CHAPTER XIX

THE MASTER SCHOLARS OF CELTIC LITERATURE

The bards and seanachies—Six men of outstanding literary

eminence—The earliest pioneer of the modern philological

movement—Representatives of the older scholarship—Those of the

new—The brilliant Zeuss—Foreign periodicals dealing with

Celtic—Foremost scholars of the various

nations—Italian—German—French—Danish—Scandinavian—American—British,

including English, Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Scottish—Many

literary problems solved—The promise of future harvests 367

INDEX OF NAMES 387

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 397

CHAPTER I

THE ARRIVAL OF THE CELT IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE

The Celts in primitive Europe—Advent in British Isles—Two

branches—Observations of Cæsar and Tacitus—Main facts of

Celtic progress on the Continent—A vast empire—Interview with

Alexander the Great—Colony in Galatia—Cup of conquest

full—Disintegration—The scattered remnants—Recent

statistics—The ancient Celts as seen through Greek and Roman

eyes—Literary awakening—Ogam writings—First men of

letters—Earliest written Gaelic now extant—Modern linguistic

discovery—The place of Celtic in the Aryan group.

Emerson, looking forth from the new time on the nations of Europe, gave

pen to the reflection, “The Celts are of the oldest blood in the world.

Some peoples are deciduous or transitory. Where are the Greeks? Where

the Etrurians? Where the Romans? But the Celts are an old family of

whose beginning there is no memory, and their end is likely to be still

more remote in the future, for they have endurance and productiveness—a

hidden and precarious genius.”

A sweeping statement withal, yet the thoughtful finding of an eminently

studious and dispassionate mind.

When the curtain lifts over primitive Europe, and authentic history

first begins, the Celts are already there, and loom formidable in the

heart of the Continent. Not the earliest inhabitants by any means;

archæology points to anterior races. These the ethnologists designate

according to the shape of their heads and supposed colour of their hair.

Their remains have been found in caves, and in what are known to science

as the Neolithic or Stone Age barrows. And they present types of

humanity widely differing from the succeeding so-called Aryans.[1] But

beyond their material survivals, and the people who were supposed to

have been descended from them, there is absolutely no record of these

vanished races. They belong to prehistoric times.

So do the Celts in great part, but unlike their predecessors they have

emerged in history, and projected themselves on its pages to this day.

They have stepped out of the impenetrable haze, and appear at the

opening of the written drama of Europe.

History finds them for the first time located about the upper reaches of

the Danube, in the lands corresponding to modern Bavaria, Wurtemburg,

Baden, and the country drained by the Maine to the east of the Rhine.

The idea of an ingress from Asia has lately been abandoned. Research

seems to have effectively exploded it.[2]

They were barbarians from our point of view, not savages; not civilised,

but apparently a good stage onward from earlier types. It was they who

gave names to many of the rivers and mountains of Europe—“names which

are poems,” says Matthew Arnold, “and which imitate the pure voices of

nature.”

Hyperboreans they seemed to have been called by the original Greeks, but

since the time of Hecatæus and Herodotus, that is, from about 500 B.C.,

they came to be known to the classic writers as κελται or κελτοι—a name

which at that early period the Greeks applied indiscriminately to all

the people of north and west Europe who were not Iberians.

To them, as well as to the Romans, all that stretch of the Continent

appeared to be occupied mainly by κελτοι. And though the Germans lived

from time immemorial beyond them in the north, not till the first

century B.C. did the Romans discover that they were a different people.

Cæsar himself was one of the earliest to observe and chronicle the fact.

But there were reasons for this apparent ubiquity of the Celts. Apart

from their chronic unrest and frequent migrations, we can well

understand why the Germans appeared merged in them. The Germans were

early deprived of their independence, and held in slavish subordination

till they recovered their freedom about 300 B.C. For centuries before

that date, conqueror and conquered apparently lived under a common

regime, obeying the same chiefs, and fighting in the same armies, though

generally in the relation of dominant masters and subject slaves. In

this way they even came to have many words in common, as their

respective languages show.

At what time the Celts entered Gaul, Britain, and Ireland is a question

unhappily beyond the knowledge of man. The seventh century B.C., or even

the tenth as the Irish tradition maintains, is given as an approximate

date. But of this there is no authentic record. Nor yet of a second

immigration assumed to have followed in the third century B.C.

That there were two such invasions of Britain with a considerable

interval between them is one of the pet theories of philology. For two

branches of an originally parent stock may be traced, known as the

Gadelic and the Brittonic, or more recently as the Q and P groups. The

one includes the Irish, Manx, and Gaelic-speaking peoples, and was the

earlier to arrive; the other embraces the Welsh, Cornish, and Breton,

who came later.

This linguistic fact might be represented tabularly, thus:—

Celtic

|

+-----------+-----------+

| |

Gadelic Brittonic

| |

+------+------+ +-------+-------+

| | | | | |

Irish Manx Gaelic Welsh Cornish Breton

The main difference between those two branches is, that in Gadelic the

original guttural of the Aryan tongue came gradually to be _c_ with the

sound _k_, ogam _qu_, and that in Brittonic it became _p_. So we say:—

English Gaelic Welsh Latin

Four _c_eithir _p_edwar quatuor

Five _c_oig _p_imp quinque

Such a distinction points to a great change from the common speech of

earlier Celtic times. It existed prior to the Christian era, and is

still strikingly in evidence. Edward Lhuyd, the illustrious Welsh

antiquary, writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, noted

that there were scarcely any words in the Irish that began with _p_,

beyond what were borrowed from Latin or some other language. So much was

this the case, that in an ancient alphabetical vocabulary which he had

beside him, the letter _p_ was entirely omitted. Other instances might

be given. For example, in O’Reilly’s Irish Dictionary, out of upwards of

700 pages, only twelve are occupied with that letter; and when we come

to examine the most recent Gaelic collection of words—the etymological

dictionary of Dr. Macbain—we find about 270 beginning with _p_ out of a

total of well over 7000; and even of these, the majority are derived or

borrowed from Norse or English. There is a MS. of the eighteenth century

in the Laing collection of Edinburgh University, which puts the case

succinctly, when in the sections of what promised to be a good Gaelic

grammar, it observes that of old no word, except _exotic_ words, began

in Gaelic with a _p_. Fastening on so characteristic a distinction

Professor Rhys, some years ago, decided to call the Brittonic the P, and

the Gadelic the Q group, as the more simple and fundamental

classification.

Thus far philology helps to differentiate between the two branches, and

points to a remote advent of the Gael in Britain.

But when we turn to history we find there is nothing definite on this

most attractive subject till Cæsar arrives and makes personal

observation. Speaking of the south—for he had not penetrated the

northern parts—he tells us that he found two races in possession: one in

the interior, which considered itself indigenous; the other on the

sea-coast, roving adventurers from the Continent who arrived later.

Tacitus, writing nearly a century and a half after Cæsar, namely, about

82 A.D., practically confirms Cæsar’s report of a double occupation, and

adds the further interesting details, that the one race was dark

complexioned and had curly hair, while the other, resembling the Gauls,

had red hair and were tall of stature. In the eighth century A.D. we

know, on the authority of Bede, that there were in these islands five

written languages, viz. those of the Angles, the Brythons, the Scottis,

the Picts, and the Latins, the first four[3] of which were spoken. It is

the ever-puzzling yet fascinating work of philology and ethnology to

trace the origin and exact racial connection of these—a work which

hitherto has proved as elusive as the finding of the North Pole. Who are

the dark complexioned race of the South? and who the Picts of the North?

are questions of perennial interest to the experts.

But though early British and German history is so elusive, we are on

sure ground with the main facts of Celtic progress on the Continent from

the fifth century B.C. Authentic history then opens with the advent of

the classical writers just at the time when the Celts were entering upon

a series of conquests which for the next 200 years made them the

dominant race in Europe.[4] It is needless to follow their various

migrations, even if it were possible. As their territories became

congested on the Danube, they sent forth horde after horde of conquering

tribes who surged every way. Now westward for the most part, till, in

the graphic language of Galgacus, uttered centuries after, “there was

now no nation beyond—nothing save the waves and the rocks” (Nulla jam

gens ultra; nihil nisi fluctus et saxa), then, like the back-rushing

tides, they receded eastwards.

“Tumults,” the Romans called these irrepressible outbursts, and most

felicitously too, for they were the terror of Europe.

A cursory glance at some of the more famous of their invasions suffices

to show the restless energy of the Celts and their far-reaching

conquests.

From Gaul, where they appear to have established themselves north of the

Garonne and about the Seine and Loire, the hungry tribes made a dash for

Spain, shortly before 500 B.C., and wrested the peninsula from the hands

of the Phœnicians. One hundred and twenty years later North Italy shared

the same fate. Surging through the passes of the Alps they overthrew the

Etruscans on their own ground in the great battle of Allia, 390 B.C.,

and annexed their territory. Flushed with the victory they pressed

forward, and within three days stormed and sacked the town of Rome

itself. Indeed, it is with this momentous incursion that authentic Roman

history begins.

One more mighty invasion of the East, and the Illyrians along the Danube

are vanquished, thus rendering the conquerors masters of a vast

territory extending from that river and the Adriatic to the Atlantic,

and bounded on the north by the Rhine and Mid-Germany, and on the south

by Mid-Italy and Mid-Spain, and including the British Isles—a

magnificent empire rivalling that of Alexander or of Cæsar in their

palmy days. Goldsmith’s lines might well apply to them—

One only master grasps the whole domain,

And half a tillage stints the smiling plain.

So formidable, indeed, were the Celts during the period of their

ascendency that it served the purpose of the classic nations—Greeks and

Romans—to keep the peace with them as best they could, and even to play

them off against their own hereditary foes. And so the expansive tribes

were for the most part on friendly terms with both, especially with the

Greeks. We have an account in Strabo of an interview which Alexander the

Great had with their ambassadors. It is given on the authority of

Ptolemy, his general. The young potentate knew well the advantage of

cultivating good fellowship with his powerful neighbours, and when the

tribes of the Adriatic sent delegates he received them with all due

courtesy and respect.

While they were drinking, says the general, Alexander asked them what

was the object of their greatest fear, thinking they would say himself.

But the imaginative Celts had quite other views. They feared no man. One

thing only alarmed them, they replied, and that was lest the heavens

should one day fall and crush them. Still, they added, that they valued

the friendship of such a man as he was above everything.

“How vainglorious these Celts are!” muttered the young autocrat to his

courtiers, a little piqued, perhaps, at their rejoinder. Yet, if such

were really the object of their superstitious dread, the promise they

made was not without its own grim cogency. “If we fulfil not our

engagement,” they said, “may the sky falling upon us crush us, may the

earth opening swallow us, may the sea overflowing its borders drown us.”

With Alexander they kept their pledge, but in 280 B.C., when another

king ruled Macedonia, they over-ran his territories, slew him in battle,

and pillaged the temple of Delphi itself—an act of vandalism so shocking

to the Greeks that it roused their patriotism to such a pitch that they

were able to repulse the enemy in the neighbouring gorges.

Thus compelled to evacuate Greece, the Celts invaded Asia Minor in 278

B.C., and established there the well-known colony of Galatia. It was to

their descendants that St. Paul addressed his trenchant epistle, and the

words, “O foolish Galatians, who hath druided you?”

For six centuries after they continued to speak their language there, so

that St. Paul must have heard one dialect at least of the ancient

tongue.

It may surprise students of the classics to learn that the Celts claim

Hercules as one of their own potentates. In an old Gaelic MS. in the

Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, we find the renowned hero figuring thus:

“Ercoill mac Amphitrionis, mhic Antestis, mhic Andlis, mhic Mitonis,

mhic Festime, mhic Athol, mhic Gregais, mhic Gomer, mhic Jafed, mhic

Noe”—a truly wonderful genealogy, tracing him up to Noah through the

Cymric Gomer.

The Greek version of the myth is interesting. It tells how Hercules, on

his expedition against Geryon, turned aside into Gaul and married there

a handsome Gaulish lady, by whom he had a son, Galates. This Galates,

surpassing all his countrymen in strength and prowess, led the way to

conquest, and exercising a wide sway, his territory and subjects

eventually came to be named after him—the one Galatia, the other Galatæ.

In whatever way the classic story originated, it is matter of history

that after the Celtic invasion of Greece, Galatæ became the popular

Greek name for the people hitherto known as κελτοι, even as Galli was

the favourite Roman one.

But already, before the Greek repulse, the Celtic cup of conquest was

full, and their vast empire began to crumble and disintegrate. The first

great shock was given by the revolt of their born thralls, the Germans,

about 300 B.C. In the struggle for independence these recovered their

liberty and big stretches of territory. Besides falling out with the

Greeks, the flurried tribes in that wild consternation of defeat came to

blows with the Romans also, who in two different battles got the victory

over them. Forced to ally themselves with former foes, now with the

Etruscans, again with the Carthaginians, the Celts still fought

desperately, but all in vain. Their dominion was doomed. And as if to

hasten the swift debacle, the various sections of the same great people

attacked and dispossessed each other. It was probably in the pressure of

those times that the Brittonic invaders surged into Britain and elbowed

their Gaelic kinsmen into more straitened circumstances; for all the

continental Celts were simultaneously in the throes of a lamentable

dispersion. Reverse followed reverse with singular fatality. Every

attempt to redeem their desperate fortunes seemed to fail. “They went to

the war, but they always fell,” said their own sad bard afterwards,

summing up in one terse antithesis the history of their collapse.

The failure was crushing and irretrievable. They lost Spain, they lost

the north of Italy, they lost Gaul, and subsequently Britain.

The story of Cæsar’s conquests needs no rehearsal. By 80 A.D. all

Britain south of the Firth of Forth figured as a Roman province.

Meantime the Celtic dialects of Gaul and Spain were gradually being

superseded by the Latin, and even the laws, habits, and civil

administration of the people were becoming Roman, until in the third

century of our era scarcely a vestige of the ancient régime remained

outside of the British Isles and Brittany, except to the south of the

latter, where the influence of the discarded dialect on the adopted

Latin might be traced.[5]

In Britain the Romanising process was suddenly arrested by the hasty

departure of the conqueror; and in the helpless abandonment that ensued

the Saxons found an open door. The same fate that they had themselves

formerly inflicted on their kinsmen now overtook the Britons, who were

hustled in great numbers into the wilds of Cornwall, of Wales, and

Strathclyde. And the last stage of the driving west remained to be

accomplished in the case of the Irish, when the Anglo-Celts arrived in

the twelfth century.

Since the great debacle of their race the Celtic remnants have continued

to speak one or other of the dialects bequeathed from their ancestors.

Five of these are living tongues. Apart from the number that speak them

abroad, it is estimated there are upwards of 3,000,000 people in

Brittany and the British Isles whose mother tongue is Celtic. The

distribution and proportion, according to the latest available

statistics,[6] are full of interest, in view of the long struggle for

existence of the language and people, and the extraordinary vitality

they have evinced in defying the tooth of time. These facts may be

crisply tabulated thus:—

Gaelic.[7] 254,415. Chiefly in the Highlands of Scotland.

Irish. 679,145. West of a line in Ireland from Dungarvon Bay to

Loch Swilly.

Manx. 3,000. West Coast, Isle of Man.

Welsh. 900,000. Over Wales.

Cornish. Extinct. Formerly Cornwall.

Breton. 1,300,000. In Brittany, N.W. corner of France.

A sadly dwindling minority are these fag-ends of once so mighty a race.

There can be no doubt that we see the isolated parts gradually expiring

on the horizon, and with more accelerated speed within the last few

decades than for centuries before. Modern industrialism now woos them

away from the strongholds of their own characteristic life, and the

separate units get absorbed in the common national life and the common

civilisation. Numbers of them—of the Irish especially—are still seeking

a home, following the hereditary instincts of their ancestors, and

hiving westwards to America, only to lose their distinctive Celtic

existence and to be merged in the larger life of that great nation.

The facts are sufficiently patent, but to show the rapidity with which

the disintegration is going on it may be mentioned that since 1851,

3,925,133 persons have emigrated from Ireland alone—a number larger than

that of all the remaining Celtic-speaking population in Europe. In 1899

the number was 43,760; in 1900, 47,107; in 1901, 39,870, the vast

majority of whom were from the western Irish-speaking provinces; and, as

in the depopulation of the Highlands, it is largely a drain of the best

blood, the land being left in the hands of the old and the feeble.

There are those who still write and dream of laying the foundations of a

new Celtic civilisation, but in view of the present subtle and swift

dissolution it is hard to know what they mean, unless indeed it be a

leavening of the existing civilisation by a recrudescence of the Celtic

spirit and Celtic aspirations.

In the main the race has already become fused with the population of

Europe, disappearing as Gallo-Grecians in the east, as Celt-Iberians in

Spain, as Gallo-Franks and Anglo-Celts in the north-west—all but the

Celtic fringes that are shedding their past.

Thus far the history, and from what we have said it will appear that the

Celts first emerge in literature in the fifth century B.C., from which

time the classical writers make frequent, though generally short and

meagre allusions to them. Dr. W. Z. Ripley,[8] one of the latest

authorities on ethnology, would discount their evidence as of little

value for the purposes of modern scientific research into race origins

and affinities, yet, nevertheless, so far as it goes, it is highly

interesting and important.

The earliest of all the Greek authors to mention the Celts, if we except

the geographer Hecatæus (520 B.C.), is Herodotus (484–425?), who twice

refers to them in his history as dwelling at the sources of the Danube

and bordering on the Kunesii, the westermost inhabitants of Europe.

Xenophon, at a later period (390), speaking of them as mercenaries with

Dionysius of Syracuse in 368 B.C., remarks that “the ships brought

Keltoi and Iberes.” Plato, Ephorus, Pytheas, and Scylax all furnish

hints in the same century. Aristotle also knew about this extraordinary

people, who, he was told, feared “neither earthquake nor floods,” living

in a country so cold that even the ass did not thrive there, yet putting

little clothing on their children. It appears he had also heard that

they had sacked Rome. Timæus popularised the new name Galatæ in bringing

into notice Galatia, which, he avers, is named after “Galates, son of

Cyclops and Galatia.”

From this time onward we get fuller details of the Celtic character,

manners, and customs. And to show the number and variety of authorities

from which information may be gleaned, the following may be selected:

Polybius, a Greek writer of the second century B.C., and Posidonius of

the first. Julius Cæsar and his contemporary Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, a

geographer of the early part of the first century A.D., Virgil, Cicero,

Livy, Tacitus, Dion Cassius, Pliny, Ptolemy, and Ammianus Marcellinus,

the latter bringing the list down towards the end of the fourth century,

when the Roman Empire in its own turn began to break up, and the Gaels

were at length prepared to enter the arena of literature and speak for

themselves.

It is outwith the scope of this chapter to go into many of the

interesting details which these various authors furnish, but a few of

those which astonished the writers may be noted in passing, such as, the

Celts’ intellectual cleverness; their numbers and great size; the

magnificence of their funerals, and their belief in the immortality of

the soul. Their cities were forests, and though otherwise cleanly in

their eating, lion-like, they were wont to take up huge joints and gnaw

at them. Other features of striking peculiarity were their figurative,

exaggerated language; the functions of bards and druids; their chariots

and excellent horsemanship; the fierceness and noise of their first

onset in battle; their readiness to be disheartened by reverse; their

astounding clothes,—dyed tunics, flowered with various colours, flaming

and fantastic, striped cloaks buckled on their shoulders, and breeches.

Their chiefs generally appeared with a retinue of followers. Of old, the

Celts devoted themselves to plundering other people’s countries. The

heads of their fallen enemies they cut off and hung to their horses’

manes; they were warlike, passionate, and always ready for fighting;

otherwise simple, frank, hospitable to strangers, but vain, quarrelsome,

fickle, and ever prone to waste their strength on personal feuds and

factions. Such were some of the curious traits and customs of our Celtic

progenitors as seen through Greek and Roman eyes.

Scarcely had the Romans finally abandoned Britain than the Celts enter

upon a new rôle. They annex the Roman script, the Roman language for

literary work, and the Roman art of writing. And thus equipped, they

proceed to produce a literature of their own in Latin and Gaelic. The

wonder is that with their natural quickness and thirst for knowledge

they did not achieve a record in this direction before.

When we reflect on the other great nations of antiquity, we find that

they generally had a literature of some kind, written down, if not in

books, then on skins or slabs and in temples. The Egyptians had their

“Book of the Dead,” the Indians their “Rig-veda,” the Persians their

“Zend-avesta,” the Chinese and Hebrews their “Sacred Books,” the Greeks

and Romans their classics, and we naturally ask, “What had the Celts in

the zenith of their power?” say between 500 and 300 B.C. No writing at

all that we know of. At this day only a few inscriptions remain in the

Gaulish language of Cæsar’s time and later, but nothing earlier. These

nomadic warrior populations may have had their bardic compositions and

tales floating by oral tradition, but we have no evidence that they

developed a literature, though some of them may have known Greek

letters.

It is to the insular Gaels, to those of Ireland and Scotland in the

fifth and sixth centuries of our era, that we have to look for the early

beginnings of Celtic literature. The Irish first showed signs of a rude

awakening to activity in this direction. They invented a system of

writing peculiar to themselves, simple and ingenious, and good enough

for rough inscriptions on stones, but too cumbrous for the needs of

literature.

Their earliest records are to be found in this Ogam script, which

consists of a number of short lines drawn straight or slanting, either

above, below, or through a long stem-line. Thus—

| || ||| |||| |||||

+-----++-----+++-----++++-----+++++----------

h d t c qu

represents the letters h, d, t, c, qu, being the first letters of the

first five numerals in Gaelic, h’aon, dha, tri, ceithir, coig; the last

in Manx is queig; in Irish cuig; and in Latin quinque.

The vowels are similarly represented, broad vowels, a, o, u; small

vowels, e, i—

| || ||| |||| |||||

+-----++-----+++-----++++-----+++++----------

| || ||| |||| |||||

a o u e i

Over two hundred stones have been found inscribed with Ogam writing,

most of them in the south-west of Ireland, from twenty to thirty in

Wales and Devonshire, and ten in Scotland. The Book of Ballymote, a MS.

of the fourteenth century, fortunately contains a key to some of these

inscriptions, so that many of them have been read, though not all.

Who introduced this peculiar mode of writing? and when? are questions

that have never yet been determined. Brash, who made personal inspection

of most of the stones, was of opinion that they are of pre-Christian

origin, whereas Dr. Graves has attempted to prove that they belong to a

period between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D.

References to Ogam inscriptions are frequently met with in the earliest

Celtic literature, and some examined contain grammatical forms alleged

to be older than those of the most ancient MSS., and corresponding even

with the archaic forms of the antique Gaulish monuments.

The Ogam used to be written on wood and stone, and it is not improbable

that many of the genealogies and bits of legendary lore may have been

handed down from generation to generation in this way, as well as by

oral tradition.

It is with the great wave of Christian evangelisation that passed over

Ireland and Scotland successively, through the labours of St. Patrick

and St. Columba, that the use of the Roman script became widely general,

and we trace the dawn of letters. Round the names of these two men there

shines a lustre which the lapse of ages has failed to dim. They not only

kindled the torch of a higher faith and purer life among their Celtic

brethren, but they lighted also the lamp of literature, which has

continued to burn with more or less radiance for 1500 years.

St. Patrick, as the earlier of the two, is really the Cædmon of Gaelic

literature. Born in Scotland, probably, as the later critics think, at

Old Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, he was, while yet a youth of sixteen,

carried captive to Hiberio, and though he escaped after six years from

his hard fate as his master’s thrall and feeder of cattle, his

missionary zeal, new kindled, urged him to return as evangelist to the

land of his former oppression. The visions of his early captivity, as he

lay down to rest of nights near the cattle, remind us of Cædmon’s vision

in the stable at Whitby, upwards of two hundred years after—a vision

which issued in the birth of English literature, as did those of St

Patrick in that of Gaelic.

And so the unassuming herd emerges as the first known writer of the

ancient Celtic people, the first of whom we have any definite authentic

knowledge.

Three literary compositions stand in his name, namely, his “Confession,”

written in rugged Latin, his “Epistle to Coroticus,” in similar language

and style, and the “Deer’s Cry,” a lorica or prayer in Gaelic. This hymn

has always been regarded, and rightly too, as a gem of sacred song.

The religious and literary dawn that lit up Ireland in the fifth century

reached Scotland in the sixth through the advent of the heroic Columba.

He too, by unhappy circumstances driven over sea, lived an exile in “the

land of his adoption tried,” and with even more brilliance and learning

did for Scotland what St. Patrick did for Ireland. So that the school of

Iona became for centuries after his death a centre of light and leading

in religion and letters, not only for Scotland and Ireland, but also for

many parts of Europe.

His own special contributions to literature include several beautiful

poems in Gaelic and Latin, and many transcripts in Latin of parts of

books of Scripture, such as the Cathrach, a copy of the Psalter believed

to have been made while he was yet a student, and perhaps also the Book

of Durrow and the Book of Kells—two wonderful specimens of penmanship

and early Celtic art. If these latter are not exactly the work of his

own hands they belong at least to the Columban period, an era of great

literary activity, which produced, among other well-known works, the

_Amra Choluimcille_ of Dallan Forgaill, Adamnan’s _Life of Columba_, and

the Book of Deer.

It will thus be seen that the earliest written MSS. of the Celtic people

are essentially a Christian literature, which ignored almost entirely

the pagan traditions of the race in its effort to supersede them. But

the atmosphere was heavy with these, and apparently from pre-Christian

times there had come floating down by oral transmission a great mass of

heroic saga which at length found written expression in the seventh or

eighth century A.D. So that now to the purely Christian literature there

was added the purely pagan, which much more faithfully reflected the

characteristic flavour of the race, its strength, and its weakness, its

facts, its fancies, and its foibles. Professing to go back to a remote

antiquity, it is significant that the setting of this ancient saga is

confined exclusively to these islands. None of the stories belong to

Europe or the doings of the parent stock in its palmy days. As compared

with the Christian, this pagan contribution is by far the more important

from a literary point of view. Yet it must be borne in mind that though

there are still extant in Ireland Celtic Latin MSS. which reach up to

the time of St. Patrick and St. Columba, there is none existing which

contains actual Gaelic writing prior to the eighth century.

Almost the only specimen of continuous prose written by the end of the

eighth century now known to exist is a portion of a Gaelic sermon on

temperance and self-denial from the text, “If any man will come after

me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” This

curious relic is in the town library of Cambray, in a MS. containing the

canons of an Irish council held in 684. The MS., however, bears direct

evidence that it was not written until about a century afterwards.

The earliest written Gaelic is contained in MSS. on the Continent, such

as those at Milan, Cambray, Vienna, St. Gall, and other places. And even

these are not books of saga, but generally Latin books with some Gaelic

poems jotted on the leaf margins, or glosses, and other explanatory

writing. There are a few such literary monuments also in the British

Isles, containing ancient Gaelic. The Book of Armagh, for example, dates

from 807, and in addition to vernacular notes, preserves the Latin

“Confessions” of St. Patrick, copied, it is believed, from the apostle’s

own autograph MS. The Book of Deer, almost equally venerable, with a

Gaelic colophon, belongs to the same century. To its original contents

were added in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Gaelic entries which

are of uncommon philological and historical interest and value.

But setting aside these Latin books in which the Gaelic jottings are

purely incidental and secondary, we need to come down as far as the

eleventh century to reach the existing sources of the earliest written

compositions in the native tongue. It is in such MSS. as the Leabhar Na

h’Uidhre, the Book of Hymns, and the other great MiddleAge gleanings of

after days that we find the Patrician and Columban literature as well as

the ancient sagas.

Till within very recent times the Celt had no idea that he was heir to

such a vast literary inheritance as really exists. As in the olden times

men sometimes buried their wealth to save it from the hands of ruthless

foes, and, dying themselves or falling in the fray, lived not to

indicate to others the site of their hid treasures, so it has happened

in the case of Gaelic literature. Much of it perished at the hands of

the enemy and the avenger. What was saved from the wreck of the more

stormy and turbulent periods of our history owes its existence to-day

very largely to concealment and neglect. And as the plough or the spade

occasionally turns up an old stone cist, or a casket of ancient coins,

or a canoe of primitive man, so the casual researches of antiquarians

and scholars have brought to light a hidden mass of ancient writings

which appear to have been scattered broadcast over Europe and the

British Isles. These Gaelic relics are now jealously preserved in

various countries, and within the last century have been made the

subject of the most interested scrutiny by leading Continental and

British philologists, with the result that they have thrown a welcome

light on some of the darker problems of history, philology, and

ethnology. For example, as late as the first quarter of last century few

people had any idea that the Celtic populations were allied with the

southern nations of Europe, or that their language had any connection

whatever with the Romance and Teutonic tongues. One solitary scholar,[9]

indeed, threw out the hint as early as 1786, but offered no proof; and

it remained a visionary hypothesis until the long list of documents

reappearing one by one enabled scholars to establish the point beyond

question, that linguistically the Celtic people are a branch of the

great Aryan family, and thus closely allied with the Teutonic, and still

more nearly with the Greek and the Latin peoples. Roughly, this

relationship may be represented as under. The table is not meant to

indicate race affinities, which it is very far indeed from doing, but

simply to exhibit the affinities of language which modern philological

studies have traced:—

Aryan

|

+--------------------------+-----------------------------+

| |

European Branch Asiatic Branch

|

+------------------------+-----------------------+

| | |

| Slavonic Teutonic

| | |

| +-----+--------+ |

| | | |

| Russians Old Prussians |

| |

+------+-------+ +-------+--------+

| | | | | |

Greek Latin Celtic English Germans Norse

It is this important and surprising discovery, that we are a part of a

vast Indo-European family spread to the east over a great part of Asia,

and to the west over the most of Europe including Russia, that has given

such impetus to Celtic studies within recent years. The Gaelic has been

found to have roots which go far down towards the parent stock. And its

literature, therefore, is of the utmost value to all who seek to read

the riddle of the past and to push back the horizons of knowledge beyond

the age even of Herodotus, “the father of history.”

There is a fascination and refining influence in the study of the Greek

and Roman classics, but for the man of large outlook and broad human

sympathies there is much also to interest and attract in the literature

of the Gael—so old, so weird, so fanciful.

Wordsworth, as he listened to the song of the Highland maid in the

harvest field, felt the pathos of the past in that moving Gaelic

product, and would fain learn its story. Hence his reverie—

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old unhappy far-off things,

And battles long ago.

That is just what they do; dealing with much brighter things too. For

the spirit of the race is enshrined in these old writings, and the

fortunes of the race in their history.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I

NUMBER OF PERSONS SPEAKING GAELIC AND ENGLISH, AND GAELIC ONLY, IN

SCOTLAND IN 1891 AND 1901.

┌───────────────────┬───────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────┐

│ County. │ │ Gaelic and │ │

│ │ Population. │ English. │Gaelic only. │

├───────────────────┼─────────┬─────────┼───────┬───────┼──────┬──────┤

│ „ │ 1891. │ 1901. │ 1891. │ 1901. │1891. │1901. │

├───────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┤

│Inverness │ 89,317│ 89,796│ 44,084│ 43,179│17,276│11,721│

│Ross and Cromarty │ 77,810│ 76,135│ 37,437│ 39,235│18,577│12,171│

│Argyll │ 75,003│ 73,083│ 36,720│ 34,224│ 6,042│ 3,313│

│Lanark │1,046,040│1,337,886│ 22,887│ 26,695│ 84│ 101│

│Sutherland │ 21,896│ 21,239│ 14,786│ 14,076│ 1,115│ 469│

│Perth │ 126,199│ 123,276│ 13,847│ 11,446│ 304│ 78│

│Renfrew │ 290,798│ 268,459│ 8,435│ 5,585│ 63│ 40│

│Edinburgh │ 434,159│ 487,702│ 6,308│ 5,745│ 19│ 75│

│Caithness │ 37,177│ 33,623│ 4,068│ 2,865│ 76│ 20│

│Dumbarton │ 94,495│ 113,627│ 3,556│ 3,040│ 36│ 14│

│Bute │ 18,404│ 18,641│ 3,482│ 2,713│ 29│ 20│

│Nairn │ 10,019│ 9,291│ 2,487│ 1,325│ 53│ 10│

│Elgin │ 43,453│ 44,749│ 2,263│ 1,860│ 12│ 2│

│Stirling │ 125,608│ 141,847│ 1,840│ 2,021│ 2│ 10│

│Ayr │ 226,283│ 254,165│ 1,827│ 1,654│ 14│ 16│

│Aberdeen │ 281,332│ 303,908│ 1,534│ 1,331│ 8│ 8│

│Forfar │ 277,773│ 283,736│ 1,461│ 1,303│ 8│ 13│

│Fife │ 187,346│ 218,347│ 726│ 840│ 6│ 3│

│Banff │ 64,190│ 61,440│ 639│ 499│ 3│ │

│Haddington │ 37,485│ 38,656│ 575│ 459│ 7│ 7│

│Linlithgow │ 52,808│ 64,796│ 486│ 575│ 2│ 5│

│Clackmannan │ 28,432│ 31,994│ 215│ 170│ 1│ 1│

│Dumfries │ 74,221│ 72,564│ 201│ 176│ │ 1│

│Roxburgh │ 53,741│ 48,804│ 177│ 132│ │ │

│Kincardine │ 35,647│ 40,896│ 116│ 103│ 1│ │

│Berwick │ 32,406│ 30,793│ 89│ 74│ │ 1│

│Orkney │ 30,453│ 27,727│ 88│ 70│ │ │

│Selkirk │ 27,353│ 23,356│ 73│ 57│ │ │

│Peebles │ 14,761│ 15,066│ 70│ 72│ │ 1│

│Kirkcudbright │ 39,985│ 39,335│ 69│ 98│ │ │

│Wigton │ 36,062│ 32,593│ 68│ 84│ │ │

│Shetland │ 28,711│ 27,736│ 67│ 52│ │ │

│Kinross │ 6,280│ 6,981│ 56│ 55│ │ │

│Persons on Board │ │ │ │ │ │ │

│ Ship in Scottish │ │ │ │ │ │ │

│ Waters │ │ 9,856│ │ 887│ │ 6│

├───────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┤

│ Total │4,025,647│4,472,103│210,677│202,700│43,738│28,106│

└───────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┘

In the census of 1901 the schedule restricts the entries in the Gaelic

column to persons over three years of age. According to the previous

census the number of persons under three years of age amounted to 7½ per

cent of the whole population. This must be taken into account in order

to institute a fair comparison between the returns of the

Gaelic-speaking population in 1891 and 1901.

CHAPTER II

ST. PATRICK, THE PIONEER OF CELTIC WRITERS

The historical Patrick—Authentic records—Earliest known Gaelic

litterateur—Dates elusive—Birthplace—Autobiographical details of

his youth—Taken captive—Escape—Obscure wanderings—Return

home—The rôle of missionary in Ireland—Epoch-making

career—Remarkable Patrician Dialogues—His own literary work—The

“Confession”—“Epistle to Coroticus”—“Deer’s Cry”—Ireland’s

oldest book—Three other antique compositions from the Book of

Hymns—A curious prophecy—Personal character—Death.

It is a characteristic of our age to doubt, if not to deny, the

historical reality of many of the heroic figures that hover in the

background of history. And such a doubt has extended even to St.

Patrick, due largely to the fact that he is not mentioned by the early

historians Prosper of Aquitaine (402–463) and Bede (673–735), both of

whom attribute the conversion of Ireland to Palladius.

But this seeming omission has been explained on the highly probable

assumption that Patrick[10] was the Palladius of these writers; and

against the merely negative inference there is the positive and almost

overwhelming voice of history and tradition, which puts the essential

features of Ireland’s apostle beyond all doubt.

The authentic records of his career are numerous and very old, dating

back, we may say, to his own handwriting. For in the Book of Armagh we

have what professes to be a copy of the autobiographical “Confession”

which he wrote himself late in life. This Book of Armagh, one of the

most ancient and exquisite of the Irish MSS., is itself nearly 1100

years old, having been written in 807 by a scribe Ferdomnach, and, in

addition to the “Confession” and other interesting contents, it has

preserved to us various Patrician documents. That the writer had before

him the actual autograph MS. of the saint when copying the “Confession”

is inferred from his own words, “Thus far the volume which Patrick wrote

with his own hand. On the seventeenth day of March was Patrick

translated to the heavens.” And also from his frequent marks of

interrogation and casual hints, such as, “The Book is uncertain here,”

showing that during the intervening centuries since Patrick wrote the

writing must have become faded and even illegible in some places.

Besides his own personal account, there is no lack of early lives by

other authors. Among those that may still be consulted are: (1) the

biographical Hymn by Fiacc of Sletty, one of the saint’s own

contemporaries; (2) two seventh-century Lives known as Tirechan’s and

Muirchu Mac Cumachteni’s, found in the Book of Armagh; (3) the

Tripartite Life, largest of all, from three very ancient Gaelic MSS.,

believed by Colgan, though not by later critics, to belong to the early

part of the sixth century, and translated by him in his _Trias

Thaumaturga_, 1645; (4) the Monk Jocelin’s memoir, twelfth century; and

(5) other MSS. of the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent

authors, of course, are mainly dependent on these.

A great historic character was this St. Patrick, who could not be buried

in documents. His own words have far-reaching significance, beyond even

what he himself meant to convey when he wrote, “He who is mighty came

and in his mercy supported me, and raised me up and placed me on the top

of a wall.” On this eminence St. Patrick is great, not merely as apostle

of Ireland, but also as occupying a niche in the origins of Celtic

literature. Essentially a man of religious initiative, and making no

claim to distinction as a writer, he is nevertheless the earliest known

pioneer of letters in Ireland—the first of whose work we have definite

records to attest the authenticity.

What share he had in making the latter a literary country it is

difficult to say; but from his missionary advent in Ireland a knowledge

of letters seems to have spread rapidly over the land. His monasteries

and churches were centres and nurseries of learning. “He used,” as

Tirechan tells us, “to baptize men daily and to read letters and

abgatoriae with them.”

There is a high probability that the Ogam writing peculiar to Ireland

originated before his time, and even the beautiful modification of the

Roman alphabet found in Irish books. These are still matters for

research. But one thing, at least, is claimed for the saint and his

Christian followers, that they made the use of the Roman script for the

first time widely general. And this had far-reaching results for the

future, since only by its adaptation, as apart from the rude and

cumbrous though ingeniously simple Ogam, was any real literature

possible.

In view of the mass of biographical material that has collected round

the venerated name of St Patrick, it might be supposed that every event

of his life would stand out clear and luminous. Yet such is the

perversity of historic authorship, that names and dates and even

oft-told incidents are hard to get at in their true setting. The career

of the apostle is inextricably jumbled up and confused with that of two

others—the traditional Palladius and another Patrick, both of which

semi-mythical characters appear and disappear again and again, crossing

his path like his double; insomuch that it has been conjectured that the

incidents of one life are often transferred to another, and the saint is

credited with experiences which really belonged to the history of the

other two, such, for example, as his alleged mandate from the Pope and

the superior continental training under Germanus.

Dates especially are wonderfully elusive. The usual chronology for St.

Patrick’s career is given as follows: Birth, 387; missionary advent in

Ireland, 432; death, 492 or 493. Yet each of these dates is still under

discussion. Dr. Whitley Stokes puts the advent as early as 397; Dr. Todd

as late as 439 or 440. And so, after all that has been said and

searched, we are dependent for the essential features and outstanding

facts of his life upon the apostle’s own writings.

Such historical details as are generally accepted may be briefly given.

But in this case there is an advantage in quoting the _ipsissima verba_

of the saint, and thus allow him to tell his own tale at critical points

of his career, for his style and matter are themselves a revelation of

character.

He first projects himself on the canvas of literary history by relating

early circumstances and the pregnant event which changed the whole

aspect of his life, and gave it the direction it afterwards took. Thus

he begins:—

I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and least of all the faithful and the

most despicable among most men, had for my father Calpornius a deacon,

son of the late Potitus a presbyter, who was of the town of Bonaven

Taberniæ; for he had a farm in the neighbourhood where I was taken

captive. I was then sixteen years old. I knew not the true God, and I

was carried in captivity to Hiberio with many thousands of men

according to our deserts, because we had gone back from God and had

not kept His commandments, and were not obedient to our priests who

used to warn us for our salvation.

Bonaven Taberniæ has been the subject of much eager inquiry to this day.

Where is it? or Nemthur, the alternative name furnished by Fiacc of

Sletty? Many places claim the honour of being the birthplace of the

saint. Boulogne, Bristol, Glastonbury, Carlisle, Tours, Caerleon, and

Ireland have all contended at one time or another for the prestige. But

the best authorities in recent times seem to favour Old Kilpatrick, near

Dumbarton, as the most likely locality from which sprung the saint, and

as fulfilling better than any of the others the actual suggestions of

the records. In the river opposite the town there is a rock visible at

low water, called St. Patrick’s stone, tradition alleging that the ship

in which he sailed away to Ireland struck against it, but continued its

voyage unharmed.

In captivity in Antrim he remained for six years, his daily employment

being to feed cattle. Then the love of God entered his heart, he tells

us, and a spirit of prayer grew upon him. Often he would say a hundred

prayers in a day, and rise of nights to resort to the woods and

mountains in snow, and frost, and rain, for the same purpose.

While thus exercised, one night, in a dream, a voice came to him saying,

“Thy fasting is well; thou shalt soon return to thy country.” Later on,

the dream was repeated, the same voice assuring him that the ship was

now ready, 200 miles away.

Waiting no longer, the poor enthused slave fled from his master, and,

after long wandering, reached the port, where he found indeed a ship,

but the captain of it proved rough and hostile, and refused to have

anything to do with him. On the way back to his hut he was recalled by a

sailor, the upshot of the parley being that he accompanied the crew on

the voyage. Afterwards he seems to have been detained by them on shore,

perhaps in Gaul, as they wandered in a desert and suffered great

hardships. “How is it, Christian?” said the captain one day when no food

could be had. Patrick gave a characteristic reply, and he tells us that

they were saved from starvation on that occasion by a herd of swine soon

after appearing, some of which they killed and ate.

There is no mention in his account of any Continental sojourn,[11]

though almost all the Lives make reference to such. Fiacc of Sletty

waxes poetical over it:—

He went across all the Alps—great God, it was a marvel of a journey—

Until he staid with German in the south, in the south part of Latium;

In the isles of the Tyrrhene Sea he remained, therein he meditated,

He read the Canon with German; it is this that writings declare

To Ireland God’s angels were bringing him in his course,

Often was it seen in vision that he would come thither again.

If such wandering took place, it was probably after he escaped from the

mariners. For, over twenty-two years of his life at this period seem to

be a blank, unless accounted for by some such sojourn in this country or

abroad. At length, after great privations and lonely struggle, he made

his way back to his parents, who received him “as a son, and earnestly

besought him not to expose himself to fresh dangers, but to remain with

them henceforth.”

For a while he did stay, and then the apostolic spirit came upon him.

“In the dead of night,” he says, “I saw a man coming to me as if from

Hiberio, whose name was Victoricus, having innumerable epistles. And he

gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of it, which contained the

words, ‘The voice of the Irish.’ And whilst I was repeating the

beginning of the epistle, I imagined that I heard in my mind the voice

of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is near the Western

Sea, and then they cried, ‘We pray thee, holy youth, to come and

henceforth walk amongst us.’”

He is supposed to have been forty-five years of age then. His mission,

we see, he attributed solely to an inward call or divine command. There

is no mention of any authority from the Pope, of any visit to Rome or

Gaul, or even of the superior education he is credited with having

received on the Continent under Germanus. On the contrary, he speaks of

himself in his early condition as “a rustic, a fugitive, unlearned, and

not knowing how to provide for the coming day;” spiritually, “like a

stone lying in the deep mud.” And in later life, in reference to the

“Confession,” “Wherefore I thought of writing long ago, but hesitated

till now, for I feared I should not fall into the language of men;

because I have not read like others who have been taught sacred letters

in the best manner, and have never changed their language from infancy,

but were always adding to its perfection; for my language and speech is

translated into a foreign tongue. Indeed, it can be easily perceived

from the childishness of my writing after what manner I have been

instructed and taught.”

He had used Latin, no doubt, as his mother tongue in boyhood, but, not

having received much instruction in it, he had never cultivated it as a

literary language, and consequently it had, during his captivity, fallen

very much into abeyance, so that it was difficult for him in later days

to write this language of the learned as fluently as he would wish.

His father was of Roman descent. His mother is said to have been

British—a merely conjectural statement.

Like St. Columba in after years, St. Patrick addressed the tribesmen

through their chiefs and kings, and was tolerant of contemporary

superstitions, seeking rather to graft the new faith upon the old. He

adopted the pagan festivals and associated them with Christian events.

At Tara, however, he attacked paganism in its stronghold and burnt the

druidical books, extorting from King Laoghaire a reluctant acquiescence

in his work. From the chief, Daire, he obtained the site for his famous

monastery at Armagh, which became his headquarters. He threw down, in

what is the present county of Cavan, the great idol Crom Cruach—object

of immemorial veneration and savage rites. From the huge stone, which

bowed westward on that day of doom, the demon is reported to have fled

to hell, leaving his fallen image leaning over, so that what was once

called “The Chief of the Mound” was henceforth known as “The Crooked one

[Crom Cruach] of the Mound.”

As his work advanced, a vast following of missionaries, bishops, and

even chiefs and sub-kings, with their subjects, came under his

influence. He had a share also in reforming the ancient druidical laws

of Ireland, and bringing them more into harmony with Christian

principles. According to the “Four Masters,” it was in 438 the part of

the Brehon Law known as the Seanchus Mor, and still preserved in

venerable documents, was redacted. Much of the work may be of later

dates, but tradition credits St. Patrick with having undertaken the task

along with others, and with having effected a drastic purification in

his own lifetime.

Many legends have gathered round his name during the ages, and

superstitious beliefs, as one might expect. Yet, so great is his

prestige in the land of his adoption to this day, that not only are

thousands called by his name, but the peasantry of Ireland actually

believe that St. Patrick banished snakes from the island.

The historical records know nothing of any meeting between Ossian and

the saint; yet in some of the older MSS. there are Dialogues[12] in the

heroic style reported as having been carried on between them, the bard

representing the pagan ideal of his ancestors, the saint the Christian

ideal of the Church. They are evidently the work of later times, some

centuries, no doubt, after the saint’s time. But, both from a literary

and religious point of view, they are profoundly interesting.

Besides these characteristic Dialogues reported in the Book of Lismore

and other ancient MSS., and assumed to have taken place between St.

Patrick and Ossian, there is a romantic and beautiful one recorded by

Tirechan, and repeated with more or less variations in the Lives of St.

Patrick, and consequently of great antiquity. It is taken from the Book

of Armagh.

The saint had come to the well called Clebach, and before sunrise sat

down beside it with his followers.

And lo! the two daughters of King Laoghaire, Ethne the fair and Fedelm

the ruddy, came early to the well to wash after the manner of women,

and they found near the well a synod of holy Bishops with Patrick. And

they knew not whence they were or in what form or from what people, or

from what country; but they supposed them to be divine sidhe, or gods

of the earth, or a phantasm, and the virgins said unto them, “Who are

ye! and whence come ye?” And Patrick said unto them, “It were better

for you to confess to our true God, than to inquire concerning our

race.”

The first virgin said,

“Who is God?

And where is God?

And of what (nature) is God?

And where is His dwelling-place?

Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver?

Is He ever living?

Is He beautiful?

Did Mary foster His Son?

Are His daughters dear and beautiful to men of the world?

Is He in heaven or in earth?

In the sea?

In rivers?

In mountainous places?

In valleys?

Declare unto us a knowledge of Him,

How shall He be seen?

How is He to be loved?

How is He to be found?

Is it in youth?

Is it in old age that He is to be found?”

With swift strides the narrative goes on to tell how the saint

enlightened the two maidens, how they believed and were baptized, how

they received the eucharist of God and slept in death. Thereafter they

were laid on the same bed, covered with garments, while their friends

raised great lamentation for them.

Such is a summary of the chief events in St. Patrick’s long and

epoch-making career in Ireland, taken generally to have lasted sixty

years, so that he must have lived to a ripe old age, if the records

report with any exactness.

Leaving now the biographical and coming to the purely literary aspect of

his life, we find that there are three pieces of literature assigned to

him, namely, the “Confession” and the “Epistle to Coroticus,” both in

Latin, and the “Deer’s Cry” in Gaelic. The two former are sometimes

styled his epistles, numbered I. and II., the history of whose

preservation to our own time is not without its peculiar interest.

Besides the copy of the “Confession” in the Book of Armagh, there are

four other MSS. in existence: (1) the Cottonian, in the British Museum;

(2) two MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, formerly preserved in the

Salisbury Cathedral; (3) one MS. in the Public Library of Arras. The

text of the Bollandist Fathers was taken from the Arras MS. and

published at Antwerp in 1668 in their _Acta Sanctorum_. A copy of the

“Epistle to Coroticus” accompanies each of the above except that in the

Book of Armagh.

Of the “Confession,” the style and gist may be gathered from the

extracts given as we recounted his life. It is perhaps the earliest

piece of authentic Celtic literature we have, inasmuch as it is the

first of which the authorship can be definitely and historically

asserted. Its Latin is rude and archaic, answering to the description

St. Patrick gives of his own writing. It quotes from the pre-Vulgate

version of the Scriptures, and contains nothing inconsistent with the

period in which it professes to have been written.

The saint appears to have penned this document as a kind of defence of

his apostolic work against the attacks of men who regarded the whole

undertaking as arrogant and presumptuous in view of his own rusticity.

“The rustic condition was created by the Most High,” he gently reminds

them, and adds some plain truths which show that, like Jesus, and St.

Paul, and St Francis of Assisi, and other great master-spirits of the

Christian Evangel, he did not disdain poverty, but voluntarily assumed

it for the promotion of the Gospel. It would be tedious, he says, to

relate even a portion of the many toils and dangers he had gone through.

Twelve times his life was in imminent peril. Never one farthing did he

receive for all his preaching and teaching. He challenges his detractors

to say if he did and it will be returned. The people, indeed, were

generous and offered innumerable gifts, which, out of principle, he

refused, lest it might furnish an opportunity for cavil against the

disinterestedness of his mission. On one occasion, on being told that

his own nephew declared that his preaching would be perfect if he

insisted a little more on the necessity of giving, he gave the noble

reply, that “for the sake of charity he forebore to preach charity.”

The “Epistle to Coroticus” is evidently from the same pen. The Latin and

the literary style are similar. It also quotes from the pre-Vulgate

version, and there is no internal evidence against the assumption that

it was written by the saint. Though not found in the Book of Armagh, it

is preserved in the other MSS. cited, some of which may be as old as the

eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Certain authorities identify Coroticus with the Welsh prince Caredig.

Other more recent scholars, such as Drs. Skene, Whitley Stokes, and

Douglas Hyde, contend that he was a prince of Strathclyde, Ceretic by

name, who had his capital at Alclwyd, the modern Dumbarton, and thus

that he hailed from St. Patrick’s own district.

At any rate, the soldiers and allies of this nominally Christian king

suddenly made a descent on the eastern shores of Ireland, which they

harried, carrying away many of St. Patrick’s converts to be sold as

slaves, and ruthlessly killing numbers of them on the very day after

their baptism, while the symbol of their faith, as he says, was still

wet upon their foreheads, and these neophytes were yet clad in their

white vestments. The letter was sent as a remonstrance against such

barbarous conduct, and to urge the lawless prince to restore the

captives. But to little effect, for the invader treated messengers and

letters alike with ridicule and contempt, delivering the converts

abducted into the hands of the Picts and Scots.

In this letter, as in the “Confession,” St. Patrick gives interesting

personal details. A few extracts are worth quoting. For example:—

I, Patrick, an unlearned sinner do truly acknowledge that I have been

constituted a bishop in Ireland. I accept it of God that I am. I dwell

among barbarians a proselyte and an exile for the love of God.

I have written these words to be given and delivered to the soldiers

and by them to Coroticus.... I do not say to my fellow-citizens nor to

fellow-citizens of pious Romans, but to fellow-citizens of demons,

through their evil deeds.... I was of noble birth according to the

flesh, my father being a Decurio. For I bartered my nobility—I do not

blush nor regret it—for the benefit of others. No thanks to me. But

God hath put in my heart the anxious desire that I should be one of

the hunters or fishers who as God formerly announced should appear in

the last days.... What shall I do, Lord? I am greatly despised. Lo thy

sheep are torn to pieces around me and plundered by these aforesaid

marauders under the command of Coroticus.

In this letter he mentions also that he is constrained by the Spirit not

to see any of his kindred.

For St. Patrick’s beautiful hymn, the “Deer’s Cry,” we are indebted to

the Book of Hymns of the eleventh century, which, like the Book of

Armagh, contains several Patrician pieces. It is a Gaelic composition

alleged to have been made by the saint while on his way to the great

Court of Tara. It was celebrated for generations before the English

conquest as a _lorica_ or prayer for protection. Dr. Todd says, “That

this hymn is a composition of great antiquity cannot be questioned. It

is written in a very ancient dialect of the Irish Celtic. It was

evidently composed during the existence of pagan usages in the country.

It makes no allusion to Arianism or any of the heresies prevalent in the

Continental Church. It notices no doctrine or practice of the Church

that is not known to have existed before the fifth century. In its style

and diction, although written in a different language, there is nothing

very dissimilar to the Confession and the letter about Coroticus, and

nothing absolutely inconsistent with the opinion that it may be by the

same author.” Beyond this no positive proof can be given.

In the _Liber Hymnorum_ it is prefaced by the following distinctive

account in Gaelic:—

Patrick made this hymn. In the time of Laoghaire son of Nial it was

made. The cause of making it however was to protect himself with his

monks against the deadly enemies who were in ambush against the

clerics. And this is a corselet of faith for the protection of body

and soul against demons and human beings and vices. Every one who

shall say it every day with pious meditation on God, demons shall not

stay before him. It will be a safeguard to him against every poison

and envy; it will be a comna to him against sudden death; it will be a

corselet to his soul after dying. Patrick sung this when the

ambuscades were sent against him by Laoghaire that he might not go to

Tara to sow the faith, so that there seemed before the ambuscaders to

be wild deer and a fawn after them, to wit, Benen;[13] and faed fiada

(guard’s cry) is its name.

Apparently the assassins mistook the chanting of the lorica for the cry

of the deer. This saved the party, and furnished a name for the hymn.

A very remarkable and striking piece of literature it is, and one that

does credit to the language in which it is clothed. “For its glow of

imagination and fervour of devotion,” says Dr. Dowden, the author of the

_Early Celtic Church in Scotland_, “it will always challenge a high

place in the history of Christian hymnology.”

It it well worth transcribing also as exhibiting the saint’s creed, his

belief in contemporary superstitions and attitude towards them, his

piety and poetic gift. In all probability we have here a very fair

representation of the gist of his teaching. Like the authors of the

Vedic hymns, and the votaries of all primitive religions, he invokes the

powers of nature, a phase of the religious spirit which seems to have

fallen devotionally in abeyance in modern times. What strikes our age

perhaps as more curious and superstitious, he prays for protection

against the spells of women, smiths, and Druids, like any good heathen.

I[14] bind myself to-day to a strong virtue, an invocation of (the)

Trinity. I believe in a Threeness with confession of an Oneness in

(the) Creator of (the) Universe.

I bind myself to-day to the virtue of Christ’s birth with his baptism,

To the virtue of his crucifixion with his burial,

To the virtue of his resurrection with his ascension,

To the virtue of his coming to the Judgment of Doom.

I bind myself to-day to the virtue of ranks of Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

(In service of archangels),

In hope of resurrection for reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preachings of apostles,

In faiths of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I bind myself to-day to the virtue of Heaven,

In light of sun,

In brightness of snow,

In splendour of fire,

In speed of lightning,

In swiftness of wind,

In depth of sea,

In stability of earth,

In compactness of rock.

I bind myself to-day to God’s virtue to pilot me,

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to secure me,

Against snares of demons,

Against seductions of vices,

Against lusts (?) of nature,

Against every one who wishes ill to me,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in a multitude,

So have I invoked all these virtues between me (and these)

Against every cruel, merciless power which may come, against my body

and my soul,

Against incantations of false prophets.

Against black laws of heathenry,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of women, and smiths, and Druids,

Against every knowledge that defiles men’s souls,

Christ to protect me to-day.

Against poison, against burning, against drowning, against death

wound,

Until a multitude of rewards come to me!

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me!

Christ below me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left,

Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height!

Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks to me,

Christ in every eye who sees me,

Christ in every ear who hears me.

I bind myself to-day to a strong virtue, an invocation of (the) Trinity,

I believe in a Threeness with confession of an Oneness in (the) Creator

of (the) Universe

Domini est salus, Domini est salus, Christi est salus,

Salus tua Domine, sit semper nobiscum.

The oldest book in Ireland is now believed to be the _Domhnach Airgid_,

a copy of the four Gospels in Latin presented, according to the

“Tripartite Life,” by St. Patrick to St. Aedh Maccarthenn of Clogher.

For protection it has a triple shrine of yew, silver-plated copper, and

gold-plated silver. Shrine and MS. are to-day among the most prized

treasures of the Royal Irish Academy. It is highly probable, says

Professor G. T. Stokes and Dr. Wright, that it was the veritable copy

used by St. Patrick himself.

The Book of Hymns has also three other very interesting compositions,

which profess to date back to his time.

First there is Sechnall’s Hymn in praise of St. Patrick, supposed to

have been written during his lifetime, and generally regarded as

genuine. St. Sechnall, or Secundius as he is sometimes called, was the

nephew and disciple of Patrick, and associated with him in the See of

Armagh, either as contemporaneous bishop or as his successor. It was he

who annoyed the saint by his sordid remark about preaching on the

necessity of giving. To condone for the pain he gave his uncle, the

penitent Sechnall composed this poem of twenty-two stanzas in his

praise, thus constituting himself, if written before the “Deer’s Cry,”

the first known poet of Christian Ireland. In view of its alleged

acceptance by St. Patrick, the hymn has been held in great veneration,

and sung as one of his honours on the days of his Festival.

A second Patrician piece in the Book of Hymns is Fiacc of Sletty’s

metrical life—also called a Hymn. It is purely biographical, and written

after St. Patrick’s death, according to the introduction in the above

ancient MS. Here we are told in Gaelic, with Latin words curiously

interpolated, that Patrick said to Dubthach, chief bard of Ireland,

“‘Seek for me a man of rank, of good race, well-moralled, one wife and

one child with him only.’ ‘Why dost thou seek that, to wit a man of that

kind?’ said Dubthach. ‘For him to go into orders,’ said Patrick. ‘Fiacc

is that,’ said Dubthach, ‘and he has gone on a circuit in Connaught.’

Now while they were talking, it is then came Fiacc from his circuit.

‘There,’ said Dubthach, ‘is he of whom we spake.’ ‘Though he be,’ said

Patrick, ‘yet what we say may not be pleasing to him.’ ‘Let a trial be

made to tonsure me,’ said Dubthach, ‘so that Fiacc may see.’ So when

Fiacc saw he asked, ‘Wherefore is the trial made?’ ‘To tonsure

Dubthach,’ say they. ‘That is idle,’ said he, ‘for there is not in

Ireland a poet his equal.’ ‘Thou wouldst be taken in his place,’ said

Patrick. ‘My loss to Ireland,’ says Fiacc, ‘is less than Dubthach’s

(would be).’ So Patrick shore his beard from Fiacc then, and great glee

came upon him thereafter, so that he read all the ecclesiastical ordo in

one night—or fifteen days, as some say—and so that a bishop’s rank was

conferred on him, and so that it is he who is Archbishop of Leinster

thenceforward and his successor after him.”

Dr. Todd thinks it impossible to attribute so high an antiquity to the

Hymn as Fiacc’s own time, since it contains an allusion to the

desolation of Tara. Colgan 250 years previously met the difficulty by

regarding the latter reference as prophetic.

We must not omit a very curious prophecy regarding St. Patrick which the

Scholiast on Fiacc’s Hymn has preserved. It is in the copy of the Book

of Hymns now in the convent of St. Isidore at Rome, a MS. of the

eleventh or twelfth century. From internal evidence it may be recognised

that the stanza cannot be older than the beginning of the seventh

century, but it is written in a very ancient dialect of the Gaelic, and

purported to be an old-time prediction by a pagan Druid.

Ticfa tailcend

Tar muir murcend,

A brat tollcend,

A crand chromcend,

A mias in iarthur a thigi,

Frisgerad a muinter uili

Amen, Amen.

He comes, he comes, with shaven crown, from off the storm-toss’d sea,

His garment pierced at the neck, with crook-like staff comes he,

Far in his house, at its east end, his cups and patens lie,

His people answer to his voice. Amen, Amen, they cry.

Amen, Amen.

A third Patrician fragment in the Book of Hymns, eleventh century, is

entitled Ninine’s Prayer, with the explanatory head-line, “Ninine the

poet made this prayer, or Fiacc of Sletty.” It runs:—

We put trust in St. Patrick, chief apostle of Ireland,

Conspicuous his name, wonderful; a flame that baptized Gentiles,

He fought against hard-hearted Druids; he thrust down proud men with the

aid of Our Lord of fair heavens.

He purified the great offspring of meadow-landed Erin,

We pray to Patrick, chief apostle, who will save us at the Judgment from

doom to the malevolences of dark demons.

God be with me with the prayer of Patrick, chief apostle!

In all this varied literature, reaching from his own time till ours, the

Apostle of Ireland stands forth a commanding personality, as different

from St. Columba as St. Francis was from St. Bernard. Genial, earnest,

humble, sensitively sympathetic, with commanding force of character and

irresistible determination as the agent of a Divine Mission, his

enthusiasm made way for him. Less impulsive, less warlike, and less

learned than Columcille, he carried on his spiritual campaign in a

spirit of self-denying devotion and love of men. “Patrick, without

loftiness or arrogance,” as Fiacc describes him, “it was much of good he

thought.” At the end of the day we find him in poverty and misery

writing his Confession, not sure but the morrow of his life may bring a

violent death, or slavery, or some other dread evil.

Yet true to the last in his unquenchable zeal, his own words seem to sum

up the high aim of his life: “Therefore it is very fitting that we

should spread our nets that a copious multitude and crowd may be taken

for God, and that everywhere there may be clergy who shall baptize a

needy and desiring people.”

He died at Saul, while on a visit there from Armagh, and his grave is

believed to be at Downpatrick, to which place tradition says the remains

of St. Columba were transported from Iona in the more troublous times,

and re-interred beside those of his great forerunner.

CHAPTER III

ST. COLUMBA AND THE DAWN OF LETTERS IN SCOTLAND

The fugitive MSS.—Gaelic a literary language for ages—Scotland’s first

writer—St. Columba one of the rarer master-spirits—His peculiar

qualities—Intellectual standpoint—Birth—Early life—A fateful

incident—Sets sail for Pictland—Motive—Arrival in pagan

Scotland—His missionary enterprise—Lights the lamp of

literature—An ardent scholar, penman, and poet—The famous

“Cathrach”—His Gaelic poems—Latin hymns—The Columban

renaissance—Encouragement of bards and scholars—The _Amra

Choluimcille_—Iona as an educational centre—European fame and

influence.

Modern research and historical criticism have done much for Celtic

literature. Not long ago the subject might be regarded as a tangled web

of fact and fiction. Inquirers found it hard to thread their way through

the unsifted mass of materials, to know the true from the fabulous,

authentic history from myth and legend.

All the more because the original documents, like the graves of a

household, were “severed far and wide by mount and stream and sea,” and

for the most part inaccessible. It must be matter of astonishment to

many to learn that very few of our older Celtic MSS.—MSS. written in

these islands—have found a home in Scotland. They have long ago been

transferred to the Continent, to France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland,

Austria, and Germany. So that to-day scores of these venerable relics

are preserved in places as distant and far apart as Milan, St. Gall,

Würzburg, Carlsruhe, Brussels, Turin, Vienna, Berne, Leyden, Nancy,

Paris. Even the oldest MS. now existing that can be proved to have been

written in Scotland, is kept not in Edinburgh or Glasgow, but in the

public library of Schaffhausen in Switzerland.

One reason for this seems to have been that the Irish or Scots gave so

many evangelists and professors in those early days to the Continent,

men like Columbanus and St. Gall, and their followers; and another, when

the books were in danger in the British Isles from the depredations of

the Norsemen, they were removed for security to the monasteries and

seats of learning presided over by these Celtic scholars.

The records thus available, here and there, carry us back over a period

of well nigh 1500 years to the days of St. Patrick and St. Columba. As

Cædmon was the pioneer of English literature, so is St. Patrick the

first known litterateur of Ireland, and St. Columba the first of

Scotland. From the time of the introduction of Christianity by these

men, Celtic literature has a history, continuous and verifiable. Beyond

their day all is uncertain and cloudy. Pagan Scotland lies in the dim

background enveloped in haze. Sagas and myths and poems and romances it

undoubtedly had in abundance, floating by oral tradition, but no written

record. In almost every instance of its old-time lore, authorship is

unknown. That by-past is the region of conjecture, and we can be as

little certain of the origins as Greek scholars are of the genesis of

the _Iliad_ or of the _Odyssey_.

In this study, then, we go back to the march between Pagan and Christian

times, and leaving behind at present the doubtful and uncertain, we

shall endeavour to trace the dawn of letters in Scotland.

On that far horizon the first man we encounter with a pen and a passion

for writing is the wonderful St. Columba. Across the ages his impressive

figure still stands out massive and strong in the background of history.

Among the men of fame—the rarer master-spirits who have helped to make

Scotland what she is—Columcille stands earliest. Vividly and terribly in

earnest himself, he stamped his religious convictions not only upon many

districts of Ireland, but also upon heathen Alba.

He possessed just the qualities that were best fitted to give him an

ascendancy over men in that rude age. Unlike most of the great

evangelists of Christianity, he was of princely origin, descended both

on his father’s and his mother’s side from illustrious Irish kings. This

noble lineage, combined with the patronage of his own kinsman Conall,

King of Dalriada—our modern Argyllshire—gave him an immense influence in

an age when the tribes, even in matters of religion, followed their king

or chief.

But Columcille was personally a born leader of men. Physically and

intellectually he towered above his fellows. Of a tall and commanding

appearance, powerful frame, broad face, close and curly hair, his grey

eyes large and luminous, he looked the saint he was, joyful and radiant,

with a love for everything beautiful in nature, animate and inanimate.

Withal he had a loud and resonant voice, well adapted for impassioned

speech. When preaching, tradition says that he could be easily

understood across the Sound of Mull. And Adamnan assures us that when

singing with his brethren in the church, the venerable man raised his

voice so wonderfully that it was sometimes heard at the distance of 1000

paces, while from the “Old Irish Life” we learn that his reading carried

even farther. A voice to soothe the savage breast with its plaintive

sweetness, and yet of power and range sufficient to awe the pagan mind.

For this apostle of Scotland, despite his name, was no mere cooing dove.

He could be very terrifying when roused. Of a hot and passionate temper,

he was in reality a perfervid Celt; stern and even vindictive at times,

he would fight his battles with the carnal weapons, if need be, just as

readily as he would with the spiritual. Three battles at least, fierce

and sanguinary, stand to his account in history, he their instigator,

two of these even after he became Abbot of Iona.

Altogether a strange character to contemplate was this father and

founder of monasteries, especially when viewed from our scientific

age—the intellectual standpoint of his time was so wholly different from

ours. He continually moved in a halo of miracles, prophecies, and

angels, as real to him as physical laws and nerves and germs are to us.

So credulous was he that he never seemed even to question the magical

impostures of his opponents, the Druids. He is not represented as trying

to expose their marvels, but rather as endeavouring to outrival them by

greater miracles of his own. The one set he believed to be from the evil

one, the other of God. For him the seen always merged in the unseen; the

natural is construed in terms of the supernatural. Science, of course,

had not then formulated laws or facts as we know them, and St. Columba

was a child of his age, imbued with the same credulity as the

contemporary heathen around him, and very much the same superstitions.

He believed he could bless men or blight them by his intercessions, and

sometimes in the exercise of this power he did not even hesitate to

curse irreconcilables and consign them to future destruction.

On one occasion, exasperated with a thief of noble birth who had twice

plundered the house of a man of humble condition, and mocked and laughed

at the rebukes of the saint himself, the irate Columba—and this is a

picture for an artist—followed him to the water’s edge, and wading up to

the knees in the clear green sea-water, raised both his hands to heaven

and solemnly invoked a curse on the man. Returning to the dry ground he

sat down, and forthwith told his companions what the fate of the scamp

would be. No maudlin saint was the imperious Columcille. Gentle,

affectionate, and kind, yet a man to impress the wild Pictish tribes

with awe and reverence.

Born at Gartan, Donegal, in the north of Ireland in 521, and brought up

from youth in Christian principles, he was trained under the best

masters, and apparently caught up in the wave of evangelisation that

swept over Ireland from St. Patrick’s time. At any rate, when

twenty-five years of age he founded the Church of Derry, and seven years

later the Monastery of Durrow. Other establishments soon followed,

springing up here and there under his initiative and fostering care,

until when full forty years old an event occurred which in a manner

changed the whole aspect of his career, and gave a new direction to his

energies. This was the battle of Cooldrevna, of far-reaching import.

Two causes are usually assigned for the fight. St. Finnian of Moville,

under whom the future abbot first studied, brought back with him from

Rome a copy of the Psalms, supposed to be the first copy of St Jerome’s

Vulgate that appeared in Ireland. This the master treasured, and wished

to keep private and reserved. But Columcille, then an ardent student and

rapid writer, sat up for nights together and surreptitiously transcribed

the book for his own use. Hearing of this, Finnian claimed the copy, but

in vain. His disciple refused to part with it, and the matter was

referred to King Diarmad at Tara. This monarch, to whom no doubt a legal

quarrel over a book was new, could find nothing in the Brehon Law to

adjudicate the case by, except the practical adage, _le gach boin a

boinin_ (with every cow her calf), and being perhaps more disposed to

favour Finnian, as of his own kin and jurisdiction, he, not unnaturally,

adapted this precedent to the case in point, giving the judgment, “As

with every cow her calf, so with every book its son.”

This decision is the first we know in the law of copyright. It gave dire

offence to Columba, which was greatly heightened some time after by

another regal affront. It happened at the Great Convention of Tara that

a young prince, in utter violation of the law of sanctuary, slew the son

of the king’s steward, and knowing the penalty to be certain death, fled

for refuge to the northern princes, who placed him under the sheltering

wing of their kinsman, the sacred Columba. Ignoring the saint’s

authority, the king had the refugee promptly seized and put to death.

This, it appears, exasperated the imperious Columcille to the last

degree, and he immediately made his way north, and roused to arms the

race of Hy-Neill, the northern branch against the southern. And with the

King of Connaught, whose son had been slain, they marched their forces

southward. A furious battle ensued at Cooldrevna, in the red ruin and

carnage of which King Diarmad was defeated with the loss of 3000 men.

Two years after, the Hegira took place, when the saint fled or migrated

on his great mission to Scotland—henceforth an exile from Erin.

Speculation has been rife as to the real motive that drove this

intensely patriotic Irishman over the wave. Many would fain believe, in

view of its epoch-making significance, that this momentous step was

purely voluntary “for the love of Christ,” as the “Old Irish Life” puts

it. Adamnan, while connecting it with the battle, also puts this

construction upon it. “In the second year after the battle of

Culdreimhne,” he says, “and in the 42nd year of his age, St. Columba

resolving to emigrate for Christ sailed from Scotia (that is Ireland) to

Britain.” Many other saints had wandered elsewhere on similar missions.

But there is a persistent tradition that this unique missionary was

banished by the Synod of the Saints in Ireland for the bloodshed he had

caused; and that this sentence was confirmed by St. Molaise, whom the

unhappy Columba consulted, and who advised him to seek as many souls in

conversion among the heathen as there fell of men in battle. Some, on

the other hand, construe his action as a voluntary penance,

self-inflicted. Others find mainly a political motive in his removal to

Dalriada, where he might be of immense service to his kinsmen in helping

to avert the ever increasing and harassing incursions of the Picts.

Certainly he became a bulwark to them.

Imbued with a high missionary zeal, there is no doubt that ultimately he

went forth to the new spiritual campaign voluntarily, but, as in the

case of most fateful careers, it is evident that circumstances wound him

up to the task, the most conspicuous and compelling of which was

Cooldrevna. That the parting from Erin was bitter, a very tearing of the

heart, is matter of history. The verses, the records attributed to

himself on this occasion, reveal the depths of his feelings. “How rapid

the speed of my coracle and its stern turned toward Derry. I grieve at

the errand over the proud seas, travelling to Alba of the Ravens. There

is a grey eye that looks back upon Erin, it shall not see during life

the men of Erin nor their wives. My vision over the brine I stretch from

the ample oaken planks; large is the tear from my soft grey eye when I

look back upon Erin. Upon Erin is my attention fixed, upon Loch Leven,

upon Linè, upon the land the Ultonians own; upon smooth Munster, upon

Meath.”

As Dr. Douglas Hyde has sympathetically observed, “Columcille is the

first example in the saddened page of Irish history of the exiled Gael

grieving for his native land and refusing to be comforted, and as such

he has become the very type and embodiment of Irish fate and Irish

character.”

A pity it is that history has not photographed the dramatic scene when

the great monk, forty-two years old, tall and powerful, lands from his

curach the “Liath Bhalaidh,” with twelve followers on the island of Hy,

now the famous Iona. It was in 563 that he took possession of this

future home, of which he had received a grant from the King of Dalriada,

which was afterwards confirmed by King Brude. Modern Scotland had not

yet emerged, being in early fragments. And it is important to note, for

it has been very confusing to historians, that in Columba’s day Ireland

was Scotia, from whence in earlier days the Scots had come, who then

occupied Dalriada, or, as it is known to-day, Argyllshire. North and

east were the Picts, possessing the body of Alba, as modern Scotland was

then called; and in Strathclyde the Britons. Not till centuries after

was the name of Scotia or Scotland finally transferred from Erin to

Alba.

The Dalriadic Scots, though not destitute of a primitive civilisation,

were rude and barbarous. Slavery and polygamy were common, blood feuds

incessant. Women fought side by side with the men in battle, until first

Columba and afterwards Adamnan obtained exemption for them. The heathen

Picts were even more degraded, under the tyranny of a Druid regime, full

of sorcery and superstition. No ray of Christianity seemed as yet to

have penetrated their darkness.

Such were the wild and waste lands into which the devoted Columba threw

himself as a deliverer. For two years he remained in Hy, organising his

base, and, it is thought, learning the Pictish language, before setting

out on his visit to “the powerful king of the Pictish nation.”

His missionary labours for the next thirty-two years, in collaboration

with the devoted band of men who imbibed his spirit and adopted his

methods, have caught the eye of the world.

But there is another aspect of his enterprise, far-reaching and

magnificent, which has been largely overlooked and overshadowed by our

one-sided veneration for his religious genius. And that is the

significance of his literary work. It is not so generally known that the

Apostle of Scotland was a patron of letters, intensely interested in

literature, an ardent writer and disseminator of knowledge—one in fact

who has left his literary mark on the ages, and who was the first to

help to raise Scotland to the proud eminence in education which she

occupies to-day.

As in the great awakening in Europe in the sixteenth century there were

two movements, independent of each other and yet going on side by side—a

revival of religion and a revival of learning, known as the Reformation

and the Renaissance; so, in St. Columba’s enterprise two similar

movements were fostered, not as separate and hostile to each other, but

as mutually helpful and conjoined.

The abbot was from youth a great lover of books and an unwearied scribe.

His standard biographer, Adamnan, says that he never could spend the

space even of one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some

other holy occupation, watching or fasting. This love of books continued

in his case to the very end. Not till the day of his demise was the pen

finally laid aside. On that day, after blessing the Monastery, he

descended from the hill and sat in his hut transcribing the Psalter. But

the vitality of that once deft hand and brain was now well-nigh spent,

and answered feebly, like the diminishing flow of water from a spout.

“Here,” cried the saint, at length, conscious of the impending change,

“at the end of the page I must stop, and what follows let Baithene

write.”

It was his love of literature that got him into trouble with St.

Finnian, and in the “Calendar of Aengus” the story goes that he once

visited a man, Longarad, noted for his collection of books. In

anticipation of the visit, and mindful perhaps of Cooldrevna, the _sai_

or saoidh (wise man) hid his treasures, whereupon Columba left “a word,”

that is, a curse, on the books, so that when in after ages they had

become unintelligible from various causes, this was deemed the full and

sufficient reason. “May your books be of no use after you, since you

have exercised inhospitality in withholding them.”

He composed a book of hymns for the office of every day in the week, and

in the “Old Irish Life” he is credited with having written “three

hundred gifted, lasting, illuminated noble books.” It is highly probable

that those thus referred to were simply transcribed by him, for we have

no evidence that he wrote any prose literature.

The three books still existing in Ireland which tradition and some high

authorities regard as the work of his own hand are simply transcripts.

They are certainly very ancient, even if they do not quite reach up to

his day. Two of them are in Trinity College, Dublin, and the third in

the Royal Irish Academy. The former, known as the Book of Durrow and the

Book of Kells,[15] are copies of the Gospels in Latin, the one finished,

the other not, but the Book of Kells, which is the unfinished one,

contains on its blank pages copies of charters of the eleventh and

twelfth centuries, connected with the endowment of the Institution. The

other book referred to as in the Royal Irish Academy is the famous

“Cathrach,” believed to be the identical copy of the Psalter that

Columba made when he was a student. The skill displayed in the

penmanship and decoration of these ancient MSS. is astonishing, and they

have covers which are brilliant specimens of early Celtic art. The Book

of Kells, in particular, is spoken of as “the unapproachable glory of

Irish illumination.” In fact, the codex known as the “Four Masters”

alleges that “it was the principal relic of the western world on account

of its remarkable cover.”

Great interest attaches to the celebrated “Cathrach” or “Battler,” so

called from the circumstance that a battle was fought on account of it.

It continued an heirloom in the successive generations of the saint’s

family, the O’Donnells, until a comparatively recent representative,

exiled as a supporter of James II. carried it with him to the Continent

in the beautiful shrine prepared for it at the end of the eleventh

century. In early days it used to be carried three times round the army

when Cinal Conaill went to battle, in the belief that if thus carried on

the breast of a cleric free from mortal sin it would get them the

victory.

In 1802 the precious relic was recovered from the Continent and opened.

Within was found a decayed wooden box covering a mass of vellum stuck

together and hardened into a single lump. By careful moistening

treatment, the various leaves at length came asunder, and proved a real

Psalter, written in Latin in a “neat but hurried hand.” Fifty-eight

leaves remained, containing from the 31st to the 106th Psalm, and an

examination of this text has shown that it is precisely a copy of the

second revision of the Psalter from the Vulgate of St. Jerome, which

strengthens the belief so long and tenaciously held, that this may have

been the very book for which 3000 warriors fell.

From very early times Columba was spoken of as a poet. That he wrote

verse and befriended the bards is attested by the oldest tradition and

some of the most ancient records. Many Gaelic poems are attributed to

him. “Thrice fifty noble lays,” says one poet—

Some in Latin which were beguiling,

Some in Gaelic, fair the tale.

Among his reputed Gaelic poems may be mentioned three that Colgan

considered genuine, 250 years ago, and were printed by Dr. Reeves in his

first edition of Adamnan’s _Life of St. Columba_: his “Farewell to Ara,”

published in the _Gaelic Miscellany_ of 1808; and another on his escape

from King Diarmad, reproduced in the _Miscellany of the Irish

Archæological Society_. There are three verses composed as a prayer at

the battle of Cooldrevna, ascribed to him in the _Chronicon Scotorum_;

and there is a collection of fifteen poems in the O’Clery MSS. at

Brussels. But by far the largest collection is contained in an oblong

MS. of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This document embraces everything

in the shape of poem or fragment anywhere believed as his, and that

could be collected about the middle of the sixteenth century.

None of these are found in the oldest MSS., though not a few are

apparently very ancient and beautiful, breathing the intensity of

feeling and passion so characteristic of the Gael. Dr. Hyde is perhaps

not far off the mark when he says that of the great number of Irish

poems attributed to him, only a few—half a dozen at the most—are likely

to be even partly genuine. It is very hard to say how much or how little

is his. But this authority is inclined to agree with Dr. Healy, author

of _Ireland’s Schools and Scholars_, that at least the three considered

genuine by Colgan represent substantially poems that were really written

by the saint. “They breathe his pious spirit,” says Healy, “his ardent

love for nature, and his undying affection for his native land. Although

retouched, perhaps, by a later hand, they savour so strongly of the true

Columban spirit that we are disposed to reckon them amongst the genuine

compositions of the saint.”

A few specimens are worth quoting, by way of illustrating Columba’s

poetic genius:—

Were the tribute of all Alba mine, from its centre to its border, I

would prefer the sight of one house in the middle of Derry. The reason

I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity and for the crowds

of white angels from the one end to the other.... My Derry, my little

oak-grove, my dwelling and my little cell, O eternal God in heaven

above, woe be to him who violates it.

Ara was a little isle, like Iona, in the west of Ireland, where St. Enda

lived, and was visited by the saints.

Farewell from me to Ara. It anguishes my heart not to be in the west

among her waves, amid groups of the saints of heaven. It is far, alas!

it is far, alas! I have been sent from Ara West out towards the

population of Mona to visit the Albanachs. Ara Sun, oh Ara Sun, my

affection lies buried in her in the west, it is the same to be beneath

her pure soil as to be beneath the soil of Paul and Peter. Ara

blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may he be

given shortness of life and hell.

The next, so characteristic of the saint’s love of nature, is taken from

the poem on Cormac’s visit—one of the three considered genuine:—

It were delightful, O Son of my God, with a moving train,

To glide o’er the waves of the deluge fountain to the land of Erin,

O’er Moy-n Eolarg, past Ben-Eigny. O’er Loch Feval,

Where we should hear pleasing music from the swans,

The host of gulls would make joyful, with eager singing,

Should it reach the port of stern rejoicers, the _Dewy Red_,

I am filled with wealth without Erin, did I think it sufficient.

In the unknown land of my sojourn of sadness and distress,

Alas, the voyage that was enjoined me, O King of secrets,

For having gone myself to the battle of Cuil.

How happy the son of Dima of the devout church

When he hears in Durrow the desire of his mind

The sound of the wind against the elms when ’tis played,

The blackbird’s joyous note when he claps his wings,

To listen at early dawn in Ros-grencha to the cattle,

The cooing of the cuckoo from the tree on the brink of summer,

Three objects I have left, the dearest to me on this peopled world,

Durrow, Derry, the noble angelic land, and Tir-Luighdech,

I have loved Erin’s land of cascades, all but its government.

My visit to Comgall and feast with Cainnech was indeed delightful.

Of his Latin hymns only three remain. They are preserved in the _Liber

Hymnorum_, a MS. probably of the end of the eleventh century, and are

known as the “Altus,” “In te Christo,” and “Noli Pater.” No doubt exists

as to the genuineness of the “Altus.” It is the most famous of the

three, and is supposed to have been written after the battle of

Cooldrevna. The poem takes its name from the first word, and each of its

twenty-two stanzas begins in order with a letter of the alphabet,

probably as a help to the memory. The stanzas are rudely constructed,

with a kind of rhyme between every two lines. The poem has enjoyed a

great reputation, and has been variously rendered into English. Perhaps

the best translation is that of the Rev. Anthony Mitchell:—

Ancient of Days; enthroned on high;

The Father unbegotten He,

Whom space containeth not nor time,

Who was and is and aye shall be;

And one-born Son and Holy Ghost,

Who co-eternal glory share.

One only God of Persons Three

We praise, acknowledge and declare.

Attention has been directed by Dr. Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, to the

saint’s curious conceptions of the physical causes of clouds, and rain,

and tides, in the stanza beginning with I:—

In the three quarters of the sea,

Three mighty fountains hidden lie,

Whence rise through whirling water-spouts,

Rich-laden clouds that clothe the sky:

On winds from out his treasure house,

They speed to swell bud, vine, and grain;

While the sea-shallows emptied wait

Until the tides return again.

In the R stanza we have a picture of the judgment not unlike the “Dies

Iræ”:—

Riseth the dawn:—the day is near

Day of the Lord, the King of Kings;

A day of wrath and vengeance just,

Of darkness, clouds, and thunderings:

A day of anguish, cries, and tears,

When glow of women’s love shall pale;

When man shall cease to strive with man,

And all the world’s desires shall fail.

What now are we to think of this new literature and the other

productions, Latin and Gaelic, to which the monasteries of the period

gave rise? Is the Columban renaissance really a decadence in comparison

with what went before, the old unwritten inheritance? “Yes,” says

Darmesteter, and if we accept the antiquity of the oral tradition, I

think we must admit the truth of it. The sagas and historic tales, and

the poetry that is mingled with them, are of far greater importance from

a purely literary point of view. With a wild freedom of imagination and

an old-time conception of life untouched by Christian thought, they

breathe the spirit of pre-Christian ages, very much in the primitive

manner of Homeric poetry; and being intensely human and heroic, they

have a charm even for minds set to later ideals.

For example, in the _Colloquy or Dialogue of the Ancients_, it is

recorded that St. Patrick himself felt a little uneasy at the delight

with which he listened to the stories of the ancient Feinn, and in his

over-scrupulous sanctity he feared it might be wrong to appreciate and

enjoy so much, these worldly narratives. But when he consulted his two

guardian angels they not only assured him that there was no harm in

listening to the tales, but even desired him to get them written down in

the words of ollamhs, “for,” said these wise counsellors, “it will be a

rejoicing to numbers and to the good people to the end of time to listen

to these stories.”

Yet for all this the Columban period _was_ a renaissance. You cannot

spring a new creed and new ideas upon a nation without a reawakening of

thought and corresponding progress.

Over and above his own personal contributions to literature, Columba

helped forward the cause of letters in two other ways, namely, by

encouraging the bards and the scholars.

In his day the bards in Ireland had become an intolerable nuisance—idle,

numerous, and insolent; in fact they had developed into a loafing class,

who quartered themselves on the working-classes, on the chiefs and

farmers. They went about the country in bands, carrying a silver pot,

nicknamed by the people “the pot of Avarice.” Their tyranny was such

that he who refused to contribute was mercilessly satirised and

disgraced. Three attempts had been made to suppress them, but hitherto

to no purpose. At length Aedh, the High King of Ireland, considering

them to be too heavy a burden on the land, resolved to banish the whole

profession. Summoning a great Convention of all Ireland to Drumceat in

590 to settle important national affairs, he made this one of the chief

items. And the fate of the bardic institution would most certainly have

been sealed had not Columcille averted it. With 140 followers he had

crossed over to attend the Conference, and besides obtaining exemption

from military service for the women, and independence and freedom from

taxation for Dalriada, which was henceforth simply to help the parent

kingdom in affairs of war, he also succeeded in moderating the fury of

the chieftains against the bards. Their numbers were reduced and their

prestige abated, but the profession was amply compensated for this by

acquiring a new and recognised position in the State. No bards except

those specially sanctioned were to pursue the poetic calling. But for

the maintenance of these latter distinct public estates in land were set

apart for the first time, in return for which they were obliged to give

public instruction to all comers in the learning of the day, after the

manner of university professors. The rate of reward for their poems was

also legally fixed, so that from this time down to the seventeenth

century the bardic colleges, as distinct from the ecclesiastical ones,

taught poetry, law, and history, educating the lawyers, judges, and

poets of the Irish nation.

In recognition of the service rendered them on this occasion the bards

appeared before Columba in a body, with Dallan Forgaill, their chief, at

their head, bringing the famous “Amra” or elegy which the latter had

composed in his praise. This poem is in the Fenian dialect, so ancient

and obscure as to be very baffling and almost unintelligible to

scholars. It has come down to us heavily annotated with gloss and

commentary in the eleventh century MS. (Leabhar Na h’Uidhre). So far as

can be made out, it speaks of the saint in relation to the people as

“their soul’s light, their learned one, their chief from right, who was

God’s messenger, who dispelled fears from them, who used to explain the

truth of words, a harp without a base chord, a perfect sage who believed

in Christ; he was learned, he was chaste, he was charitable, he was an

abounding benefit of guests, he was eager, he was noble, he was gentle,

he was the physician of the heart of every age; he was to persons

inscrutable, he was a shelter to the naked, he was a consolation to the

poor, there went not from the world one who was more continual for a

remembrance of the cross.”

But a recent writer, Dr. Strachan of Manchester, casts doubts upon the

antiquity of its present form, thinking it belongs, as transcribed, to a

later date.

The other way in which St. Columba helped forward the cause of letters

was by encouraging the scholars. The monasteries became great schools of

learning as well as missionary centres. In all the institutions he

founded, ample provision was made for the multiplication of books. The

knowledge of Hebrew and Greek was fostered among the monks as well as of

Latin and Gaelic. To the monastic houses founded throughout Pictland by

the Columban clergy the tribes sent their youth to be trained. And for

several centuries, as Skene has observed, there was not a Pictish boy

taught his letters but received his education from a Columban monk. In

later times students from the Continent flocked to the more famous of

the Celtic seats of learning in Ireland and Scotland, and we even hear

of Iona sending professors to Cologne, Louvain, and Paris.

There is no evidence that the northern Picts had a knowledge of letters

before Columba taught them. There is even doubt as to what language

these tribes spoke. Yet in 710 A.D., a little more than a hundred years

after his death, a knowledge of letters was common in Pictland. With

reference to subsequent ecclesiastical changes, it is known that King

Naitan sent a proclamation “by public command throughout all the

provinces of the Picts to be transcribed, learned, and observed.” This

we have on the authority of Bede, a statement which shows that learning

must have made considerable progress among the people even at that early

date. So that in this respect we may very well endorse the opinion of

Professor Mackinnon, when he says that “we have not yet perhaps fully

realised the part which the School of Iona had in shaping the destinies

of the Scottish nation.” When in Scotland we discuss the past history of

our national education, the figure of John Knox invariably rises before

us as prime inaugurator of the first real system, but the great Abbot of

Iona was at it 1000 years before him.

Shaping the destinies of the Scottish nation; ay, and might we not add

of literature? For a further striking claim has been repeatedly put

forward on behalf of the Celtic poets in the Columban period, namely

this, that they taught Europe to rhyme. And this claim has been made not

so much by partisans as by some of the foremost European scholars,

including Zeuss and Nigra, who have remarked and pointed out that the

Latin verses of Columcille and other early saints, either rhyme or have

a strong tendency to rhyme. Referring to the advance towards final

assonance in later times made by the English in their Latin poems, Zeuss

says, “We must believe that this form was introduced among them by the

Irish, as were the arts of writing and of painting and of ornamenting

manuscripts, since they themselves, in common with the other Germanic

nations, made use in their poetry of nothing but alliteration.” It is

only some 500 years after Columba that we find rhyme beginning to appear

in English literature.

The other foreign writer of note, C. Nigra, with equal emphasis asserts

that “final assonance or rhyme can have been derived only from the laws

of Celtic phonology.” Meanwhile this must be regarded as a moot point.

For other eminent scholars, Thurneysen and Windisch, have professed

their opinion that it may be traced to the Latin. But “this at least is

clear,” observes Dr. Hyde, who has gone very carefully into the matter,

“that already in the seventh century the Irish not only rhymed, but made

intricate Deibhidh and other rhyming metres, when for centuries after

this period the Germanic nations could only alliterate.”

It is our proud boast as an English-speaking people that we can go back

as far as Cædmon to the beginnings of our literature; yet how few

British subjects realise that Gaelic was a literary language long before

then in the hands of men like St. Patrick, St. Columba, and Dallan

Forgaill, and that there are Latin MSS. still extant associated with

Columba and the School of Iona which are almost as old as the very

oldest existing codex of the Bible.

It is worth our while to think of this, and of the remarkable man who,

in the obscurity of his island home, recognised the value and permanence

of his own work, giving utterance to a sentiment which the ages have

amply verified: “Small and mean though this place is, yet it shall be

held in great and unusual honour, not only by Scotic kings and people,

but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations, and by their

subjects; the saints also even of other churches shall regard it with no

common reverence.” And it is so. Systems and dynasties have since

fallen, yet the fame of Iona still stands secure, and continues to

attract the saint and the foreigner.

CHAPTER IV

ADAMNAN’S “VITA COLUMBÆ”

Oldest Scottish book in existence—A sturdy survival—Criteria of

age—Dorbene the copyist—Romantic history of the MS.—Now in

Schaffhausen—Adamnan, a rare personality—Abbot and

scholar—Influential career—Attitude to the two great questions

that divided the Celtic churches—Pathetic estrangement—“Lex

Adamnani”—A mighty social revolution—Death—His writings—“The

Vision of Adamnan”—His _Life of Columba_ in three parts—Remarkable

contents—Most valuable monument of the early Celtic Church—List of

MSS. in which preserved—Latin _versus_ Gaelic.

Many Scottish visitors visit Schaffhausen, on the Rhine in Switzerland,

and perhaps few of them are aware that in the public library there, is

deposited one of the rarest and most interesting relics of Scotland.

It is a parchment MS. of sixty-eight leaves, each about eleven inches by

nine. The volume looks as if in the original binding. Its sides are of

beechwood, greatly worm-eaten and covered with calfskin, the sewing of

the back very rude and curious, and the front would seem to have been

formerly secured by clasps.

This is not a Gaelic work, though Gaelic names appear in it. It is

written in Latin in double columns. Capital letters abound, some of them

of great size and adorned with red and yellow paint. The summaries at

the beginning, the headings of chapters, and the colophon of the scribe

are all in rubric which on the whole is wonderfully fresh and beautiful.

Three handwritings may be traced: the first, that peculiar to the

greater part of the book; the second, in evidence towards the end, in

all probability the work of the same writer, but with different pen and

ink and in smaller, rounder letters; the third, corrections in spelling

by a later and much inferior penman.

The ink is dark, almost jet-black, except in some places where it has

turned brown.

Such is the general appearance of the relic. And marvel not if a vague,

far-away look steals into the eye when one reflects that this book which

he sees and handles is well nigh, if not quite, 1200 years old; that it

is, in fact, the oldest now existing, known to have been written in

Scotland, and separated by the lapse of 100 years from the next most

ancient.

A copy of Adamnan’s _Life of St. Columba_, made by one of his

contemporaries in Iona—this, the sturdy survival is taken to be. And if

the criteria of its age are not misleading, it dates from before 713

A.D. These criteria are in themselves profoundly interesting.

1. It is recognised that the handwriting is that peculiar heavy kind

found in the oldest Gaelic MSS.—not quite so round as that in the Books

of Kells and Durrow, but possessing many features in common, and

certainly anterior to that of the Book of Armagh, fixed at 807.

2. Similarly the Latin spelling corresponds with that of the more

ancient Celtic MSS. at home and abroad.

3. The Greek characters which appear in the text are in the semi-uncials

of the period, without accents or breathings.

4. The later corrections, supposed to have been made on the Continent,

are reckoned by Dr. Ferdinand Keller, an expert in the handwriting of

Charlemagne’s time, to belong to the period between 800 and 820.

5. The parchment is in goat-skin, in colour and condition extremely

ancient.

6. But more conclusive still is the remarkable colophon of the scribe at

the end of the volume, where he says, “I beseech those who wish to

transcribe these books, yea, rather, I adjure them by Christ, the judge

of the world, after they have diligently transcribed, carefully to

compare and correct their copies with that from which they have copied

them, and also to subjoin here this adjuration: ‘Whoever readeth these

books on the virtues of St. Columba let him pray to the Lord for me

Dorbene that after death I may possess eternal life.’”

Here we have actually the name of the scribe—a splendid clue to the age

of the MS. which critics have not been backward in availing themselves

of. The name is so rare in the records that they had only a choice

between two, one anterior to Adamnan’s day, the other his contemporary,

and Abbot-elect of Iona in 713. But this latter Dorbene died that same

year before assuming office, and only nine years after Adamnan himself.

He in all probability it was who copied the _Life_.

To the objection, Why not by another of the same name? Dr. Reeves

replies in effect, “Not likely, as the name is almost unique and

pointedly connected with the Columban society.” And to the further

objection that it might possibly be by a later hand from the autograph

of this Dorbene, he answers, “Even less likely, as the colophon in Irish

MSS. is always peculiar to the actual scribe, and usually omitted by

other transcribers. And this is the only MS. of Adamnan’s _Life_ that

has the name and the colophon.”

The interest attaching to it on account of its extraordinary age and

subject-matter is greatly enhanced when we consider its history. For the

old document had hairbreadth escapes and adventures, and if it could

speak for itself doubtless could unfold a tale infinitely more

surprising, because more real and tragic, than many of the miraculous

incidents it does record. All the long agony of the early, the middle,

and the modern ages has transpired since first it went a-wandering.

Invasions, crusades, and revolutions, the rise and fall of systems and

nations—whole populations passing swiftly and stormfully across the

bosom of Europe into oblivion, and the book in the heart of the troubled

area survives them all and emerges at length, as if from the debris, to

reassert that “there lived a man.”

Adamnan, ninth Abbot of Iona, wrote the original in the years 691 to

693—that is, ten or twelve years before his death, which occurred in

704. In the second preface—for there are two—he tells us that it is the

substance of the narratives learned from his predecessors, and is

founded either on written authorities anterior to his own time or on

what he heard himself from ancient men then living. And we know that he

was sufficiently near the fountainhead, both in time and place, to be

able to draw from authentic sources; for he wrote just a century after

St. Columba’s death, and at the urgent request of his brethren. In his

boyhood he had frequent opportunities of conversing with those who had

seen and known the saint, and he was surrounded in the monastery and in

the island with all the halo of association and piety in which the

memory of his hero was enshrined.

The written material he could rely on was not meagre even at so early a

date. There was the narrative of Cummene the Fair, seventh abbot of

Iona, and thus one of his own immediate predecessors. His account

Adamnan transferred entire and almost verbatim into the third book of

his own work. It was really a tract entitled _De virtutibus sancti

Columbæ_. In addition to this he had at least one other Latin memoir and

various Gaelic poems in praise of the saint, such as the “Amra” of

Dallan Forgaill, and those of Baithene Mòr, and perhaps of St. Mura.

In another of his books (_De Locis Sanctis_) the author informs us how

he generally set about composing his literary efforts. He wrote the

first draft on waxen tablets, revised and corrected it, and then from

the text so prepared, a clean copy was neatly written out on parchment.

Dorbene the Scribhnidh may have copied the _Life_ in Adamnan’s own time;

if not quite so early, then shortly after his death. And whatever became

of Adamnan’s original, Dorbene’s copy appears to have remained in the

monastery till the beginning of the ninth century, when it was probably

taken to Germany. At that time a strong tide of Scotic pilgrims set in

towards Central Europe, owing no doubt to the Norse invasions, which

rendered life and property insecure in Iona and elsewhere.

In 825 Blathmac was murdered in the monastery, along with several of the

brethren, because he refused to tell where the Columban relics were hid.

The likelihood is that after that narrow escape one of the fleeing monks

carried the book to St. Gall or Reichenau on the Rhine. At any rate it

is significant that Walafridus Strabus, formerly Dean of the Irish

monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, and then Abbot of Reichenau from

842–849, knew of the tragic event and wrote a poem in Latin on the death

of Blathmac. And it was in this very house of Reichenau, that used to be

frequented so much by Scotic missionaries, that the MS. was ultimately

found. And quite casually too.

Ages had elapsed when, in the beginning of the seventeenth century,

Stephen White, a learned Irish Jesuit in search of Gaelic documents on

the Continent, luckily discovered it. He immediately transcribed the

venerable codex, and gave Ussher, Colgan, and the Bollandists the

benefit of his copy. Both the latter published the text—Colgan in 1647,

the Bollandists in 1698.

Thereafter, a second time the original vanished. When or how it was

removed from Reichenau is not known, but it must have been before that

monastery was suppressed in 1799. Once more it emerged, this time at

Schaffhausen, rediscovered by Dr. Ferdinand Keller of Zurich, the

distinguished archæologist.

Writing of the interesting find in January 1851, Dr. Keller tells the

story of its reappearance, showing into what sorry neglect it had fallen

before it reached its ultimate coign of vantage. “The present

_proprietor_ of the MS. of St. Columba,” he says, “is the town-library

of Schaffhausen. Here I found this codex in 1845 at the bottom of a high

book-chest, where it lay pell-mell with some other MSS. and old books

totally neglected, bearing neither title nor number.” It was twice

borrowed by Keller, and on the last occasion in 1851 he made a valuable

collection of facsimiles from it.

Finally the aged record, after well-nigh 1200 years’ vicissitudes, was

published by Dr. Reeves, Bishop of Down, in 1856, and his work

republished in 1874 by the publishers of the Series of Scottish

Historians, this time with English translation and re-arrangement of the

Notes, which Dr. Reeves permitted in order to adapt the book to a wider

circle of readers.

A truly romantic history, taking it all in all, is this story of the

ancient wanderer which has come to honour in a foreign land, but has not

yet found a way home to its native soil. What would Schaffhausen take

and part with it? Scotland has never asked. Some day she may, when she

awakens to the fact that the very oldest and, at the same time, one of

the most intensely interesting monuments of her literary history is an

alien in a strange country.

Apart from the book itself, the hero of the book, and its faithful

copyist, there is a fascination and much insight to be drawn from a

study of the personality of its author. Adamnan, like Boswell, has

achieved immortality through an enthusiastic and almost self-effacing

hero-worship. His great object, as he tells us again and again, is to

show up the wonderful character of the saintly Columba, and any deed or

tale that he thinks will enhance the prestige of this “great father and

founder of monasteries” goes down with unfailing devotion.

Born about the year 624 in Donegal, Adamnan, like Cummene, was a kinsman

of St. Columba. Indeed, the three men were descended from three

brothers, all of royal lineage. His peculiar name is understood to be a

diminutive of Adam, and is frequently followed by the patronymic Ua

Tinne, meaning grandson of Tinne. Of his father Ronan, or his mother

Ronnat, we know absolutely nothing beyond their descent, which was of

high degree. And of his own childhood and youth there remains only a

single legend, supposed to be the creation of a later age, reporting his

first meeting with Finnachta, afterwards monarch of Ireland, with whom

Adamnan was on the most friendly terms. This Finnachta, as his

biographer relates, was riding along one day to his sister’s house with

a numerous cavalcade, when he met a schoolboy with a jar of milk on his

back. In his haste to get out of the way the stripling knocked his foot

against a stone, and tripping, down went the jar with its contents upon

the ground. Whereupon the great prince spoke kindly to the boy and

assured him of protection, bidding him not to sorrow over it. To whom

the latter replied, “O good man, I have cause for grief, for there are

three goodly students in one house and three more of us are attendants

upon them. And how we act is this: one attendant from among us goes out

in turn to collect sustenance for the other five, and it was my turn

to-day; but what I had gathered for them has been spilled upon the

ground, and what grieves me more, the borrowed jar is broken and I have

not wherewith to pay for it.”

These are the boyish and dramatic circumstances in which Adamnan emerges

on the canvas of tradition. From his youth it would thus appear that he

was inured to hardship, and consequently qualified for the rigorous

discipline of the monastic life. Plain living went with high thinking,

and the quiet, thoughtful student soon acquired a reputation for

scholarship. He was just the kind of man to obtain entrance into the

distinguished circle of Iona, and though we cannot trace his career as

subordinate there, with certainty, we know that in 679, when fifty-five

years of age, he became head of the institution. At that period the

monastery was already known far and near for its learning. And there

seems little doubt that the new abbot was, taking him all in all, the

ablest and most accomplished of St. Columba’s successors. A great

linguist, he knew not only Latin, but, it may be inferred from his

writings, Hebrew and Greek also.

Four years prior to his own promotion, Finnachta had become king in his

native country. That monarch, it would appear, never lost sight of the

boy with the jar, whose whole bearing indicated a youth of rare promise.

The latter was afterwards invited to his court, and ultimately

constituted the king’s spiritual adviser (anamchara). This we have on

the authority of an ancient bardic composition in a vellum MS., formerly

in the possession of W. Monck Mason, Esq.

Besides his interesting relations with Finnachta, Adamnan was fortunate

in possessing the friendship of King Aldfrid of Northumbria. This

intimacy probably dates from the time when the latter as prince had

occasion to seek refuge in Ireland from his intriguing foes. At that

time he may have even been, as Duald Mac Firbis’s annals affirm, a pupil

of Adamnan.

At any rate, with two such royal friends, the influence of the Ionan

abbot was very great. And on important occasions he served as ambassador

or “go-between” in matters of State betwixt the two kings. For example,

after a raiding expedition by the North Saxons on Meath, Finnachta got

him to undertake a mission to his friend Aldfrid to negotiate for the

return of the captives, and the abbot had the satisfaction of personally

conducting sixty of them back to Erin in 686.

Two years later he paid another visit to the Court in Northumbria. On

both occasions a dreadful plague was raging in that country, and

throughout a great part of Europe. In his usual ultra-rational manner

Adamnan attributes his own immunity from the pestilence, and that of the

Picts and Scots in general, to the intercession of his holy patron St.

Columba.

On these tours he made the acquaintance of the leading clergy in the

north of England. It is supposed he met Bede, then a young man, at the

Court also. This distinguished historian gives various facts regarding

the abbot and his movements. He appears to have read Adamnan’s book on

the “Holy Places,” though it may be that he never saw the biography,

which was a much later production. At least he makes no mention of it

anywhere.