This striking anecdote is unique, and probably founded on an authentic
incident. The two versions before us differ in some respects, as a
comparison will show. The story is told in another form in the _Quinta
Vita Columbae_ (TT, p. 403) to the effect that "Once Saint Kieranus,
whom they call the Son of the Wright, on being asked, promised Columba
that as he was writing a book of the Holy Gospels, he would write out
the middle part of the book. Columba, in gratitude to him, said, 'And
I,' said he, 'on behalf of God, promise and foretell that the middle
regions of Ireland shall take their name from thee, and shall bring
their taxes or tribute to thy monastery.'" The same version appears in
O'Donnell's _Life of Colum Cille_ (printed text, p. 128). Yet another
version appears in the glosses to the _Martyrology of Oengus_
(9th September), according to which Colum Cille wished to write a
gospel-book, but no one except Ciaran had an exemplar from which to
make the copy. Colum Cille went to Ciaran's cell and asked for the
loan of the book; Ciaran, who was preparing his lesson, and had just
come to the words _Omnia quaecumque_, etc., presented him with it.
"Thine be half of Ireland!" said Colum Cille. It is worth passing
notice that the verse in question, here treated as the central verse
of the gospel, is not one-fifth of the way through the book. Had the
original narrator of the tale a copy with misplaced or missing leaves?
_The Stanza in VG._--This is apparently slightly corrupt, but the
metre is evidently meant to be _ae freslige_. It probably belongs to
one poem with the previous stanzas in the same metre: its first line
echoes the stanza in incident XIX. Literally, "With Findian read /
Ciaran the pious, with diligence // he had half a book without reading
/ half of Ireland his thereafter."
_The Saying of Alexander._--I regret to have to acknowledge that
I have been unable to get on the track of any explanation of this
appendix to the incident, as related in VG. It is probably a marginal
gloss taken into the text. The "Alexander" is presumably one of the
popes of that name, and if so, must be Alexander II (1061-1073), as
the first Pope Alexander is too early, and the remaining six are too
late. I have, however, searched all the writings bearing his name
without discovering anything like this saying, nor can I trace it with
the aid of the numerous indexes in Migne's _Patrologia_.