The three Latin lives plunge _in medias res_ at the beginning; but
VG prefixes an introduction borrowed from a Homily on _Charity_. The
Irish text of this homily, with the original Latin, will be found
printed from the fifteenth-century MS. called _Leabhar Breac_ ("The
speckled book") in Atkinson's _Passions and Homilies_ (Dublin 1887).
The text announced by the preacher is clearly suggested by incident
XXII. It has already been shown in the Introduction, that this Life,
with its homiletic preface, was a sermon written to be preached or
read on the festival of the saint (9th September) at Clonmacnois.
The keynote of the Irish homily is struck in this first section. It is
the work of some scholar of Clonmacnois, with a warm enthusiasm for
the dignity of his _alma mater_. The sermon is as much a eulogy of
Clonmacnois as of Ciaran. In the preacher's view, Clonmacnois is
the chief and central church of Ireland, and the source of all
ecclesiastical discipline in the country. Its founder excelled his
fellow-saints as the sun excels the stars (§ 2). His pre-eminence was
recognised by angels, who relieved him of labour when his turn came (§
13): and on several occasions Findian showed a like favouritism (§§
18, 20, _a_, _d_, 23). Clonmacnois was superior to the rival house
at Birr (§ 20 _b_); and possessed in the hide of the Dun Cow an
infallible passport to heaven (§ 20 _c_). The vision of the tree seen
by Enda and by Ciaran prophesied the pre-eminence of Clonmacnois (§
24). The other saints were envious of his renown and of the glory of
his monastery (§ 40).
_The Hymn of Colum Cille._--Following the usual practice of Irish
prose literary composition, the homilist intersperses his work
throughout with verse extracts, appealed to as the authority for the
various statements which he has occasion to make. In the present
section he draws upon a hymn made by Colum Cille in honour of Ciaran.
To this hymn, and to its surviving fragments, we shall return in
commenting upon incident LI, where the composition of the hymn is
alluded to.
_The Ante-natal Prophecies._--Patrick is said also to have prophesied
the advent of Senan (LL, 1845)[1] and of Alban (CS, 505); and Becc mac
De that of Brenainn (LL, 3343). But the parallels drawn between the
Life of Ciaran and that of Christ have made such prophecies especially
appropriate in the present case.
The prophecy of Saint Patrick took place under the following
circumstances (VTP, p. 84 ff.).[2] The leper whom, in accordance with
a custom frequent in early Irish monasticism, Patrick is said to have
maintained--partly for charity and partly for self-abasement--departed
from Patrick when the latter was on the holy mountain of Cruachan
Aigli (Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo). He made his way to the then empty
site of Clonmacnois, and sat in the split trunk of a hollow elm tree.
A stranger made his appearance, and the leper, having assured himself
that he was a Christian, requested him to uproot a bundle of rushes
and to give him in a clean vessel of the water that would burst forth.
Then the leper begged of the stranger to bring tools for digging,
and to bury him there; and he was the first dead man to be buried in
Clonmacnois. Now after this had taken place, the nephew of Patrick,
Bishop Muinis, chanced to be benighted on the same spot, when
returning from a mission to Rome on which the apostle had sent him.
There were angels hovering over the leper's grave, and thus Muinis
recognised it as the burial-place of a man of God. He deposited the
relics which he was bearing back from Rome, for the night, in the
hollow elm; but he found in the morning that the tree had closed upon
them, and that they could not be recovered. In sorrow for their loss,
he related the event to Patrick, and for his comfort he was told that
a Son of Life--to wit Ciaran, son of the wright--was destined to come
thither, and that he would need the relics. These relics are mentioned
in VG 41, though "Benen and Cumlach" [the leper] are there said to
have left them, not Muinis. From this reference we learn that they
were attributed to Saints Peter and Paul.
It is quite clear that this curious story has reached us in a
fragmentary and expurgated form, and that if we had the whole
narrative before us it would afford us an indication that Clonmacnois
was the site of an earlier, Pagan, sanctuary. It will most probably be
found to be an invariable rule that the early Christian establishments
in Ireland occupy the sites of Pagan sanctuaries; the monastery having
been founded to re-consecrate the holy place to the True Faith. The
hollow elm was doubtless a sacred tree; the well which miraculously
burst forth was a sacred well: the buried leper may have been a
foundation sacrifice, like Oran on Iona. The old pre-Christian name of
the site is suggestive--_Ard Tiprat_, "the high place of the [holy]
well." By no stretch of language can the site of Clonmacnois be called
physically high; as in the stanza quoted in VG 30, the word _Ard_ must
be used in the sense of distinguished, eminent, or sacred.
Of the prophecy attributed to Brigit there appears to be no record in
any of her numerous _Lives_: nor can I identify with certainty the
story of "the fire and the angel." There were "Crosses of Brigit" at
Armagh;[3] but as there were probably many other crosses throughout
the country dedicated to this popular saint we cannot infer that
Armagh was the scene of the prophecy.
Becc mac De was chief soothsayer to King Diarmait mac Cerrbeil. Very
little is certainly known of him; most of the traditions relating
to him consist of tales of his remarkable gift of foretelling the
future--tales similar to those related of the Covenanter Alexander
Peden in Scotland, or of the seventeenth-century Mayo peasant Red
Brian Carabine.[4] He died in or about the year A.D. 555 (the
annalists waver between 552 and 557); and the _Annals of Clonmacnois_
tell us that he began to prophesy in 550. As Ciaran is said to have
died in 548, the statement that Becc mac De foretold his coming is
anachronistic. The prophecy here attributed to him does not appear
in the list of prognostications attributed to him (given in the MS.
Harleian 5280, British Museum, edited in _Zeitschrift für Celtische
Philologie_, ix, 169), or in _Leabhar Breac_, p. 260, where some
further particulars about him are given.
I have ventured to emend the passage regarding Becc mac De slightly,
restoring the verse form which the prophecy seems to have had
originally. As it appears in the _Lismore Lives_ printed text it is
given in prose; an insignificant transposition of the words, and the
taking of the word _andsin_ out of the inverted commas is all that
is necessary.[5] In the rendering in the text an attempt is made to
reproduce to some extent the elaboration of alliteration, but the
end-rhymes and the vowel-assonances cannot be imitated without
sacrificing the sense. The metre resembles that known as _mibhasc_
(four-syllable and six-syllable lines alternating, but with
trisyllabic rhyme in the short lines).
The person to whom Colum Cille uttered his prophecy was Aed mac
Brenainn, Prince of Tethba (Teffia), the region comprising various
baronies in the modern Co. Westmeath and part of Co. Longford. This
Aed gave Dermag (Durrow) to Colum Cille a few years before the
latter's departure for Scotland. There is, however, no record of
the prophecy in the lives of Colum Cille; probably his visit to
Clonmacnois from Durrow is in the writer's mind. Ard Abla, identified
by O'Donovan with Lissardowlin, Co. Longford, was in the territory
of Tethba. The Lismore scribe has written the name of Aed's father
incorrectly (Brandub); the correction ("or Brenainn") is a marginal
note.
II. THE ORIGIN AND BIRTH OF CIARAN: THE WIZARD'S PROPHECIES (LA, LB,
LC, VG)
_The Pedigree_ (VG).--The pedigree in VG traces Ciaran's descent from
Tigernmas, fabled to have reigned in Tara 3580-3657 _Anno Mundi_
(1620-1543 B.C.).[6] Through Tigernmas the line is traced to Mil of
Spain, the eponymous ancestor of the "Milesians," or Celtic-speaking
inhabitants of Ireland.
There is another pedigree, totally different, which connects the
saint, not with the Tara kings, but with those of the Ulaid or Ulster
folk, through the dethroned Fergus who figures so prominently in the
epic tale _Táin Bó Cualnge_. This pedigree appears in the _Book of
Leinster_ (facsimile, pp. 348, 349) and _Leabhar Breac_ (facsimile, p.
16), the Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B 506, p. 154 _d_, and in the MS. in
Marsh's Library containing LA, at the foot of the column where LA
begins; with an added note stating that Ciaran was "of the true
Ultonains of Emain": its authenticity is adopted by Keating (I.T.S.
edition, vol. iii, p. 48). Correcting one copy with another this
genealogy runs as follows--
Ciaran son of Coscrach son of Aislithe son of
Beodan " Mesinsuad " Modruad "
Bolcan " Mesinsulad " Follomain "
Linned " Erce " Deoda "
Corc " Erc (or Oscar) " Eochaid "
Daig " Mechon " Corc "
Cunneda " Nechtan " Fergus "
Cass " Aed Corb " Ros "
Froech " Aed Gnoe " Rudraige
Thus both genealogies claim a royal descent for the saint. This is an
instance of a widespread policy, of which many traces are to be found
in the old Irish Genealogies. The whole country was divided into
territories of different clans, under which were subordinate and
tributary septs. The latter bore the chief burden of taxation;
and they were for the greater part composed of descendants of the
aboriginal pre-Celtic tribes, who had been reduced to vassalage on
the coming of the Celtic-speaking invaders (about the third or fourth
century B.C.). When a tributary sept became strong enough to resist
the pressure of these imposts, exemption was claimed by a sort of
legal fiction, by which they were genealogically affiliated to the
ruling sept. This practice led to the fabrication of spurious links,
and even of whole pedigrees.
In point of fact several indications show that Ciaran belonged to a
tributary sept, and was of pre-Celtic blood. These tributary
septs were distinguished from their Celtic conquerors by social
organisation, racial character, and probably still to some extent
by religion and language. They had much the same position as the
_perioeci_ in ancient Sparta. The following are the evidences of his
pre-Celtic nationality--
(_a_) The tribal names of his parents (Latharna, Glasraige). There are
two forms of tribal names in ancient Ireland; those consisting of two
words, and those consisting of one. The first are in such formulae as
"tribe of NN," "seed of NN" or the like--NN being the name of a more
or less legendary ancestor. The second are either simple names which
cannot be analysed, or else are derived from an ancestral name by
adding the suffix _-rige_ or _-raige_. As a rule the names consisting
of one word only are fundamentally pre-Celtic, or denote pre-Celtic
septs, though in many cases they have been fitted with Celticising
genealogies.
(_b_) The names of Ciaran himself and his brothers, and of one of his
sisters. Donnan, Ciaran, Odran, Cronan are all diminutives founded
upon colours--the little brown, black, grey, and tawny one. These
indicate that the family was dark complexioned, which would also
accord with a pre-Celtic origin. The Celts were fair, their
predecessors dark. One of the sisters was called Pata, with an initial
P. This is impossible in a Gaelic name.
(_c_) The subordinate position of Ciaran's father, and his liability
to taxation. In the _Book of Leinster_ and, in part, in _Leabhar
Breac_, after the genealogy, we read "He [_i.e._ Ciaran] was of one of
the seven clans of the Latharna of Molt. His father was originally in
slavery in Britain; he went thereafter to Ireland to Cenel Conaill
[north of Co. Donegal], and after that to Connacht[7] to avoid a
heavy tax, so that Ciaran was born at Raith Cremthainn in Mag Ai." LA
describes Ciaran's father as "a rich man," and certainly the family
seems to have been comfortably provided with cattle, the chief wealth
of their time. In reference to his father's trade Ciaran is regularly
called _mac in tsáir_, "son of the wright." The Rabelaisian
extravaganza called _Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe_ ("The Adventures of the
Burdensome Company") introduces Ciaran as himself practising smith's
craft;[8] but no importance can be attached to so irresponsible a
production. Analogous in this respect are the references to our saint
in _The Adventures of Léithin_,[9] which also introduces Ciaran and
his monks; but as Dr. Hyde points out in his edition, these are merely
a kind of framework for the legend, and the story, though in itself
extremely curious and interesting, tells us nothing about either
Ciaran or Clonmacnois.
(_d_) The fact, specially mentioned in LA, that Ciaran was reared by
his parents, not put out to fosterage as would have been done had he
been of gentle birth.
(_e_) The pre-eminent position of Ciaran's mother in the home. The
pre-Celtic tribesmen of Ireland, like their Pictish kinsmen in
Scotland, were organised on the system of mother-right, in which
property and descent and kinship are all traced through the maternal
side of the ancestry. Throughout the _Lives_, Beoit is a cypher: the
house and its contents and appurtenances are almost invariably treated
as Darerca's property. Matriarchate usually implies exogamy, a man
choosing his wife from a sept differing from his own; and the
children are related to the mother's, not the father's kin. The male
responsible for the education of the child is not so much the father
as the maternal uncle. The law of exogamy was strictly followed in the
case before us. Beoit comes from north-east Ulster; Darerca belonged
to a family which drew its origin from the south-east of the present
county Kerry, though she seems to have settled in Cenel Fiachach at
the time when Beoit met her. Incidents VIII and X of Ciaran's Life are
laid in that territory, which falls in with a tradition, presently to
be noted, that the dwelling-place of the family of the saint was not
Raith Cremthainn, but the place where the parents had first met--which
would be an instance of the husband dwelling with the wife's people,
as is frequent under the matriarchate. The Celtic authors of the
_Lives_ have transferred the kinship of the son to the father's clan,
in accordance with their own social system; but an older tradition has
left an unmistakable trace in the confusion of the relationships of
"father" and "uncle" in LA, §§ 9, 10.
It is possible that the prominence of the mother in the household,
and Ciaran's birth away from his ancestral home as the result of
a taxation, are specially emphasised because they offer obvious
parallels with the Gospel story. The character of Darerca is, however,
by no means idealised, as we might have expected it to be, had this
been the chief purpose of the narrator.
_The Parents of Ciaran, their Names and Origins._--The name of
Ciaran's father is variously Latinised in the Latin Lives. The Irish
lives call him Beoit, a name analysed in the _Book of Leinster_, p.
349, into _Beo-n-Aed_, which would mean something like "Living Fire."
The _-n-_ is inserted, according to a law of Old Irish accidence,
because _áed_, "fire," is a neuter word. Thus arises the Latin form
_Beonnadus_. By metathesis the name further becomes transformed to
_Beodan_ or _Beoan_. The _Latharna_ were the people who dwelt around
the site of the modern town of _Larne_, which preserves their name;
Mag Molt ("the plain of wethers") is probably the plain surrounding
the town. The _Aradenses_, to whom LB ascribes the origin of Beoit,
were the people known in Irish record as _Dal n-Araide_, the
pre-Celtic people of the region now called Antrim.
Dar-erca, "daughter of brightness" or "of the sky," was a common
female name in ancient Ireland. The Glasraige to whom she belonged
was a tribe with divisions scattered in various parts of Ireland.
Irluachra was south-east Kerry with adjoining parts of Cork and
Limerick. Of her poet grandfather Glas nothing is known.
It would perhaps be too far-fetched to see a hint at a mythological
element in the traditions of Ciaran in the signification of his
parents' names. Indeed, considering the _Tendenz_ of the Ciaran
_Lives_, it is remarkable that there is no supernormal element in the
account of the birth of this particular saint; supernatural births are
almost a commonplace in Irish saints' lives as a rule.
The saint's own name is regularly spelt with an initial K or Q in the
Latin texts, doubtless because Latin _c_ was pronounced as _s_ before
_e_ and _i_ in mediaeval Ireland.
The _Annals of Clonmacnois_ preserves for us a totally different
tradition of the origin and upbringing of the saint. Modernising the
haphazard spelling and punctuation of the seventeenth-century English
translation (the original Irish of this valuable book is lost), we may
note what it tells us. "His father's name was Beoit, a Connacht man
(_sic_) and a carpenter. His mother Darerca, of the issue of Corc mac
Fergusa mic Roig of the Clanna Rudraige. He in his childhood lived
with his father and mother in 'Templevickinloyhe' [wherever that may
have been] in Cenel Fiachach; until a thief of the country of Ui
Failge stole the one cow they had, which, being found, he forsook
together with his father and mother the said place of the stealth [=
theft], fearing of further inconvenience." Here note: (1) that Darerca
is given the ancestry attributed in the _Book of Leinster_ pedigree
to Beoit, thus hinting at an originally _matrilinear_ form of the
official pedigree: (2) that the settlement of the family in Cenel
Fiachach, _i.e._ the place of Darerca's dwelling, is definitely
stated; (3) that the migration of the family does not take place till
after Ciaran's birth; (4) that a totally different reason is assigned
for the migration; (5) that incident X of the _Lives_ is directly
referred to; (6) that we hear nothing in this passage about the rest
of the numerous family of Beoit; and (7) that the family is poor,
having but one cow.
Cenel Fiachach (the clan of Fiachu) occupied a territory covering
parts of the present counties of Westmeath and King's Co. VG
erroneously writes this Cenel Fiachrach, which occupied a territory of
the modern Co. Sligo. _See_ further, p. 171.
_The Princes._--Unfortunately Ainmire mac Colgain, lord of Ui Neill,
and Cremthann, a chieftain of Connacht, are not otherwise known; we
cannot therefore test the chronological truth of this part of the
story. Ainmire reappears as an oppressor in the life of Aed (VSH, ii,
295). LA anachronistically confuses this Ainmire with Ainmire mac
Setna, King of Tara, A.D. 564-566.
It is noteworthy that VG calls Cremthann "King of Ireland." This is in
accordance with the fact that the dynasty which united Ireland under
the suzerainty of the King of Tara was of Connacht origin.[10]
_The Wizard's Prophecy._--The phrase "the noise of a chariot under
a king" is a stock formula in this connexion; compare, with Stokes,
_Vita Sancti Aedui_ in Rees' _Lives of Cambro-British Saints_, p. 233
(also VSH, ii, 295). With the incident compare the story of the druid
rising to welcome the parents of Saint Senan, and when ridiculed for
thus showing honour to peasants explaining that it was to their unborn
child that he was paying honour (LL, 1875). Observe that in both tales
the druid is _mocked_. This touch doubtless belongs to the Christian
chronicler, taking the opportunity of putting the minister of the
rival creed in an invidious position.
_Deacon Iustus_, according to VTP (p. 104) and Tirechan's _Collections
regarding Saint Patrick_ (edited in VTP, see pp. 305, 318) was
consecrated by Saint Patrick, who left with him his ritual book and
his office of baptism, in Fidarta (Fuerty, Co. Roscommon). It was in
his old age that he baptized Ciaran, out of Patrick's book--he was,
indeed, according to the documents quoted, no less than 140 years of
age. The glossators of the _Martyrology of Oengus_ (Henry Bradshaw
Society edition, p. 128) confuse him with Euthymius, the deacon,
martyred at Alexandria. The play on words ("it were fitting that the
_just one_ should be baptized by a _Just One_") is lost in the Irish
version, whence Plummer (VSH, i, p. xlix) infers that this document is
a translation from a Latin original: but the fact proves nothing more
than that the author of VG borrowed _this particular incident_, as
he borrowed his preface, from a Latin writing. All these Lives are
patchworks, and their component elements are of very different origins
and dates.
_The date of Ciaran's birth_ was 25 February, A.D. 515. The _Annals of
Ulster_ says 511, or "according to another book," 516. The _Annals of
Clonmacnois_ has the correct date, 515.
_The Geographical Names in this Incident._--_Temoria_ (LA) is Tara
(Irish _Teamair_), Co. Meath, the site of the dwelling of the Kings of
Ireland. _Midhe_ (LA) means the province of Meath; LA is, however,
in error in placing the Latronenses therein. The _Connachta_ are the
people who give their name to the province of Connacht. _Mag Ai_,
variously spelt, is the central plain of Co. Roscommon; _Raith
Cremthainn_ ("the fort of Cremthann") was somewhere upon it,
presumably near the royal establishment of Rathcroghan, but the exact
site is unknown. _Isel Chiarain_ (VG), a place reappearing later in
the Life, is unknown, but doubtless it was close to Clonmacnois.
_Cluain maccu Nois_, the "Meadow of the Descendants of Nos," now
Clonmacnois, stands on the right bank of the Shannon about twelve
miles below Athlone. Extensive remains of the monastery founded by
Ciaran are still to be seen there. As for _Tech meic in tSaeir_, "the
house of the wright's son," we might have inferred that this place was
also somewhere near or in Clonmacnois; but a note among the glosses of
the _Martyrology of Oengus_ (under 9th September) says that it was "in
the house of the son of the wright" that Ciaran was _brought up_. It
is therefore to be identified with the mysterious place corruptly
spelt "Templevickinloyhe" (church of the son of the ----?) in the
extract from the _Annals of Clonmacnois_ printed above.[11]
_The Verses in this Section of VG._--The epigram on Ciaran's parents
is found in many MSS. The rendering here given expresses the sense and
reproduces the rhythm of the stanza, but does not attempt to copy the
metre in every detail. This is known as _cro cummaisc etir casbairdne
ocus lethrannaigecht_, and consists of seven-syllable lines with
trisyllabic rhymes, alternating with five-syllable lines having
monosyllabic rhymes. Literally translated the sense would run,
"Darerca my mother / she was not a bad woman // Beoit the wright my
father / of the Latharna of Molt."
The second stanza is misplaced, and should properly have been inserted
in the following paragraph. Its metre is _ae freslige_--seven-syllable
lines in a quatrain, rhyming _abab_: _a_ being trisyllabic, _b_
dissyllabic rhymes. The stanza is obscure and probably corrupt; so far
as it can be rendered at all, the literal translation is: "He healed
the steed of Oengus / when he was in a swathe, in a cradle // there
was given ... / from God this miracle to Ciaran."