demon smiths, etc. On
one island flowers were growing as big as tables, dropping honey, and
about them beautiful bright bird-flocks were singing. Here dwelt a ‘son
of the Church,’ Dega, a disciple of the Apostle Andrew, who had gone
on a pilgrimage across the ocean to expiate his having forgotten his
nocturn one night; he was awaiting Doomsday on that island, together
with the birds, who were the souls of holy human beings.
In these islands, the abode of pilgrims and hermits until Doomsday,
we have, in a pagan setting, the limbo of the _boni sed non valde_. A
little further on, we come to what is the first incident of a purely
Purgatorial nature occurring in this class of literature. One island
was divided into two parts--the one part inhabited by the living, the
other by the dead. Multitudes were lying there on red-hot flagstones,
with red-hot spits through them, howling terribly as a fiery sea sent
its billows of flame over them. These were they who had failed to make
expiation for their sins on earth, and were tormented in this manner
until Doomsday.
The voyagers also perceived flocks of birds rising from out of a river,
pursued by eels, otters, and black swans. These were the spirits of the
damned, let out of Hell for a day’s respite on Sundays, though they
were not allowed to enjoy this boon in peace, for the eels, etc., were
demons that kept pursuing them. One of these birds had three beautiful
rays on its breast; this was a woman who had forsaken her husband,
but had brought him food when sick and in want. This notion that the
damned were periodically allowed a day’s holiday[141] was generally
accepted by the early Church in Ireland, as elsewhere. Sometimes, as
here, this was believed to take place so often as every Sunday; by
some, only on the great festivals of the Church, as Christmas Day and
Easter. Our author, like several other of the Irish Churchmen, was
a strict Sabbatarian, and gives to violations of the Sunday a place
disproportionately large, visiting them with a severity that seems
excessive. For instance, a solitary rower was rowing with a fiery spade
upon a fiery river, the waves of which kept breaking over him; this was
a boatman who had plied his trade on Sunday. The lurid picturesqueness
of this figure, worthy of Dante, is spoiled by the disproportion
between crime and punishment. A horseman bestrode a fiery horse; he had
stolen his brother’s horse, and ridden him on a Sunday. There was also
a black, smoky giant, carrying an iron staff as big as a mill-shaft,
and flakes of fire, as big as fleeces, coming out of his throat. This
was no Typhoeus, nor heresiarch, nor conqueror, the scourge of nations,
but a man who had carried firewood on a Sunday; for this he now bore on
his back a bundle of faggots, the load of six oxen, which would blaze
up, ever and anon, when he would fling himself into the sea, ‘but it
was increase of pain to him.’
Reference has already been made to the demon miller, grinding the
world’s vain riches. One island was peopled by men wailing aloud as
they were mangled by the fiery red beaks and talons of sable birds,
while their tongues were aflame within their heads; these were
dishonest smiths.
Other islands which the Ui Corra visited were variants of the earthly
Paradise, being inhabited by pilgrims, solitaries, etc., like those
already described.
The _Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla_[142] is equally Christian in
conception, and in some respects approximates yet more closely to the
eschatology of the _Fis_. The men of Ross, unable to endure the tyranny
of Fiacha, their chief, killed him, thereby rendering themselves liable
to death. At the instance of St. Colm Cille, this doom was commuted
to the old Irish punishment of exposure on the sea; and they were
set adrift, sixty couples of them, in as many small boats, ‘for God
to judge them.’ It was Snedgus and Mac Ríagla that were sent to bear
this sentence to them, and shortly afterwards they embarked on their
own account to make a pilgrimage to the East. After visiting several
islands of the familiar type, they came to one whereon was a great
tree, and many beautiful birds perched thereon. And ‘melodious was the
music of those birds, singing psalms and canticles, praising the Lord.
For they were the birds of the plain of Heaven, and neither trunk nor
leaf of that tree decayed’ (trans. W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). On the top
of the tree sat a great bird, with a head of gold and wings of silver,
who told of the Creation of the World, of the Nativity, Baptism,
Passion, Resurrection, etc.; ‘and he tells tidings of Doom; and then
all the birds used to beat their sides with their wings, so that
showers of blood dropt out of their sides, for dread of the tidings of
Doom’ (_Ibid._).
After which they came to a land where they found the banished men of
Ross, who were to abide there until Judgment, for they were guiltless
in what they had done; Fiacha having apparently deserved his fate.
‘Good is this island,’ they said, ‘wherein we are, for in it are Elijah
and Enoch, and noble is the dwelling wherein is Elijah.’ And they
showed the voyagers a lake of water and a lake of fire, which should
long since have come over Éire, had not St. Patrick and St. Martin been
praying for the land. The travellers asked to see Enoch, but were told
that he was ‘in a secret place, until we shall all go to battle on the
Day of Judgment.’[143]
We might have expected to find Enoch and Elijah in the Terrestrial
Paradise, in company of the bird-flocks, as in other writings, but
the construction of the _Imram_ was commonly loose. The introduction
of them shows that the fusion of the national traditions with the
teaching of the Church was now complete. This is equally apparent in
the description of another island, on which they landed: ‘A great lofty
island, and all therein was delightful and hallowed. Good was the king
that abode in this island, and he was holy and righteous,’ etc. (trans.
W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). His dún had one hundred doors; at each door
was an altar, and at each altar a priest, celebrating the Eucharist.
This king and his dún again remind us of the castle of the Graal.
We have now traced, in outline, the development of the Otherworld
theory in Irish legend, from its primitive conception as a Land of
Cockayne, presided over by the Dagda, with his inexhaustible ale-vat
and ready-roasted pigs, to its identification with the Terrestrial
Paradise, though without losing its distinctive features. One step
only remained to be taken before the _Imram_, thus modified, should
pass beyond the country of its birth, and assume a prominent place in
the literature of mediæval Europe. This step was taken in the group
of stories--some legendary, others more or less historic, though
intermingled with legendary matter--which narrated the voyages of
the Irish Saints, or, rather, in that most famous example of its
class which purports to give an account of the travels of St. Brendan
of Clonfert, surnamed ‘the Voyager.’ So entirely does it surpass
all others in popularity and influence, and especially in those
circumstances which connect it with our subject, that it may be taken
as the representative of its class; as, however, it is later in date of
composition than the _Fis Adamnáin_, and even reproduces some passages
of the latter, it may be left for a later section.
The authors of the Voyages of the Ui Corra, and of Snedgus and Mac
Ríagla, had not only given an entirely Christian tone to the _Imram_,
but, without abandoning the imagery of the Otherworld handed down by
the national traditions, had blent therewith a number of conceptions
derived through the medium of the Apocalyptic literature of the early
Church from both classical and Hebraistic sources. Further, they
prepared the transition from the _Imram_ to the _Fis_.[144]
The Visions of the Saints figure prominently in the hagiology of
Ireland as of other countries; not all of them, however, related to the
Otherworld, or, in particular, treated the Otherworld as a subject in
itself, and not merely as the medium for conveying some moral lesson,
or for revealing the fate of an individual. Adamnán, in his _Life of
St. Colm Cille_, one of his authentic works, states that the saint
was often rewarded with angelic intercourse, and received frequent
revelations concerning the fates of the good and of the wicked.[145]
However, the most famous of these Visions, with the exception of that
of Adamnán, were those of St. Fursa (_c._ 570-_c._ 650 A.D.), which
derived additional celebrity from the mention made of them by Bede in
his _Ecclesiastical History_.[146]
The exact place of St. Fursa’s birth and race appear to be unknown,
though it seems that he was a Munsterman. The principal scene of his
early ministrations was the neighbourhood of Loch Orbsen (Corrib),
and he afterwards spent some time as a hermit upon an island in the
ocean. At a later date he visited England, probably about 633 A.D.,
as recorded by Bede, and won the favour and respect of Sigebert, King
of East Anglia. The monastery of Burghcastle, in Suffolk, was founded
under his auspices, and his labours were attended with many conversions
among the Saxons. He next passed over to Gaul, where he enjoyed a
great reputation, and exercised influence over King Clovis II. In Gaul
he founded the monastery of Lagny, and a branch of it at Perronne.
Fursa’s visions of the Otherworld must have appeared to him before his
visit to England, probably during the solitude of his ocean retreat.
However, he continued to see visions, of one sort or other, during the
latter part of his life. Indeed, it is probable that in his case, as in
so many others, the visions were largely produced by physical causes--a
constitutional tendency, stimulated by special circumstances--for we
read that the first of his visions came to him in a trance, during an
illness, and the rest after long fasting.
In the first vision, his soul was conveyed out of the body, and ‘he was
graced with the sight and the hearing of the praises of the Heavenly
Hosts.’ Three days later, he was again taken by three angels, who
represented the Trinity, and borne through clouds of hideous, misshapen
demons, who attempted to bar his progress, and cast at him showers of
fiery arrows, which the leading angel caught on his buckler.[147] On
their way they passed by Satan, who raised up his head, like that of a
serpent, and argued against Fursa’s acceptance into Eternal Life, by
reason of the sins to which he was prone, and among these, chiefly,
a vindictive spirit; but although he showed that ‘the Devil can cite
Scripture for his purpose,’ the angels answered his arguments, and
they passed on. Then Fursa, like Scipio in the ‘Dream,’ was bidden to
look back upon the world; and it appeared to him as it were a dark
valley, and in the air about it four fires were burning. These were the
fires that destroy the world; and the first fire was Neglect of the
Baptismal Vow to renounce the Devil and his works; the second fire was
Covetousness; the third Dissension, and the fourth Injustice. Fursa
descried a fire approaching, and was dismayed; but the angel said to
him, ‘What thou hast not kindled shall not consume thee’; for the fire
tried every one according to his works; and ‘as the body is consumed
by self-willed pleasure, so shall the soul burn with everlasting
punishment.’ The doctrine is as old as the Rabbis, but the moral lesson
is here finely conceived and forcibly conveyed. Seven times more did as
many demons in succession attempt to bar Fursa’s progress, contesting
his right to admittance with various eristic arguments, supported by
texts of Scripture. It is to be remarked that the obstacles which
commonly obstruct the hero’s access to the enchanted lands of fable,
and often survive in theological adaptations of the subject, have
here assumed an aspect almost purely intellectual and spiritual. All
objections having been satisfactorily answered by the angels, Fursa
found himself surrounded by a great brightness, and saw vast multitudes
of angels and saints flying with wings in motion. Among these Fursa
recognised several friends, with whom he held converse. He then
approached a region of serener air, where the angelic host, disposed
in four choirs, were singing the _Tersanctus_. Here he received long
instructions in theology and morals, which he was bidden to announce
to the princes and prelates of Ireland; he was then conducted back to
his body. On the way, a great fire approached in a threatening manner;
the angels diverted it, but from out of the midst of it demons shot
forth a sinner, aiming him at Fursa. The angels cast him back, but not
until he had struck Fursa’s shoulder and burnt it. This was a sinner
from whom Fursa had accepted a cloak, while ministering to him on his
deathbed.[148]
Another of the Visions of the Irish saints, attributed to St.
Laisrén, has been made available for the first time by Professor Kuno
Meyer.[149] This Laisrén, he thinks, was probably the most celebrated
of the many saints bearing that name, the Abbot of Lethglenn (Leighlin)
in the Co. Carlow, who died in the year 638. From the mere fragment
that survives, it would seem that the complete Vision must have treated
the subject with great fulness, though a part of Laisrén’s visit to
Hell is all that is left. It is more in the style of Fursa’s vision
than that of Adamnán, though it differs from both in certain respects,
notably in the manner of the revelation to the seer of the vision.
Laisrén had gone to Cluain Cháin, in Connacht, to purify a church
there, and after nine days’ fasting fell asleep. In his sleep he heard
a voice say ‘Arise!’ and upon this command being repeated, he raised
his head, crossing himself. The church was all lighted up, and between
the chancel and the altar stood a shining figure, who said to him,
‘Come towards me!’ At this Laisrén was seized with a trembling, and in
some mysterious manner he became aware that his own spirit was parted
from the body, and was hovering over his head. The roof of the church
then opened, and two angels, taking Laisrén’s soul between them, bore
him aloft into the air, where a host of angels received him. Further
progress was opposed by three hordes of fiery demons, armed with fiery
spears and darts, one of whom preferred against Laisrén a long charge,
enumerating all the sins which he had committed since birth, and of
which he had failed to make confession; ‘and the demon said nothing
that was not true.’ However, ‘an angel of the great host’ succeeded in
answering all charges, and dismissed the demons; he then bade Laisrén’s
conductors take him to see Hell. The two angels let him down into a
glen lying towards the north, which seemed to be as long as from the
rising of the sun to his setting. They entered into a pit like a cave
between two mountains, and at length came to a lofty black mountain,
in the upper part of which was a glen, broad below and narrow above,
and this was the porch of Hell. In the midst of the glen Laisrén saw
very many of the people of Ireland, wailing; so many that he thought
a pestilence must have brought them thither, but the angel explained
that ‘whoever is under the displeasure of God after thee, here do
they behold (their) souls, and this is their certain fate, unless
they repent’ (tr. K. M., _loc. cit._). Laisrén would fain have spoken
to them, but the angel forbade it, ‘lest they despair.’ However, he
enjoined Laisrén to preach repentance to them, whereby they should
escape that evil. ‘And again, he who shall live in righteousness, he
sees life while he is in the body, and he shall be in life if he is
steadfast in righteousness. Tell them also,’ said the angel, ‘that he
who lives in righteousness be steadfast in it, for there is not much
time for them to consider, until death comes to them’ (_Ibid._).
They entered into Hell, and saw a wild and billowy sea of fire, and
the souls aflame therein, wailing, their heads above the surface. Some
had fiery nails through their tongues, others through the ears, or the
eyes; others, again, were being driven by demons with fiery forks.
Laisrén, asking what these different torments might mean, was told
that those with nails through their tongues had been less frequent in
worship and praise than in blasphemy, falsehood, prying, and boasting.
Here the fragment breaks off.
In his preface to the foregoing work, Professor Meyer appears to
anticipate further discoveries in this field of research; however,
of all the Irish Visions yet brought to light, the _Fis Adamnáin_
excels the rest in interest and importance even more completely than
the Voyage of St. Brendan excels all other members of its own class,
and may be regarded as the type of its _genre_, in its most highly
developed form.
Before proceeding to examine the contents of that _Fis_, we may glance
at two other works by Irish ecclesiastical writers which show that a
great part of the imagery and incidents contained alike in the sacred
_Imram_ and in the _Fis_ belonged to a common stock of ideas current in
the Irish eschatology of that period.
One of these is the _Scél Lái Brátha_ (‘Tidings of Doomsday’), a homily
ascribed to ‘Matthew, son of Alphæus,’ which is preserved in the
_Lebor na h-Udri_, and was therefore written in the eleventh century
at latest.[150] In it occurs the familiar distinction between the
_Mali sed non valde_ and the _Mali valde_, both of whom are condemned
in their several degrees; the _Boni sed non valde_, who are finally
saved by virtue of their almsgiving, and the _Boni valde_, who go
direct to Heaven. This classification, though not expressly made in
the _Fis Adamnáin_, lies at the root of the scheme of rewards and
punishments there set forth. Indeed, Professor Zimmer points out the
frequency of this division in works written by Irish authors or under
Irish influences.[151] The _Limbus patrum_, the _Limbus infantium_,
etc., represent similar attempts of the mediæval theologians to provide
for cases which do not seem to them to be adequately dealt with by the
broader distinctions. Dante, in effect, adopts an analogous fourfold
arrangement; the infernal regions inside and without the City of Dis
being allotted to sinners of greater or less degree of guilt, while the
system of Purgatory is adapted to the respective cases of the _Boni
valde_ and the _Boni sed non valde_ respectively.
In its descriptions of both regions of the Otherworld, the homily
presents several points of resemblance to the _Fis Adamnáin_. ‘In no
wise pleasant is the path of the sinful; they find not food nor drink,
but perpetual hunger, great thirst, and bitter cold. Then they are
conducted to the Devil’s house amid the sound of despair and heavy,
long-drawn moaning. Piteous are the crying and wailing, the weeping and
sighing, the mourning and smiting of hands of the sinners, as they are
dragged towards Hell’s torments. But theirs is the weariness of remorse
without avail; for their prayer is not heard there, seeing that they
had not hearkened aforetime while they were in this life, body and soul
dwelling together.’ Here, too, we have the simile of the closing of the
locks, which are here threefold: ‘to wit, the closing of Hell upon them
through ages everlasting; the closing of their eyes to the world upon
which they had set their love; and the closing of the Kingdom of Heaven
against them.’ The description of the torments of Hell is copious and
varied. Cold, gloomy tracts, abounding in dark, fœtid lakes, alternate
with regions of glowing though murky flames,[152] where the sinners
stand on red-hot flagstones. Herein swarm monsters of various kinds:
adders, toads, cats which rend the damned, demons who torment them and
hew them with swords, and, above all, the Piast, the old serpent--‘a
strange serpent,’ indeed, for he is depicted with one hundred necks,
and one hundred heads on each, and five hundred teeth in every mouth;
one hundred arms he has, one hundred hands on every arm, and one
hundred claws on every hand.[153]
There is little attempt made to discriminate between the penalties
accorded to different kinds of guilt.
Heaven is described in the same rhapsodical style as in the _Fis
Adamnáin_, the _Félire Oengusa_, etc.
Another moral treatise is the _Dá Brón Flatha Nime_, ‘The Two Sorrows
of the Kingdom of Heaven,’ _i.e._ the two sorrows referred to ch. 33
of the _Fis Adamnáin_. Here, too, Elias is represented as standing in
Paradise, the Gospels in his hand, and he preaching to the birds that
perch on the Tree of Life, eating its berries.[154]
5. THE FIS ADAMNÁIN
The general plan of the _Fis Adamnáin_ is distinguished from that
of the other similar writings that have come down to us by an
architectonic character to which they can make no claim. The structure
proper to the _Imram_ was, in great measure, that of a framework into
which a greater or less number of incidents could be fitted, according
to the author’s taste, without impairing the general effect; the same,
in a somewhat less degree, may be said of the _Echtra_, which are more
nearly akin to the romance of adventure than to the epic. The early
Christian writers, again, solely intent upon edification, and being for
the most part men of little culture--for this species of composition,
after all, was but a by-way of ecclesiastical literature--were usually
content to repeat a few topics belonging to the common stock of ideas
prevalent in their day, and paid but little heed to literary effect,
or even to the clear conception, or orderly presentment, of their
subject.[155]
Thus, in the _Fis Adamnáin_, we have the first serious attempt made
between the Vision of Enoch and the _Commedia_ of Dante, either to
think the subject thoroughly out, or to treat it in a literary spirit:
an attempt on the part of the author to construct in his own mind some
distinct idea of the Otherworld, and to present his conception to his
readers in a coherent form. In some respects, indeed, the construction
of it is superior to that of its early predecessor, for, with due
allowance made for the topographical minuteness displayed by the
author of the Book of Enoch in his reproduction, in the description of
Hell, of the details of his model, the _Fis_ manifests a more complete
grasp of the subject as a whole, while it gains by the omission of the
voluminous discussion of things celestial and sublunary, in which the
older writer indulges, and which can only encumber a work conceived
with less breadth and executed with less power than Dante, and he
alone, has brought to the task.
All the same, it cannot be denied that these architectonic qualities
are still at a rudimentary stage, and the very fact that so moderate an
exercise of constructive power should suffice to set this work, as a
literary achievement, so far above all other precursors of Dante, does
but enhance our appreciation of the height at which the stately edifice
of his creation towers above all previous efforts.
The structural imperfections of the _Fis Adamnáin_ are enhanced by the
appearance of composite design which the work bears in its present
form, being apparently made up from two distinct versions, or else
having been ‘perfected’ by some redactor by the addition of other
matter. The latter explanation seems to us most probable. The first
twenty chapters contain a complete and consistent account of the
soul’s progress from death to judgment, followed by his relegation
to the place which he has merited. It is this part of the work which
displays that care for construction already noticed; a great part of
the details, whether of native or foreign origin, which had come to be
accepted as conventional features of the _Fis_ or sacred _Imram_, is
here rejected, and the borrowings from the old romantic literature,
though still abundant, are made duly subservient to the general
design. This part, moreover, together with the peroration in chapter
32, bears testimony, by way of direct reference and otherwise, to the
author’s possession of a greater erudition, and a wider culture, than
were evinced by most of those who had treated of the same subject.
Thus, apparently, we are entitled to conjecture that chapters 1-20,
chapter 31 (probably), and chapter 32, may represent the work which
originally purported, not, indeed, to have been written by Adamnán, but
to contain the account of a vision seen and already related by him. If
this hypothesis be correct, then the evidences of superior culture and
erudition, apparent in this part of the work, and entirely consistent
with what we know of Adamnán, increase the probability that it is
founded upon some more or less accurate tradition of a vision actually
related by him. For, to repeat what has been said on an earlier page,
there is nothing but what is natural and probable in the tradition that
Adamnán beheld, or composed for spiritual edification, a vision of the
kind then so much in vogue, and took the occasion of a great concourse
of the chief men of Ireland in order to promulgate it; while it is
equally probable that a man of his culture and acquirements should have
expended upon his task an originality and executive skill previously
unknown, and altogether improbable that a work of one of the foremost
and most famous men of his day, after being thus publicly made known,
should have been left unrecorded save by the passing mention of a
chronicler.
To return to the structure of the _Fis_: at the end of the first
twenty chapters, all that was necessary, in order to complete the
design, was to bring Adamnán back into Paradise, and to dismiss him
with the admonition to communicate what he had seen and heard, as
in chapter 31, after which the peroration in chapter 32 naturally
follows, and forms a fitting conclusion to the whole. However, it
would seem that the redactor, following the example frequently set by
mediæval compilers, who knew not how often the half is better than the
whole, and were apt to look on perfection as consisting rather in the
abundance of matter than in the due disposition of it, has attempted
to supplement the design of the original author by the introduction of
additional details which had long ere then become matters of common
form in descriptions of the Otherworld. Even so, however, it must be
admitted that he has managed his transitions with more than common
skill. Although the wording of chapter 20 suggests that it was the
intention of the original author to represent the fate of the lost
in concise but impressive terms--a plan quite in keeping with the
general tone of restraint which pervades the work--it might yet have
been quite consistent with his design to insert the usual description
of the various torments with which the different kinds of sinners are
afflicted, and such a description would follow on quite naturally in
the place where it actually occurs in the existing text. But the author
of this part, whether the original author or a later editor, does
not rest content with such a description; he introduces what amounts
to a structural alteration of the work, and that in a style wholly
inconsistent with the design of the earlier part. For in that part the
road has been fully traced by which the departed spirits have already
reached their final habitations; now, however, their pilgrimage is
resumed anew, and the familiar bridge incident appears in chapter 21,
where it discharges its usual double function of an approach to the
Divine Presence, and of a sieve, or winnowing fan, as it were, for
separating the wheat from the chaff. Wholly consistent as this is with
mediæval eschatology, it is entirely inconsistent with the general
plan of the present work, whereby that separation is effected by quite
other means. Minor inconsistencies occur in the purgatorial nature of
several of the punishments described in this second part, for we might
expect that all requirements of the kind had been fulfilled during
the soul’s progress through the seven so-called Heavens. These small
inconsistencies, of themselves, would count for little, and might be
regarded as faults of construction on the author’s part, or as the
result of the imperfect development of the purgatorial theory, which
leads to similar inconsistencies in other writings of this class, where
a clear distinction is not often made between a normal process of
purgation in the intermediate state, and the postponement, in special
cases, of the final decision; occurring as they do, they acquire a
certain significance as tending to accentuate the divergence of plan in
the two parts of the work.
A similar addition, attributable to the same motives, would appear to
exist in the last three chapters of the work. As already suggested,
chapter 32 would bring the work to a satisfactory conclusion; however,
the mediæval compiler was commonly a simple-minded person; for him,
as for ‘honest Diggory,’ the ‘old grouse in the gunroom’ possessed an
infinite variety which age could not wither, nor custom stale, and,
like a child or peasant, he objected to a familiar tale being omitted
in its usual place, or being shorn of its proper incidents. The picture
of Enoch and Elijah beside the Tree of Life in Paradise, surrounded by
the bird-flocks of the righteous to whom Elijah preached the Gospel,
had become one of the most familiar and picturesque features of the
Irish Paradise; therefore a place must be found for it. The most
obvious place would be that part of Heaven where, as it is, the birds
are described as singing the hours in the Divine Presence, and there,
we can hardly doubt, the original author would have inserted it, had he
chosen to make use of the familiar image. However, it must, I think,
be admitted that he exercised a wise discretion in omitting it,
graceful and picturesque as it is; for he has constructed his scheme
of Heaven after what must seem to us the most obvious and appropriate
plan, though one which, strangely enough, found little favour with his
compeers: he has made the enthroned Deity the centre of all, so that
to have introduced a further group about a subordinate centre would
have been to break into the design. We may therefore be grateful to
the hypothetical redactor for appending the episode merely by way of
a _coda_, without obtruding it into what would have been its proper
place, but in which there was no room for it. In so doing, he may have
desired to give the work a devout and edifying termination, and to
close it, as it were, with a sacred voluntary.
We may now proceed to recapitulate some of the principal features of
the _Fis_, even at the risk of a certain amount of repetition, in order
to show at a glance the relation in which it stands to other writings
of the same class, both native and foreign.
The work opens with an exordium in praise of the Creator, regarded
chiefly in His capacity of Righteous Judge, and Dispenser of rewards
and punishments, the aspect of Him most pertinent to the subject
in hand. Already, in this formal opening, we seem to recognise
the existence of a deliberate plan, whereby the present work is
distinguished from others of its class, and this impression is
strengthened as the author goes on to cite, by way of precedent or
authority, similar revelations that had been vouchsafed to holy men
of earlier date than Adamnán. These authorities have already been
considered in Section 3 of the present part; apparently, however, the
account of the vision which the Apostles beheld upon the death of the
Virgin Mary, to which the author had access, must have been more ample
than in the group of apocryphal writings to which we have referred. We
may note that the revelation in question was made by the Angel of the
West, the conventional region of the departed. The citation of St. Paul
probably refers to the apocryphal revelation which bears the Apostle’s
name, rather than to his own words in his Epistles, for these neither
mention a visit to Hell, nor describe the state of the dead in either
place; though, indeed, neither did such a revelation form part of St.
Peter’s vision, as described in the Acts, though our author’s words
appear to imply that such was the case. The mention of St. Peter’s
vision affords a curious instance of the manner in which the imagery
belonging to the national literature was apt to give its own colour to
an Irish writer’s treatment of foreign matter. The musical properties
with which the author, apparently on his own responsibility, has
endowed the cords which let down the four-cornered vessel from Heaven,
recall the musical stones of the _Tír na n-Óg_, of which further
mention must be made later on.
It is noteworthy that the author, in his list of authorities, makes no
mention of earlier Irish visions, or, indeed, of any source which was
attributed to post-Apostolic times.
A similar vision, we are told, was vouchsafed to Adamnán on the Feast
of St. John the Baptist, when his soul was parted from his body, and
conducted by his guardian angel to view Heaven and Hell, with their
respective inhabitants. Even such a pilgrimage was set before Dante by
his guide,[156] and though Adamnán’s chronicler does not here make
mention of a separate region devoted to _color che son contenti, Nel
fuoco, perchè speran di venire, Quando che sia, alle beate genti_, we
have seen that the case of these spirits was dealt with by the Irish
as by the Italian writer, though the extent to which the purgatorial
theory was developed between their respective epochs caused them to
treat the subject with very different degrees of precision.
The selection of Adamnán’s guardian angel as _psychopompos_, rather
than Michael, or some other of the Heavenly Host,[157] may possibly be
ascribed to the preference which our author occasionally evinces of
an ecclesiastical to a legendary treatment. On the other hand, we may
note the analogy between the soul’s guidance through the Otherworld by
his guardian angel, and the like function ascribed by the Avesta to
the beautiful maiden ‘who was his own conscience,’ and was probably an
allegorising development of the Fravashi, or spiritual _alter ego_,
which was held to belong to every man.
We now begin to perceive the extent, hitherto unexampled, to which
conscious design and literary form enter into our author’s method.
The celestial country, indeed, is described in general terms as ‘a
bright land of fair weather,’ like Magh Mell, and all other pagan
Elysiums; but, as the theme develops, we perceive a wide divergence
alike from the material delights of the pagan Otherworld, and the
conventional amenities described in ecclesiastical legends. As befits
the Heaven of a creed which makes the _summum bonum_ to consist in
the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision, the Deity is represented as the
centre of the whole, and all persons and accessories are grouped with
direct reference to Him. In the Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra, the
Lord is introduced, seated on the Throne, and bird-flocks of angels
making music to Him, and the idea as there presented might stand for
a development of the Dagda myth, where the god sits beside his magic
apple-trees and vat of ale, and the birds of the Tír Tairngire sing
to him.[158] In the present case, however, it seems evident that the
description contained in the Apocalypse was the author’s source of
inspiration.[159]
Here again the author’s ecclesiastical proclivities appear in his
description of the abode of the blest in a manner recalling the
interior of a church, with chancel rails, and choir stalls wherein
the righteous stand, like monks, in cassocks and hoods of white,[160]
while the place was illumined by seven thousand angels, who stood round
about instead of candles. The separation from the Throne, by means
of a portico, of the saints to whom their final seats had not yet
been awarded, appears to have been suggested by the use in the early
churches of the narthex as the station for neophytes.[161]
The floor of Heaven, like ‘fair crystal, with the sun’s countenance
upon it,’ seems to have been suggested by the ‘sea of glass, mingled
with fire,’ in Rev. xv. 2, which, in turn, had been anticipated, in
some sort, by the Pûitika sea in the Avesta, beside which the Tree
of Life grew. The grouping of the saints about the Throne would
likewise appear to be an amplification of the description in the
Revelation.[162] The Apostles and the Blessed Virgin, we are told,
occupy a special place, next to the Lord Himself; the Apostles on
His left hand, and next to them the patriarchs and prophets, and on
His right the Virgin, and next to her holy maidens, ‘and no great
space between,’ a graceful and kindly touch. About them are babes and
striplings, and ‘bird-choirs of the heavenly folk’; further on, others
of the righteous stand ‘in ranks and lofty coronals about the Throne,
circling it in brightness and bliss, their faces all towards God.’ Here
we have, in essentials, the Celestial Rose of Dante’s Paradise (canto
31); the bird-choir, and, a little later, the guardian angels that
keep flitting to and fro among the several companies of the righteous,
remind us of the spirits which flitted in and out of the petals of the
Rose like bees.
Several other passages are impressed with the author’s ecclesiastical
turn of thought. The Throne stands in the south-east, probably
because the direction of Jerusalem; reference is made to the nine
degrees of Heaven, _i.e._ the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities;
Powers, Virtues, and Dominations; Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim;
the geographical distribution of the saints in accordance with the
four quarters of the world--a distribution distinct from the fourfold
division of mankind according to their merits, to which allusion has
been made--is probably of the same character.
The sevenfold wall surrounding Heaven appears to contain a reference
to the seven Heavens; the different colours of these walls may, as
suggested, be a reminiscence of the walls of Ecbatana, as described by
Herodotus, though it is quite possible that the idea may have occurred
to the author spontaneously.
In our author’s representation of the Court of Heaven we already find,
completely developed, that idea of the subject which was perpetuated
long afterwards by the masters of Italian art. His picture of the
enthroned Deity, with the Virgin beside Him, the Saints standing round
about Him, and the celestial choirs surrounding the whole, might well
be taken for the description of some painting by Fra Angelico; nor are
the gem-like radiancy of the angelical painter’s works, nor the august
blitheness which pervades them, entirely absent. Indeed, writings of
this class are not without value as a preface to the history of sacred
art, as indicating the origin of the stereotyped fashion in which the
masters treated certain religious subjects--which fashion was not
created by the arbitrary choice of the primitives, and perpetuated
through any want of inventive power on the part of their followers, but
represented their attempt to portray these subjects in accordance with
the traditional form with which legend had already invested them.
One very striking image, and, so far as I know, the offspring of our
author’s imagination, is the symbol whereby he has endeavoured to
represent the Divine Omnipresence--‘a majestic countenance, seven times
as radiant as the sun,’ gazing from out a fiery mass, and facing the
spectator, from whatever side he might regard Him. The _naïveté_ of
this attempt to represent the Inconceivable reminds us of the triple
orbs of iridescent fire in canto 33 of the _Paradiso_, whereby Dante
symbolised the Trinity. For pictorial effect, however, the preference
must, I think, be awarded to the Irish writer, whose image, at once
quaint and grandiose, might be the subject of some design by Blake.
At the same time, the author does not neglect the stores of imagery
contained in the national traditions, though he does not conform
blindly to his precedents; for he differs from the great majority of
his predecessors and successors alike in selecting his materials from
whatever source appears preferable to him, instead of heaping together
a greater or less quantity of matter taken at haphazard from the common
stock. The circle of fire which surrounds the midmost Heaven is a
familiar object in both the celestial and the infernal regions, and is
largely represented in Irish legends dealing with the Otherworld, or
with occurrences of a supernatural order. Besides the striking instance
in the Voyage of Maelduin, and other cases to which reference has
already been made, legends of the Finn cycle mention wizard warriors
who surrounded their camp every night with a rampart of fire.[163]
The crystal veil which partly hides the Throne in chapter 5 may be a
modification of the veil which often enshrouds a mystical island in the
_Imrama_; or, again, it may have been suggested by the veil hanging
before a shrine in a Christian church, or by the veil of the Temple,
which curtained off the Holy of Holies.
The Throne is supported by four pedestals, as was the island Paradise
of Manannán Mac Lír in the _Imram Braín_, in imitation of which an
island supported upon a pedestal, or pedestals, is introduced into
most of the Christian _Imrama_. The pedestals beneath the throne are
of precious stone, and from them sweet music proceeds, as from the
precious stones which separate the several companies of the celestial
choir in chapter 13. Vocal or musical stones are common in Irish
legend; instances occur in the description of Magh Mell, just quoted,
and elsewhere in similar circumstances, and we may compare the Lia
Fáil, which would shriek when pressed by the foot of a lawful king.
Parallels occur in the legends of other Celtic nations: _e.g._ in the
Breton story of the Groach (Irish _Gruagach_), it is said that every
step leading to the palace of that fairy lady sang like a bird when
trodden on.
The very words in which the _Fis_ attempts to express the beauty of the
celestial music are those of the old romances: ‘Though one should hear
no other minstrelsy besides, yet should he have his fill of melody and
delight.’
The fiery arch above the Throne reminds us somewhat of the watery
arch over the enchanted islands of the _Imrama_, in spite of all
differences. Probably both were suggested by the rainbow, but it
may be that the author of the present passage had in his mind the
description in Rev. x. 1 of the ‘mighty angel … and a rainbow upon his
head.’ In a note to the translation of this passage, we suggested that
the comparison of the arch to ‘a wrought helm, or royal diadem,’ may
contain a reference to the picturesque and chivalrous custom of the
Irish Árdrí to wear his helmet on state occasions, reserving his crown
for the day of battle.
The triple circle surrounding the Throne may be intended to symbolise
the Trinity.[164] It is noteworthy that while the generality of
mediæval legends describing the Otherworld give little prominence to
the Triune nature of the Deity, the present Vision contains several
references to the Trinity, as do the Vision of Fursa, and several of
the later Visions composed by Irish writers or under Irish influences.
Our author does not fail to include among the delights of Heaven that
bird-music which is so dear to Irish writers of all ages. The birds of
Heaven are here presented in a twofold manner. In the first place, the
‘bird-choirs of the heavenly folk,’ who mingle with the multitudes who
surround the chosen band standing about the Throne, correspond to the
bird-souls whom the legends commonly place upon the Tree of Life, in
attendance on Enoch and Elijah. There are also the three birds perched
upon the Throne, where they sing the hours, after the usual fashion of
their congeners, beginning with the birds of Magh Mell, in the _Voyage
of Bran_, who, by the way, can only be made to discharge their pious
function at the cost of an anachronism. The birds now in question would
seem to occupy a middle place between the bird-choirs, of which we have
just been speaking, and the great sacred bird which appears in the
mythology of every race of mankind.[165] Similar birds are present in
the earliest and latest stages of Irish myth, from the Dagda’s palace
in the Brug na Boinne to the adaptation of the Phœnix legend which
figures in the Voyage of Maelduin. Probably our author’s choice of the
number three conveys another reference to the Trinity; nevertheless,
three was the number alike of the birds of Oengus in the Brug na
Boinne, and of the eagles seen by Maelduin.
Certain features of our author’s description of Paradise represent
the final stage in the before-mentioned process of refining upon that
conception of the happy Otherworld as a Land of Cockayne, which is
the most conspicuous feature in the primitive Elysium of every race.
In the fragrance of the heavenly land, upon which the blessed sate
themselves while hearkening to the music, and in the sweet savour of
the candles which illumine the city--the candles themselves being
angels in that guise--the old materialistic idea appears to be refined
and spiritualised almost beyond recognition; nevertheless every degree
in the descent--or ascent--from the pigs and apple-trees and ale-vat of
the Dagda can be distinctly traced.[166]
The present condition of the blessed, as manifested to the Seer, is
intended, it is said, to last until the Day of Judgment only, when,
and not before, their state will attain to its utmost perfection (ch.
6). Of like duration is the ‘restless and unstable habitation,’ ‘on
hill-tops and in marshy places,’ which is allotted, in ch. 14, to
those who find no place in the City, ‘after the words of Doom.’ By
these, apparently, the damned are not intended, or else the present
passage would be in contradiction with the following chapters, which
detail their progress to, and the manner of, their final doom, while
the abyss to which they are consigned answers neither in kind nor in
situation to the description of a wild and desolate region adjoining
the celestial city; neither can we suppose that the reprobate, in their
final abode, would continue to receive the ministrations of their
guardian spirits, as do the denizens of the region in question.[167] It
would rather seem that they are the mixed characters upon whom, at the
individual judgment immediately following death, no final sentence has
been passed. The reservation of a temporary abode for suchlike occurs
in the Avestan books, in certain Hebrew speculations--as shown by the
reference in the Book of Enoch to the mountain Sheol in the west, and
by the writings of several Rabbis--and in early Christian tradition.
Several instances occur in the Irish legends already reported: _e.g._
in the islands where hermits, in company with the flocks of bird-souls,
await the coming of Judgment, and the similar island inhabited by
the men of Ross, who had been banished for justifiable homicide. The
passage affords some confirmation of the view that the second part of
the work is an interpolation, for in that part the sinners who are
capable of redemption are dealt with in a different manner.
The veil of fire and the veil of ice, which separate this desolate
region from the City, resemble the flame which surrounds the crystal
mansion in the Book of Enoch, and is there said to be as hot as fire
and as cold as ice.[168] The clashing together of these veils in the
doorway which separates the two regions bears the appearance of a
remnant of some Symplegades myth, but I am not aware that any myth
of the kind exists in a form which could account for the image in
question. The anguish with which the guilty are filled by the din of
their collision is in keeping with that extreme susceptibility to
musical sounds which is everywhere apparent. The effect of pleasure to
the good and pain to the wicked proceeding from the same cause recurs
in many subsequent passages.
In chs. 15-19 is traced the course along which the soul proceeds on
its way from death to Judgment. The several stages of this journey
are made to correspond with the seven Heavens through which the soul
would naturally have to pass, each of those stages being attended with
some kind of punishment or suffering, which causes intense pain to the
wicked, while the good pass through it unharmed.
The theory of the Purgatorial fires, founded on 2 Peter iii. 7-13,[169]
was held by the early fathers, though, at first, without defining the
place or manner in which the purgation was effected. St. Augustine
was the first to establish Purgatory in the intermediate state, and
the doctrine was further developed by St. Gregory. The early fathers
held that the good and bad alike must pass through this stage, and
herein our author agrees with them; his theory, moreover, whencesoever
derived, agrees closely with that held by certain of the Jewish Rabbis,
who held that all, good and bad alike, must pass through the seven
lodges of _Hell_--at least as appropriate a term as that of the seven
_Heavens_, which our author applies to them, though the latter is
better suited to cosmological requirements--with the concomitants of
fire, scourging, hail-showers, the extremes of heat and cold, etc.,
through all of which the righteous passed unharmed;[170] all of which
is reproduced in the present work. It is remarkable how little advance
upon the early Chaldæan myth of the Otherworld is displayed by this
part of the subject, so far as regards the machinery or material
framework, so to speak, although, of course, the ideas of sin and
redemption which lie at the root of the Jewish and Christian doctrines
alike, constitute a fundamental difference between the two stages of
thought. The resemblance between the Irish and Chaldæan narratives
extends even to the porter who sat at each of the seven doors of the
Chaldæan Hades, where the passenger had to leave some part of his
earthly raiment; in the _Fis_ his counterpart exists in the person of
the angel who sits at the gate of each of the seven Heavens,[171] and
chastises the souls as they enter.
The second of these Heavens is the only one which appears to be
endowed with distinctly purgatorial functions: here the angel Abersetus
‘purges the souls of the righteous, and washes them in the [fiery
river], according to the amount of guilt that cleaves to them.’ Such,
in substance, had been the teaching of the Church for some ages prior
to Adamnán’s day, and such, too, the teaching of some of the Rabbinical
Schools--that of Shammai, for instance, which held that those in whom
good and evil were mingled were cleansed by purgatorial pains; in like
manner, the author of the Book of Enoch describes a fire wherein they
who are capable of redemption are cleansed of their carnal lusts.[172]
The flowery spring in which the purified souls of the righteous are
bathed for their solace, is a prototype, in some measure, of the
flowery stream of Lethe, in which, according to Dante, the spirits
whose purgation was accomplished were immersed in like manner.
Most of the trials endured in the first five Heavens have their
counterparts in the general literature of the Otherworld, down to and
including the _Commedia_.
The fiery river or moat before the gateways resembles the river of fire
which encircles Heaven in the Book of Enoch, and the similar river
about the infernal city in _Æneid_ vi. 549-50.
The fiery wall, of which many parallels have already been cited, again
appears in this place, where it may be compared, more aptly, with the
City of Dis, its iron walls and towers glowing red-hot, in c. viii. of
the _Inferno_. The fiery arch also recurs, the passage through which,
and through the fiery wall, is analogous to the similar trial for
the purgation of fleshly lusts in c. xxvii. of the _Purgatorio_. The
scourging of the spirits by the angelic warders is like the punishment
inflicted--though there by demons--in _Inf._ xviii.
The description of the whirlpool in the fiery river (ch. 18) is
thoroughly Dantesque in style, though none of Dante’s infernal rivers
or whirlpools exactly corresponds to it in details; equally Dantesque
is the realistic touch of the angel lifting out the souls on the end of
his rod, ‘hard as it were of stone.’
Hitherto all the souls, good and bad alike, have been conducted by
their guardian spirits. At the door of the sixth Heaven Michael
assumes his accustomed function of _psychopompos_ for the remainder
of the way. This Heaven is free from pain of any kind; apparently the
author’s intention is to convey the impression of a solemn pause,
before the soul is ushered into the awful presence of the Creator. The
manner of his reception there recalls the corresponding scene in the
Avestan account. This reception, and the Divine Judgment, are described
in the briefest possible terms, but not the less impressively for
that.[173] The fate of the reprobate is depicted in a manner at once
terse and complete, presenting a remarkable contrast to the rambling
enumeration of horrors in which most of the vision writers indulge. One
circumstance, indeed, is marked by the grotesque horror characteristic
of mediæval and Oriental imagery; namely, the twelve fiery dragons
which swallow the guilty soul in succession, until the lowest finally
lands him in the Devil’s maw, the destination reserved by Dante for the
worst of sinners.[174]
Upon the whole, however, our author seems to dwell, by preference,
upon the spiritual aspects of his subject. In his eyes, the essence of
the punishment consists in the forfeiture of the Beatific Vision by
those _chi hanno perduto il ben del intelletto_, a loss enhanced by the
previous glimpse of it which has been vouchsafed to them. This, indeed,
is a common feature of ecclesiastical pictures of the Inferno, where
the idea, sufficiently obvious in itself, is sanctified by the parable
of Dives and Lazarus, though there it is introduced with a special and
different purpose. Commonly, however, it is used merely to intensify
the sufferings of the lost by a Tantalus vision of the contrast between
their own pains and the pleasures of the blest. Our author would seem
to introduce it as essential for their full comprehension of the good,
otherwise inconceivable, which they have forfeited by their own wilful
default. Evidently he understood that in this life and the next--Dante
notwithstanding--there is a _maggior dolore_ than the remembrance, in
time of sorrow, of past happiness, and that is the comprehension of the
things that once might easily have been, but never have been, and never
can be.
Finally, the lot of the sinner--‘the perfection of all evil, in
the Devil’s own presence, throughout all ages,’--forms the exact
correlative of the Beatific Vision enjoyed by the elect.
This climax leaves nothing to be desired for completeness, and it seems
impossible to believe that the next ten chapters were the work of the
same hand. Nevertheless, the author of this second part, whether he be
the original author or a compiler, has treated his materials, trite as
these are, with more than common skill.
The approach to the land of eternal pain, to which the Seer is now
conveyed, leads across a desolate, fire-scathed region, on the farther
side of which lies a glen, filled with ‘flame, that extends beyond
the margin on either hand.’ Even this slight descriptive touch is an
instance of the imaginative, or visualising, faculty which is often
apparent throughout the work. This glen is spanned by the bridge which
serves to separate the bad from the good, in a manner quite consistent
with precedent, but entirely inconsistent with the earlier part of the
present work.
The description of that incident, as here given, differs from other
variants in several points of detail, and especially in the greater
literary skill with which it is related; but as much has been said upon
this subject as our present purpose demands. We have seen that the idea
of such a bridge existed previously in Irish tradition, but the guise
in which it appears in the present place leads us to suppose that the
author’s immediate source of inspiration was one of the ecclesiastical
legends, though we find the usual difficulty of assigning any given
item to some one specific source. It is possible that the author found
his immediate prototype in the writings of St. Gregory, with which he
was likely to be acquainted; equally possible that the idea was derived
from the traditions of the Eastern Church, with which it is probable,
both on _à priori_ grounds and from several internal indications,
that he had come in contact; or, again, from some floating popular
tradition, originally emanating from either of the above sources.
However this may be, the present is probably the best-told version of
the incident that we possess in any language; nevertheless, it fits in
as badly with what follows as with what goes before. The good--both the
more and the less good--pass over in safety, and the bad, of course,
fall off, but there is nothing to show how either sort reach their
ultimate habitations. The justified, in fact, are left to their own
devices, and we hear no more of them; the reprobate, indeed, as they
fall from the bridge, are received in the jaws of eight fiery dragons,
which await them in the fiery gulf, but there is nothing to show by
what means they are subjected to the specific torments mentioned
further on, nor yet how the redeemable sinners are brought to their
state of temporary punishment.
The classification of the three companies who attempt to cross the
bridge is not without interest. The virtues of the righteous who
pass with ease are the specially ecclesiastical virtues of martyrdom
and asceticism. Immediate access to Heaven had been regarded as the
peculiar reward of martyrdom so early, at least, as Tertullian,
whose authority was Revelation vii. 14, 15; although in the fourfold
classification in the Book of Enoch the like precedence is awarded to
the martyrs.[175] The association of the mortification of the flesh
with the pains of martyrdom is easily explicable.
Sinners that have been induced to see the errors of their ways and
to amend, find the bridge narrow and difficult at first, but easy
afterwards, while those fall off who have persevered in evil. We thus
have only three of the usual four categories which frequently occur in
Irish eschatology, as in the Book of Enoch: the _boni valde_, the _boni
sed non valde_, and the _mali valde_. However, the _mali sed non valde_
are represented, approximately, by those spirits of mingled qualities,
and those sinners that are redeemed by their good works, who are dealt
with specially in the sequel.
The torments meted out to evildoers are of the usual description,
though represented with that increasing fulness and terror which had
been perceptible for some time previously in the Irish visions, or
_Imrama_, the result, apparently, of increased familiarity with the
Continental writers of this kind, who, so early as the Apocalypses of
St. Peter and St. Paul, had devoted much ingenuity to this horrible
branch of their subject. We may also perceive an attempt at a more
accurate classification of crimes and punishments; in this respect,
too, those Apocalypses display more method than the visions of
subsequent writers. The classification adopted by our author, which
would seem to be his own, contains indications both of his nationality,
and of his acquaintance with foreign literature. Four categories of
evildoers are enumerated, in which, although they exhibit nothing of
Dante’s scientific precision, a certain system is apparent, in spite
of the several classes overlapping to a certain extent. In chapter
25 fratricides and sacrilegious persons are dealt with, including
fraudulent Erenachs--the guardians of the Church’s temporalities--who
had abused the considerable powers which the tribal constitution
of the Irish Church had given them. The class described in chapter
27 comprises, for the most part, those guilty of various kinds of
dishonesty or violence, though some of them, such as false judges,
sorcerers, and teachers of heresy, would seem to belong rather to
the two following classes, the one of which comprises renegade
ecclesiastics and heresiarchs (chapter 28), while the other, and last
deals with an apparently heterogeneous collection of crimes, all of
which, however, will be found to involve, somehow, a breach of faith on
the part of the offender.
The punishments described contain many striking points of similarity
to Dante, both in their kind, and in the vivid manner in which they
are portrayed. Of such are the icy cowls in chapter 26, which recall
the leaden copes worn by the hypocrites in _Inf._ xxiii. 61 _sqq._ The
sinners stand in black mire, like the _beletta negra_ where stand the
gloomy-minded in _Inf._ vii. 124.[176] The scourging by demons occurs
alike in the _Fis Adamnáin_(chapter 26), and in the _Inferno_ (xviii.
35). A cold wind from the north blows upon the foreheads of the damned,
as in the frozen regions of Dante’s Tolommea.[177] The fiery rain, and
the unavailing efforts of the sufferers to ward it off, anticipate
Dante’s vivid picture.[178] With the throngs of demons in chapter 28,
who assail the heresiarchs with flights of arrows, we may compare the
Centaurs in _Inf._ xii. 56.
The pictures of the sinners fettered to fiery columns by means of fiery
chains in the form of vipers (chapter 25), and of those clad in fiery
mantles, are entirely Dantesque in spirit. In the punishment of those
who are alternately borne up to Heaven, and then dashed down again to
the depth of Hell, our author appears to typify the tumultuous distress
and horrible restlessness which accompany hopeless suffering.
Two classes of sinners remain, who are dealt with in a manner wholly
alien from Dante’s scheme, though in accord with the earlier teaching
of the Church. Reference has been made already to those in whom good
and evil bear divided sway, and who, as in the Avesta, are reserved in
a place apart until the Day of Doom, when ‘judgment shall be passed
between them, and their good shall quench their evil on that day, and
then shall they be set in the Heaven of Life, in God’s own presence,
through ages everlasting.’ This merciful solution of their case affords
a strong contrast to the loathsome doom to which Dante consigns these
Laodiceans.[179] One passage Dante himself might have been willing to
own, had it not been so discordant with his doctrine: the picture of
those charitable, but sensual, persons who are set upon islands--an
echo of the _Imrama_--in the midst of a fiery sea, but protected from
its waves by a silver bulwark, built of their own almsgiving, until
Judgment, when they shall be delivered.
These two conceptions, though not peculiar to the Irish Church, having
been often promulgated, in various forms, by Jewish and Christian
doctors alike, are characteristic of that leaning towards mercy,
which, in one form or other, often appears in Irish ecclesiastical
legends.[180]
Our author declares that the state of the blest and of the reprobate
alike, as revealed to him, is provisional only, and that after the Last
Judgment the happiness of the righteous will be infinitely augmented,
and the sufferings of the evil intensified in proportion,[181] when
they shall be consigned to the fiery wall, which until then is
inhabited by the demons only.[182]