celebration of Easter and the tonsure. Through his intercourse with the
English clergy in Northumbria, and more especially, it is affirmed,
through a lively discussion he had with the learned Ceolfrid, Abbot of
Jarrow, Adamnan was persuaded to adopt the Catholic in preference to the
Celtic usage in these matters. On his return to Hy the brethren
strenuously opposed the innovation, and there was a lasting difference
of opinion thus originated by his change of views. For years the abbot,
who was pre-eminently a man of peace and unity—and, like the great and
pious scholar he was, always open to conviction,—earnestly strove to win
them over to what he deemed to be the better method, but did not succeed
in his own lifetime, though in after years the change was ultimately
adopted. In 692 he visited Ireland, and again in 697, between which
years he wrote the book that has made his name and memory immortal. A
man of great energy and incessant diligence, he was much on the move
convening synods and negotiating affairs. Like his extraordinary patron,
he interested himself in politics as well as in religion and literature,
of which he was a shining light.
Unhappily the law which St. Columba had got enacted, exempting women
from fighting in actual warfare, had soon fallen into abeyance, and
Adamnan resolved to have it re-enacted. According to a legend in the
Leabhar Breac and Book of Lecain, his attention was called to the
inhuman custom in the following accidental way. One day he happened to
be travelling through the plain of Bregia, says the legend, with his
mother on his back, when they saw two armies in deadly conflict. During
the heat of the combat his mother’s eye caught sight of a woman dragging
another woman by means of an iron reaping-hook from the opposing
battalion. The hook was fastened in the unfortunate victim’s breast.
Sitting down overcome by the sight, the distressed Ronnat said to her
son, “Thou shalt not take me from this spot until thou exemptest women
for ever from being in this condition and from excursions and hostings.”
Adamnan promised it. And at the important Synod of Tara, convened in
697, with the approval of King Finnachta, the point was carried,
involving a mighty social revolution from henceforth in the life and
customs of the Gael. For under the old regime, men and women went
equally to battle.
The enactments of this synod were afterwards known in Latin as “Lex
Adamnani,” and in Gaelic “Cain Adhamhnain.” In addition to a certain
privilege conceded to him and to his successors of levying contributions
for sacred purposes, Dr. Reeves thinks it was on this occasion that the
questions of Easter and the tonsure were publicly discussed, and
Adamnan’s views and usage adopted in Ireland.
Afterwards he seems to have been some years in that country promoting
his reforms. He certainly was there in 701; and Bede mentions that he
crossed from Erin to Hy the summer of the year that he died, and
indicates that he had been there a considerable time previously. His
death occurred on September 23rd, 704. It is thus touchingly
commemorated by the great historian. “For it came to pass that before
the next year came round he departed this life; the Divine goodness so
ordering it that, as he was a man most earnest for peace and unity, he
should be taken away to everlasting life before the return of the season
of Easter he should be obliged to differ still more seriously from those
who were unwilling to follow him in the way of truth.” He had apparently
celebrated his last Easter in Ireland, and died at the mature age of
seventy-seven.
His fame rests on his writings, chiefly the _Life of St. Columba_, and
his book on the “Holy Places”—_De Locis Sanctis_. Adamnan himself saw
not these Holy Land localities, but a French bishop on his return from
the east was driven by a storm to spend the winter with Adamnan, who
took down on waxen tablets his interesting accounts of the chief places
visited, and afterwards wrote out, _brevi textu_, on parchment. It is
better written and more fluent even than the biography, and when found
many years after, it was published as “the earliest account coming from
modern Christian Europe of the condition of Eastern lands and the cradle
of Christianity.”
Adamnan presented the book to King Aldfrid of Northumbria. There are
extant MSS. of it as old as the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries still
on the Continent—at Rome, Corbey, Saltzburg, and other places.
Besides these chief Latin works he is credited with a _Life of St.
Patrick_; poems, quoted by Tighernach, the “Four Masters,” and the Book
of Lecain; a _History of Ireland_ to his own times, and _An Epitome of
Irish Laws in Metre_. These two latter are only mentioned by Ward[16]
(on what authority is not known), and may be probably only compilations
of more modern times.
In the _Liber Hymnorum_, however, there is a short hymn in Gaelic
entitled Adamnan’s Prayer. It may be read in Dr. Stokes’ _Goidelica_.
And in the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre there is a more lengthy production known
as “Fis Adhamhnain.” It is in the form of a sermon, and may have been
written down some two hundred years after the abbot’s time. In this
remarkable vision Adamnan figures as “the high sage of the western
world,” and like Aeneas or Dante, he is privileged on the festival of
St. John the Baptist to visit heaven and hell. The scenes he beheld are
depicted in the original Gaelic with a realism and power of vivid
imaginary detail that puts even Thomas Boston in the shade. As Dante
found his Florentine enemies in not too comfortable circumstances in the
Inferno, so Adamnan is here represented as seeing the Aircinnich—the lay
administrators of the church lands, who too often abused their trust, in
similar dool. But this sentiment alone is sufficient to show that the
composition is of later date than Adamnan’s day, for such Aircinnich had
yet to arise, and the broad acres they mismanaged.
It is said that at the time of the great Synod in 697 the public mind
had for long been kept in such a state of suspense and alarm by the
prevailing pestilences and portents, that the report of the abbot having
some such vision made it so susceptible to his influence that he had far
less difficulty in carrying into effect his revolutionary measures than
he would have had in ordinary circumstances.
But all these things—writings and traditions alike—tend to show how this
quiet, intellectual, studious, pious, and—from our point of
view—amazingly credulous, yet influential scholar, impressed his own and
succeeding ages.
Adamnan’s best known book is essentially a Life of St. Columba, written
not in any chronological order, but on a characteristic plan of his own.
There are two prefaces, and what would really be the gist and
subject-matter of a modern biography is condensed by him into one short
paragraph at the end of the second of these. The work is then divided
into three parts or books. The first deals with prophetical revelations,
the second with miracles, the third with visions of angels; and under
these titles he groups all the most striking stories of the saint’s
life. All the collateral information—and it is not much—regarding the
history of the time, the social life, the manners, customs, language,
topography, etc., we get merely by the way in the telling of the tale.
Adamnan apparently had no thought that his readers would wish to know
something of these, or if he had he did not deem it any part of his task
to enlighten them. He was writing for his own times, and he could not
conceive that the eye of any monk or other reader could wander off from
the central luminary to mere details of the environment. It is at once
the limitation and strength of the enthusiast and the specialist. How
could he know that he was writing for the far-distant future?—this
unassuming monk in his cell, unconsciously addressing a people who have
emerged from his theory of the universe, and who listen and wonder at
his stories, which to them have all the charm and interest of fairy
tales.
_Tempora mutantur, eheu!_ The little facts that incidentally dropped
from his pen are those most sought and valued now, while the miracles,
visions, and prophecies which he took to be the soul and substance of
the book, wear a different aspect to modern eyes. It is these trifling
details, sometimes mere names, that give us glimpses into the state of
society in Ireland and Pictland, and into the civil and ecclesiastical
history of the time.
Adamnan’s consuming desire at all times is to present “the evidences
which the venerable man gave of his power.” And when we reflect that he
believed that “by some divine intuition” St. Columba, “through a
wonderful experience of his inner soul, beheld the whole universe drawn
together and laid open to his sight, as in one ray of the sun,” we need
not be surprised at the wonders unfolded. In the first chapter of Book
I., and before entering upon illustrative examples, he gives a summary
of his hero’s supernatural qualities. For example, he healed diseases;
expelled from the island “innumerable hosts of malignant spirits, whom
he saw with his bodily eyes assailing himself and beginning to bring
deadly distemper on his monastic brotherhood.” The surging waves quickly
became quiet at his prayer, and contrary winds changed into fair. He
took a white stone from the river Ness and blessed it for healing
purposes. This famous pebble floated like an apple when placed in water.
In the country of the Picts he raised a dead child to life, and while
yet a young man in Hibernia turned water into wine. An immense blaze of
heavenly light was occasionally seen to surround him in the light of
day, and he was frequently favoured with the society of bright hosts of
celestial beings. He often saw just men carried by angels to the highest
heavens, and reprobates hurried by demons to hell. The blessed man even
foretold the destinies of individual men, pleasing or painful, according
to their deserts. And “in the dreadful crash of wars he obtained from
God by the virtue of prayer, that some kings should be conquered and
others come off victorious.”
And now, coming to the substance of the separate books in order, we need
not dwell on the prophetical revelations, numerous and curious though
they are, beyond giving one or two as typical examples. The credulity of
the author and his capacity for belief are passing strange, and even
foreign to an age like our own. A peasant, he tells us, once asked the
saint by what death he would die. “Not in the battlefield nor at sea,”
came the ready response, “but the travelling companion of whom thou hast
no suspicion shall cause thy death.” And the man died through the
effects of a wound accidentally caused by his own knife.
One wonderful experience may be quoted, as quite in line with Professor
James’ argument in his Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University (May,
1901). In discussing “The reality of the Unseen,” this brilliant
exponent of the new Psychology instanced a number of curious cases of
the occurrence of a “presence” to individuals, and he maintained that
the sentiment of reality could indeed attach itself to things of which
the representative faculty could frame only the dimmest sort of an idea.
And abstractions other than the ideas of pure reason had the power of
making us feel presences that we were impotent articulately to describe.
No more striking example of his contention could be desired than the
following. It is entitled, “Of the consolation which the monks when they
were weary on their journey, received from the saint visiting them in
spirit.”
Baithene and the brethren were returning in the evening to the monastery
from the harvest work when something strange and unusual was felt by
them all. It is thus described by an elder brother. “I perceive,” he
said to the others, “the fragrance of such a wonderful odour, just as if
all the flowers on earth were gathered together into one place. I feel
also a glow of heat within me, not at all painful, but most pleasing,
and a certain unusual and inexpressible joy poured into my heart, which
on a sudden so refreshes and gladdens me that I forget grief and
weariness of every kind. Even the load, however heavy, which I carry on
my back, is in some mysterious way so lightened from this place all the
way to the monastery that I do not seem to have any weight to bear.”
King Brude and his Druids had rather a different sensation when, outside
their fortifications near Inverness, some of the latter tried to prevent
the saint from chanting the evening hymns. Very much in the flesh this
time, St. Columba began to sing the 44th Psalm so wonderfully loud, like
the rattle of thunder, that king and people were terror-struck with the
awful noise, and forthwith relented. Columba seems to have been more
than a match for these pagan opponents. For in the second book, where
the miracles are recorded, among other confusions to which he drove the
resisting Picts, the following is recorded. When first he visited Brude,
it happened that the king, elated by the pride of royalty, acted
haughtily and would not open his gates to his distinguished visitors.
But the man of God, observing this, approached the folding doors with
his companions and, having first formed upon them the sign of the cross,
he knocked and then laid his hand upon the gate, which instantly flew
open of its own accord, the bolts sliding back with great force. The
saint and his followers then passed through, and ever after, as long as
he lived, king Brude knew how to respect and reverence his imperious
visitor. It was to him that the latter gave the remarkable white pebble
which effected cures. “And what is very wonderful,” says our author,
“when this same stone was sought for by those sick persons whose term of
life had arrived, it could not be found.” Even King Brude himself was
abandoned _in articulo mortis_ by the fateful pebble.
After giving examples of miraculous punishments inflicted on those who
were opposed to St. Columba, Adamnan instances a few encounters with
wild beasts, and as they relate to our own Scotland they are of ancient
and exceptional interest.
“On one occasion,” to quote our author, “when the blessed man was
staying some days in the Scian island (Skye), he left the brethren and
went alone a little farther than usual to pray; and having entered a
dense forest he met a huge wild boar that happened to be pursued by
hounds. As soon as the saint saw him at some distance he stood looking
intently at him. Then raising his holy hand and invoking the name of God
in fervent prayer, he said to the beast, ‘Thou shalt proceed no farther
in this direction; perish on the spot where thou hast now reached.’ And
no sooner were these fateful words uttered than it appears his
formidable opponent collapsed, expiring on the spot.”
But an experience on the mainland of the Picts seems to have been even
more exciting. One day he had to cross the river Ness. And when he
reached the bank of the river he saw some of the inhabitants burying an
unfortunate man, who, according to the accounts of those who were
burying him, was a short time before seized as he was swimming, and
bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water; his wretched
body was, though too late, taken out with a hook by those who came to
his assistance in a boat. The blessed man, on hearing this, was so far
from being dismayed that he directed one of his companions to swim over
and row across the coble that was moored at the farther bank. And Lugne
Mocumin, hearing the command of the excellent man, obeyed without the
least delay, taking off all his clothes except his tunic and leaping
into the water. But the monster, which, so far from being satiated, was
only roused for more prey, was lying at the bottom of the stream, and
when it felt the water disturbed by the man swimming, suddenly rushed
out, and giving an awful roar darted after him with its mouth wide open,
as the man swam in the middle of the stream. Then the blessed man,
observing this, raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as
well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and invoking the name of
God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the
ferocious monster, saying, “Thou shalt go no farther, nor touch the man;
go back with all speed.” Then at the voice of the saint the monster was
terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with
ropes, though it had just got so near Lugne as he swam that there was
not more than the length of a spear staff between the man and the beast.
Then the brethren, seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their
comrade Lugne had returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were
struck with admiration and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And
even the barbarous heathens who were present were forced, by the
greatness of this miracle which they themselves had seen, to magnify the
God of the Christians.
The raising of the hand and forming the sign of the cross in the air
seems to have been a frequent and effective expedient. In the case of a
youth who was returning from the milking of the cows with his pail on
his back, and who stopped at the door of the cell where the blessed man
was writing, it was the means of driving out a demon that lurked in the
milk pail. No sooner had he left than the saint made the sign. Instantly
the air was greatly agitated. The bar which fastened the lid of the pail
being pulled back through the two openings which received it, was shot
away to a great distance, while the lid fell to the earth and the
greater part of the milk was spilled upon the ground. The demon that
lurked in the bottom of the pail could not endure the power of the sign,
and fled thus violently in terror.
Such is the unvarying style of Adamnan. That he himself credited those
versions of stories reported is beyond question. “Our belief in the
miracles which we have recorded,” he says, “but which we did not
ourselves see, is confirmed beyond doubt by the miracles of which we
were eye-witnesses.” Three times in his own experience he saw
unfavourable gales changed into propitious breezes.
As Book III., dealing with visions and angels, embodies Cummene’s
contribution, it is of the highest interest to consider some of its
choice memories. “On a certain night,” proceeds chap. ii., “between the
conception and birth of the venerable man, an angel of the Lord appeared
to his mother in dreams, bringing to her as he stood by her a certain
robe of extraordinary beauty, in which the most beautiful colours, as it
were, of all the flowers seemed to be portrayed. After a short time he
asked it back and took it out of her hands, and having raised it and
spread it out he let it fly through the air. But she, being sad at the
loss of it, said to that man of venerable aspect, ‘Why dost thou take
this lovely cloak away from me so soon?’ He immediately replied,
‘Because this mantle is so exceedingly honourable that thou canst not
retain it longer with thee.’ When this was said, the woman saw that the
forementioned robe was gradually receding from her in its flight, and
that then it expanded until its width exceeded the plains, and in all
its measurements was larger than the mountains and forests. Then she
heard the following words, ‘Woman, do not grieve for the man to whom
thou hast been bound by the marriage bond; thou shalt bring forth a son
of so beautiful a character that he shall be reckoned among his own
people as one of the prophets of God, and he hath been predestined by
God to be the leader of innumerable souls to the heavenly country.’ At
these words the woman awoke from her sleep.”
A priest, to whose care the sacred youth had been confided, upon
returning home from the church after mass found his house illuminated
with a bright light, and saw in fact a ball of fire standing over the
face of the little boy as he lay asleep. And in after years a higher
personage, St. Brendan, reported that he observed a most brilliant
pillar wreathed with fiery tresses preceding the same wonderful
individual.
It was not to be supposed that such a distinguished ornament of the
church militant could escape the attention and intrigues of its
arch-enemy. And so, on another day, while the holy man went to seek in
the woods of Iona for a place more remote from men and fitting for
prayer, he suddenly beheld, as he afterwards told a few of the brethren,
a very black host of demons fighting against him with iron darts. These
wicked demons, as the Holy Spirit revealed to the saint, wished to
attack his monastery and kill with the same spears many of the brethren.
But he, single-handed, against innumerable foes of such a nature, fought
with the utmost bravery, having received the armour of the apostle Paul.
And thus the contest was maintained on both sides during the greater
part of the day, nor could the demons, countless though they were,
vanquish him; nor was he able by himself to drive them from his island
until the angels of God—as the saint afterwards told certain persons—and
they few in number came to his aid, when the demons in terror gave way.
The chapter, which is far and away the most thrilling and humanly
interesting, is the last of the volume, entitled, “How our patron Saint
Columba passed to the Lord.” It lingers with loving memory over the
closing scene of this remarkable life, giving a minute account of the
saint’s last words and acts, his preparations for the impending change,
and the manner and circumstances of his death. But as this is an
oft-repeated and well-known passage, it need not be quoted here.
Adamnan’s _Vita Columbæ_ is not the only ancient _Life of St. Columba_
after Cummene’s, but it is undoubtedly the standard classic one, from
which most of the subsequent biographies draw their facts and
inspirations, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Old Irish Life,”
which furnishes particulars not mentioned in this one.
Neither is the Schaffhausen document the sole existing MS. copy of the
great biography. Dr. Reeves consulted as many as seven distinct MSS.,
three of which contained a longer and four a shorter text. Besides these
he had heard of five other extant copies, more or less complete.
The seven from which he obtained his own various readings are the
following:—
I. Codex A.—The famous Schaffhausen one, the oldest of all, dating from
the early years of the eighth century.
II. Codex B.—A vellum of the middle of the fifteenth century, preserved
in the British Museum.
III. Codex C.—The Canisian text, which was published in 1604 from a MS.
in the monastery of Windberg, Bavaria.
IV. Codex D.—The second tract in a large vellum of the thirteenth
century, in Primate Marsh’s library, Dublin.
V. Codex F.—A vellum consisting of fifty leaves, now in the Royal
Library of Munich.
VI. Codex G.—A small quarto MS. on vellum of the early part of the ninth
century, in the Library of St. Gall.
VII. Codex Cottonianus in the British Museum, also a vellum of the
latter part of the twelfth century.
The others, which he had not seen, are variously distributed in Austria,
Bavaria, Switzerland, and Belgium.
With all its defects, Adamnan’s masterpiece is the most valuable
monument of the early Celtic Church which has escaped the ravages of
time; imaginative, superstitious, magical, and steeped in hero-worship,
it is characteristically Celtic and of surpassing interest to the
archæologist and philologist.
Its value as such would have been vastly enhanced in these times had it
been written in Gaelic, and doubtless, too, had the author condescended
more on social and historical details. But Adamnan apparently had no
high opinion of his native language as a literary medium. In his first
preface he almost apologises for using Gaelic names of men and tribes
and obscure places in the “base Scotic tongue,” which he thinks rude in
comparison with the languages of foreign nations, and begs his readers
not to despise a record of useful deeds on account of these native words
inserted.
Dr. Reeves seems to regret that Adamnan did not follow the method of
Bede and give us an ecclesiastical history instead of a biography. We
cannot all share his sentiment. Had it been other than it is—had it even
been in Gaelic—the probability is that it might not have survived. In
Gaelic it certainly never could have attained the celebrity it enjoyed
on the continent of Europe during the Middle Ages, and which helped to
perpetuate it. On the other hand, without the memoir as thus preserved,
the life of St. Columba, the greatest pioneer of Scottish history,
religion, and literature, would now be as vague and jumbled as that of
any mythical hero, even as that of the historical St Patrick outside his
own “Confession” unfortunately is; and we should be ignorant of many
points concerning which we have now first-hand information.
As it stands, the _Vita Columbæ_ is still the most authentic voucher we
have for various important particulars in the civil and religious
history of the Picts and Scots, and the severe Pinkerton himself was
perhaps never nearer the truth on Celtic subjects than when he
pronounced it “the most complete piece of such biography that all Europe
can boast of, not only at so early a period, but even through the whole
Middle Ages.”
CHAPTER V
THE BOOK OF DEER
An ancient curio—Second oldest book of Scotland—Where did it come
from?—Its contents threefold—Gaelic colophon from the ninth
century—The work of a native scribe of Alba—Peculiarities—The
ecclesiastical art of the period—The Gaelic entries—“Legend of
Deer”—Drostan’s tears—Some very quaint history—The earliest source
for Scottish Gaelic—Authentic glimpses into the Celtic condition
of Scotland—Origin of shires, parishes, burghs, individual
freedom, and the use of the English language—Three editions of the
Gaelic of the Book of Deer—Now one of the very oldest MSS. of
native origin that Cambridge can boast of.
In the year 1860, Mr. Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of Cambridge University,
while rummaging among old books, came upon a curious production which at
once usurped his attention. Here, thought he, is surely a survival from
some remote time. And examining the MS., he found it to consist of
eighty-six parchment leaves, six inches long, four and a half wide, and
closely written on both sides.
The language was Latin, written in the Irish character, “not very unlike
the Bodleian Cædmon.” Each page showed marks of ruling with a sharp
instrument, and the letters hung from the ruled lines instead of resting
on them. The pages were surrounded by ornamented borders, most of them
filled in with interlaced work in panels, and with fretwork of a
peculiar kind.
On a casual inspection of the subject-matter, the accomplished librarian
had no difficulty in ascertaining that it consisted of the first six
chapters of St Matthew’s Gospel, and part (verses 1–22) of the seventh;
the first four chapters of St. Mark, and part of the fifth (to middle of
verse 35); the first three chapters of St. Luke, with the first verse of
the fourth; the whole of the Gospel of St. John; a fragment of an Office
for the Visitation of the Sick, in a later hand; and the Apostles’
Creed. The writing of the Gospels was all in one uniform hand, the ink
dark-brown with age, and the initial letters of paragraphs designed in
fanciful dragonesque forms and variously coloured. At the end of the
book, just after the Apostles’ Creed, the writer had added a colophon in
another language, which looked like Gaelic, and on the margins and
vacant spaces of the volume there was a number of entries in the same
vernacular, but evidently inserted much later.
What greatly enhanced the rarity and interest of this remarkable codex,
in the finder’s eyes, was that it also contained a collection of
coloured pictures and ornamental designs contemporary with the writing,
executed in the same style, and apparently by the same hand that penned
the Gospels.
Where did this ancient curio come from? It was easy for him to trace its
entrance into the Library, for he found it among the remainder of the
books of John Moore, at one time Bishop of Norwich, and later of Ely.
These books had come into the possession of the University in a very
interesting way. After the prelate’s death, which took place in 1714, it
appears that King George the First, acting on the suggestion of Lord
Townshend, bought the extensive library of the deceased for the sum of
6000 guineas, and gifted it to the College Library.
The small octavo MS. of which we are speaking, and now known as the Book
of Deer, had formed part of Bishop Moore’s collection in 1697, and
strange to say, after its removal to Cambridge, it lay apparently
neglected for a century and a half on the shelves of that University
Library, until the discriminating eye of Mr. Bradshaw singled it out as
of exceptional antiquity and value—as, in fact, one of the very oldest
MSS. of native origin that Cambridge can boast of.
Thus far the history of the quaint foundling. For the rest, it must tell
its own tale.
Obviously one of the few relics of the Celtic Church now extant, it
required an expert in the Gaelic language and antiquities to elicit the
desired information regarding its origin and long past. And when Whitley
Stokes sought a perusal, we can almost fancy the eager Bradshaw
addressing his fellow-linguist in the language of Marcellus to Horatio
when the ghost of Hamlet’s father suddenly appeared, “Thou art a
scholar; speak to it.” Here was the worn and faded form of a book
resurrected from the dust of oblivion, and, like the shade of the dead
king, once more catching the eye of men, and making their hearts quiver
with eerie curiosity.
A rising Celticist, Mr. Whitley Stokes soon applied himself to the
interesting inquisition, following the venerable scroll back for a
thousand years to the ancient time when it first took shape. And in the
_Saturday Review_ of December 1860 appeared an anonymous article from
his pen, in the form of an appreciative notice, giving translations of
the Gaelic, and otherwise making known to the public the importance of
this latest literary discovery.
In the contents of the volume he found sufficient internal evidence to
be able to trace its past, so far as many details of its early origin
and environment are concerned.
These contents, as already hinted, are threefold. First, the original
substance of the book; second, its ornamentations; and third, the notes
and memoranda inserted at a later time on the margins and blank pages.
And into what age and environment, we naturally ask, do these lead us?
As on receipt of an unknown letter, the receiver turns with eager eyes
to scan the signature at the end, so here the expert first directs his
attention to the colophon or postscript of the scribe.
In this particular instance it happens to be in Gaelic, and may be
rendered thus: “Be it on the conscience of every one in whom shall be
for grace the booklet with splendour, that he give a blessing on the
soul of the poor wretch (truagain) who wrote it” (“Forchubus caichduini
imbia arrath inlebran colli aratardda bendacht forainmain in truagain
rodscribai”).
This Gaelic, says Whitley Stokes, is identical with the oldest Irish
glosses given by Zeuss in his _Grammatica Celtica_, and “certainly as
old as the ninth century.” Professor Westwood, from a study of the
written characters, which are those at that time common to the Irish and
Anglo-Saxon schools, came to the same conclusion as to the age of the
book.
The version of the Gospels which it contains is one of a class which has
been called “Irish,” because, while mainly corresponding with Jerome’s
Vulgate, it preserves occasional readings from versions of earlier
dates. The text, in other words, agrees with the text of the various
Books of Gospel used in the Scoto-Irish monasteries of the period, such
as the Books of Durrow, Kells, Dimna, Moling, Armagh, etc.
It would appear that Jerome’s recension made its way early among Gaelic
scholars, and during the isolation of the Celtic Church, there had been
a sort of revision which produced a native version exhibiting
characteristics peculiar to itself and common to all the above-mentioned
texts. Hence the wonderful uniformity alike in the text and in the
peculiarities of spelling found in all the surviving Gaelic MSS. of that
early period.
It is not known whether the book was produced in the place whose name it
bears or in Iona, or whether it was written by a Pict or a Scot.
Scholars are content to affirm their opinion that it is the work of a
native scribe of Alba, without particularising too confidently.
Dr. Stuart, who edited it for the Spalding Club in 1869, observed that
though the handwriting is good and uniform, casual examination of the
MS. will show that it is a careless transcript of a corrupt text. The
spelling is frequently barbarous and capricious. There are many
violations of grammar, with omissions, transpositions, repetitions and
interpolations of various kinds, while the prepositions are almost
always joined to the word which they govern.
Generally speaking, this Book of Deer exhibits many of the peculiarities
of spelling which Tischendorf noted in the Vulgate, for example:—
Magdalen_æ_ for Magdalen_e_.
Ba_b_tismum for ba_p_tismum.
O_cc_ulus for o_c_ulus.
Abra_ch_am for Abra_h_am.
_Ch_anna for _C_ana.
Pro_f_eta for pro_ph_eta.
Dic_ie_ns for dic_e_ns.
_Z_abulus for _d_iabolus.
_H_oriens for _o_riens, etc.
But the copying is otherwise of such a kind that it appears very
doubtful if the scribe really knew Latin well. It certainly indicates a
great falling away from the high scholarship of Adamnan and the verbal
accuracy of Baithene. And this itself might confirm us in the idea that
it may have been written in Deer or somewhere in Buchan rather than in
Iona. Very curious blunders might be quoted; but perhaps none more
grotesque than that in the genealogy in St. Luke, where Seth is set down
as the first man and father of Adam, or again in John xviii. 22, “Sic
respondis Pontifici” (Answerest thou the high priest so?) is written
“Sicrespem dispontifici.” In other cases words are introduced which
entirely destroy the sense.
The second feature of this remarkable codex to arrest the attention, is
the decoration, which also is found to exhibit the character of the
ecclesiastical art of the period at which it is presumed to have been
written. The style of ornament of the illuminations is in fact entirely
similar to that used in the well known Irish Books of Gospel prior to
the ninth century, and on its own account is exceedingly interesting.
The first folio has its page divided into four panels by a plain Latin
cross, with a rosette in the centre. In these are four figures
representing, most likely, the four evangelists, though they might very
well stand for clerics. Fronting the beginning of the first Gospel is a
figure, full-page size, taken to represent St. Matthew, the author of
that Evangel. He appears with a beard, and clothed in ecclesiastical
vestments, all but the feet, which are bare. In his right hand he holds
a sword of unusual form, turned downwards with the point of the scabbard
resting between his feet; the handle is guarded before and behind, the
guards being curved and reversed.
On either side of the evangelist there looks forth a smaller figure,
which seems to be intended for an angel.
At the beginning of St. Mark’s Gospel is another figure in the same
style, with an object in front of his breast like a book in ornamental
binding. In his own place, St. Luke appears in the attitude of prayer,
his arms outspread. St. John is surrounded by six smaller figures,
similar to those accompanying St. Matthew. The two last pages of the MS.
have also designs of which one repeats with variations that at the
beginning of the book; while the other is a combination of similar
figures with geometric ornament. Throughout the volume are found here
and there small drawings—quaint little flourishes representing fern
leaves, birds, and animals, curiously wrought, and words as if in trial
of the pen, some of which show very delicate and correct lines. The
initial letter of each Gospel is enlarged and ornamented with patches of
different colours, about two inches high, and the ends of the principal
strokes of the letters terminate in dogs’ heads.
Yet it must be added that with all its similarity of style and
attractive colouring, the art is poor in comparison with that of
contemporary Irish MSS.
Such are the original contents of the codex. There remain the later
notes and memoranda on the margins and blank spaces. And these are of
two kinds—those written in Latin and those in Gaelic. The Latin ones
consist of (1) the fragment of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick
inserted between Mark and Luke, and with a single line of Gaelic rubric
in the body of it, namely, “Hisund dubeir sacorfaic dau” (“Here give the
sacrifice to him”); (2) a Charter by King David confirming to the monks
of Deer their lands and their privileges. As the Office for the Sick may
have been the first insertion, perhaps 200 or 250 years after the
original book was written, so the King’s Charter, granted some time
before his death in 1154, was with a single exception apparently the
last, for in declaring that the clerics of Deer were free from all lay
interference and undue exaction, “as it is written in their book,” it is
implied that the rest of the entries had already been made.
These latter are the six Gaelic ones, and they contribute the chief
value to the Book of Deer. They all relate to grants of land and other
privileges given from time to time to the Monastery of that name. At
Banff and Aberdeen, in the early part of the twelfth century, the book
was produced in the King’s Courts in evidence of the rights of the
clerics to the land in question, and their claim was thereby
substantiated. The entries were made at different times, from the end of
the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century down to the middle of
the twelfth. They occur in the earlier part of the book, and though
inferior in point of penmanship and even of ink to the original contents
of the MS., they are well written and perfectly legible throughout.
Inscribed as they were in the Gaelic of the place and of the period,
these entries introduce us direct and at once into the community of
monks who owned the codex.
The first is of exceeding great interest. It is known as the “Legend of
Deer.” Based upon a tradition of some 500 years, it cannot be regarded
as strictly historical, which all the others are. The tradition was that
the monastery of Deer was founded by St. Columba. According to the
legend, the great Abbot came with his pupil Drostan from Hy (Iona) to
Abbordoboir, the modern Aberdour in Aberdeenshire, but whether by land
or sea is not stated. The record simply says, “As God had directed
them.” Bede the Pict was, at the time, Mormaer or Grand Steward of
Buchan, and gave them the town in freedom for ever from mormaer and
toisech (chieftain). They came after that to the other town of the
district, now known as Deer, and “it was pleasing to Columcille because
it was full of God’s grace,” and he asked Bede to give him that one too,
but the Pict refused.
Then a son of this ruler took ill and was at the point of death, when
his father sent to the clerics—Columba and his pupil—to pray for the lad
that he might recover, and he gave them in offering the land from “Cloch
in tiprat to Cloch pette meic Garnait” (“From the stone of the well to
the stone that marks the bounds of the son of Garnat’s place”). They
offered a prayer and health came to the dying youth. After that,
Columcille departed from the district, gifting the town to Drostan. But
before he set out he blessed it, and left as his “word,” “Whosoever
shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared or victorious.”
Drostan’s tears (deara), we are told, flowed freely on parting with his
famous Chief, whereupon the immortal Columba said, “Let Dear be its name
henceforward.” And thus the town and monastery derived their name, since
variously spelt as Dear, Der, Deir, Dere, and Deer.
The facts underlying the legend are not at all improbable. On the
contrary, they are quite in keeping with the character of St. Columba
and the range of his mission. Arguing from the circumstance that no
Drostan is mentioned in history in connection with the saint, an attempt
has been made by Dr. Macbain to show that the founder of the monastery
may have been another individual of that name who lived about 700 A.D.,
but there is no sufficient data. The word is a diminutive of the British
name Drust. And whoever Drostan was, as a saint he has been held in
honour in the Buchan district from very early times. The church of
Aberdour was dedicated to him, and Drustie’s fair used to be held
annually at Deer on the 14th of December.
In connection with the “word” said to have been left by Columcille,
there is some very quaint history in after years. The Celtic Earls of
Buchan, partly influenced by it, no doubt, showed a munificent spirit
towards the Church of Deer till the fall of their House with the Comyns,
when Robert the Bruce came to the throne.
The Comyns had opposed the latter and were so utterly overthrown that,
according to a chronicle of the period, of a name which numbered at one
time the three Earls of Buchan, Mar, and Menteith, and more than thirty
belted knights, there remained no memorial in the land “save the orisons
of the monks of Deer.”
Sir Robert de Keith, the influential Marischal of Scotland and staunch
supporter of the Bruce, got a grant of some pleasant lands in the
neighbourhood of the monastery from the King as a reward for his
services. Thereafter, partly through intermarriage, the Marischals in
succession became the leading family in the district, and at the time of
the Reformation were tenants of the abbey lands. By authority of a
member of the family who had become “Abbot and Commendator of Deer,” the
property was by a certain process rather mendaciously made over to the
Earl of the day. But the Earl’s wife, “a woman both of a high spirit and
of tender conscience, forbade her husband to leave such a consuming moth
in his house as was the sacrilegious meddling with the Abisie of Deir.”
Unfortunately, however, “fourteen chalders of meill and beir was a sore
tentatione, and he could not weel indure the randering back of such a
morsell.” Her demand was met with “absolut refusall.” So she had a
vision of the impending ruin of the house. It is thus curiously recorded
by Patrick Gordon, a writer of the eighteenth century, in his book
entitled, _A Short Abridgement of Britanes Distemper from the year of
God 1739 to 1749_.
The night following, “in her sleepe, she saw a great number of
religious men in their habit, cum forth of that Abbey to the stronge
Craige of Dunnoture which is the principall residence of that familie.
She saw them also sett themselves round about the rock, to gett it
down and demolishe it, having no instruments nor toilles wherewith to
perform this work, but only penknyves; wherewith they foolishly (as it
seemed to her), began to pyk at the Craige. She smyled to sie them
intend so frutles are interpryse; and went to call her husband to
scuffe and geyre them out of it. When she had fund him and brought him
to sie these sillie religious monckes at their foolishe work, behold!
the wholl Craige, with all his strong and statly buildings, was by
their penknyves undermynded and fallen in the sea, so as ther remained
nothing but the wrack of ther rich furniture and stufe flotting on the
waves of a raging and tempestuous sea. Som of the wiser sort, divining
upon this vission, attrebute to the penknyves the lenth of time befor
this should com to pass; and it hath bein observed, by sundrie, that
the Earles of that house before wer the richest in the kingdom, having
treasure in store besyd them; but ever since the addition of this so
great revenue, they have losed their stock by heavie burdeines of debt
and ingagment.”
The writer who relates this wonderful vision did not live to see the
downfall of the House in the following century, or, it is surmised, he
would have regarded it in the light of a literal fulfilment.
But a much more distinguished author in recent times, the French Comte
de Montalembert, has not hesitated to connect the ruin of the family
fortunes with the sinister “word” of the famous Columcille: “Whosoever
shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared or victorious.” The
scribes who inserted the later entries had kept up the ominous
prediction by concluding the fourth with the sentence, “And the Lord’s
blessing on every mormaer and on every toisech who shall fulfil this,
and to their seed after them;” and the fifth, with the alternative, “And
his blessing on every one who shall fulfil this after him, and his curse
on every one who shall go against it.”
In Gaelic entry No. 2 we suddenly emerge from the traditionary elements
of the first into the region of historical fact. We need not detail the
various grants referred to in the entries 2 to 6 or the names of the
donors. Our chief interest in these vernacular addenda lies in the
circumstance that they throw an ancient and fresh light on the language
and history of the period. Philologically, they are of great value as
the earliest specimens of Scottish Gaelic extant. In Adamnan’s _Life of
St. Columba_ there are, of course, some Celtic words, but these are
merely names of persons or places and the book is the work of a scholar
born and educated in Ireland.
Hitherto, therefore, so far as the Gaelic literary monuments of Scotland
have survived, they may all be regarded as more or less of Irish origin,
character, and inspiration. But here at length and for the first time we
have one that is distinctly Scottish, both in language and the manner of
writing. As Windisch has expressed it in his _Celtic Speeches_, “the
oldest source for Scottish Gaelic is the Book of Deer.” After it there
is no other for 400 years, till the Dean of Lismore’s book is produced
between 1512 and 1526.
Before the sixteenth century you will look in vain for a scrap of any
literature or even record in Scottish Gaelic outside the Book of Deer.
The arguments that may be adduced to show that in the latter we have the
genuine native vernacular, as distinct from the Irish Gaelic in vogue in
contemporary MSS., are these.
First, the book was evolved in a corner of Scotland as remote as could
be from Ireland. The district formed part of the country of the Picts,
who had asserted a kind of independence in ecclesiastical affairs.
Second, the Norsemen by their frequent incursions had inserted a wedge
as it were between the two countries that hitherto had so much in
common. They destroyed Iona and forced the Church to adopt Dunkeld as
its chief abbatial centre. Since Malcolm Canmore’s time, Scotland was
thus becoming a separate kingdom, independent of English and Irish
influences, and the establishment of bishoprics by the Kings Alexander
and David freed even the Church from both England and Ireland. The
twelfth century was therefore a likely time for the birth of a native
literature.
Third, the writing in the Book of Deer is of a thoroughly practical
kind, relating to business transactions, and the Gaelic of the district
must have been used. The very purpose of the memoranda was to
substantiate claims against future mormaers and toisechs who might be
disposed to dispute their legality.
Fourth, it is believed that even in the Western Highlands, not to speak
of Buchan, the difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic was then
wider than the literature would lead us to infer. For this reason, that
the Gaelic MSS. of the period were produced by men who derived their
culture from Ireland and naturally followed the Irish standard in their
written compositions. The contents of the Book of Deer fully justify
that conclusion.
The Gaelic text is of the same age with that in the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre
and Book of Hymns. Yet a comparison with these typical Irish monuments
shows that the monks of Deer had developed peculiarities in writing
Gaelic which differed considerably from the standard of the Irish
scholars. Windisch, commenting upon this circumstance, says, “The manner
of expression, words, and forms are as in the Irish, but the manner of
writing shows already a stronger phonetic decay; whether it be that the
Scotch Gaelic has lived faster, or that only the manner of writing has
remained less ancient, and has fitted itself more exactly to the
pronunciation of the time.”
It is in this respect more like the Middle than the Ancient Irish.
Those who are interested in the study of archaic words and grammatical
forms will find the Book of Deer not a bad quarry; in fact our very
oldest bed-rock for Scottish idioms. There are few declensional
specimens, it is true, but these suffice to show, as Dr. Whitley Stokes
observed, that the Highlanders declined their nouns in the eleventh
century as fully as the Irish, which is very far from being the case
to-day. Some of the peculiarities of the newly-fledged Scottish Gaelic
may here be noticed. For example, that distinction of vowels so
noticeable in the Authorised Version of the Scriptures, where we have
the Irish _o_ in _focal_ instead of the Scottish _a_ as in _facal_, may
be observed in the colophon of the Book of Deer, where we have
_truagain_, “the poor wretch,” and not _trogan_ as in the Irish Priscian
of St. Gall. Another feature is the confusion of vowels if ending words,
as _i_ for _e_, the sinking of _c_ and _t_ to _g_ and _d_, and the
assimilation of _ld_ and _ln_ to _ll_. The spelling has further local
characteristics, perhaps due to Pictish influence, as, for example, _cc_
for _ch_; thus _imacc_ is for _imach_, modern _a mach_, “out of,”
“henceforth;” _buadacc_ is for _buad(h)ach_, “victorious.”
The aspirated _d_ or _g_ is dropped, as in _blienee_, just as from
Jocelyn of Furness (1180) we learn that the pronunciation of _tighearn_
was at that time _tyern_, though in Irish _tigerna_. Another Gaelic
Scotticism is the manner of treating _n_ in the preposition _in_. In
early Irish the _n_ disappears before _s_ and _p_; here it is retained,
as _insaere_, _inpett_. We also find _ibbidbin_ for _im-bidbin_ and
_ig-ginn_ for _in-cinn_. Thus the two peculiar features of Celtic
grammar known as aspiration and eclipsis, or vocalic infection and nasal
infection of tenues, are observed.
The great rule for spelling known as “Leathan ri leathan is caol ri
caol,” that is, “broad (vowel) to broad, and small (vowel) to small,”
forced on Scottish Gaelic from Ireland, is, with very rare exceptions,
ignored in the Book of Deer. The orthography of the latter has many
contractions, and is more phonetic than that of the Irish MSS. All of
which peculiarities and circumstances point to the conclusion arrived at
by Celtic scholars in general, that the Scottish Gaelic dialect of the
eleventh and the twelfth centuries, and especially the accent, differed
much from the language of educated Irishmen.
The next two literary monuments of this vernacular, namely, those of the
Dean of Lismore and of Duncan Macrae of Inverinate, both of whom wrote
phonetically, bring out this difference between the two dialects still
more clearly. It is an interesting fact, apparent from the Book of Deer,
that the present Aberdeenshire, now so Teutonic, was, when the entries
were made, a Gaelic-speaking district. The names of the kings, mormaers,
and toisechs mentioned are all Celtic, indeed most of them are common
enough names to-day in the Highlands,—Cathal, Domnall, Muridach,
Maelcolum, Cainnech, Donnchad, Gartnait, Aedh, Comgall, Maledoun,
Matadin; Nectan was Bishop of Aberdeen, Leot Abbot of Brechin,
Domangart, a ferlegin or “man of learning,” and Cormac Abbot of Turiff.
A few are non-Celtic, such as Andrew, Samson, and David. Unhappily, in
these records the names of women do not figure much. Two very euphonious
and beautiful ones, however, are given,—Eua, the “wedded wife” of
Colban, and Ete, daughter of Gillemichel. It is a wonder that these
delightful names, especially Ete or Eite, have gone out of use in the
Highlands.
The Celts seem to have had a genius for coining melodious appellations,
sweet and endearing, as well as strong, rough, and uncouth.
Unlike Adamnan’s _Vita Columbæ_ and Bede’s _History_, there is no hint
in this MS. of any language other than Latin and Gaelic. The latter was
in evidence in the Courts of Banff and Aberdeen, and we would gather
from the line of vernacular inserted in the Latin fragment of an Office
for the Visitation of the Sick that the monks of Deer were more familiar
with their Gaelic than their Latin; for in the Irish Book of Dimna the
direction is not the Gaelic “Hisund dubeir sacorfaic dau,” but it is the
Latin “Das ei Eucharistan.”
But apart from their philological value, the memoranda in the Book of
Deer throw a welcome light on an early and obscure period of our
national history. Where the student of the social, political, and
ecclesiastical machinery of the time would otherwise have to grope his
way among dim and doubtful hints and analogies, he has here authentic
glimpses into the Celtic condition of Scotland.
And these notices are all the more valuable because they were made at
the time when a great social and ecclesiastical revolution was
impending. There was, on one side, the change from the primitive
patriarchal polity to the feudal regime, and on the other, from the
monastic to the parochial system. The period covered by the entries is
towards the close of the Celtic epoch, before this momentous transition
had taken place. We see the old order ready to depart, and we get some
light on the origin of the new institutions which were about to
supersede it.
Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore, had much to do with the
remoulding of the ancient structure of society in Scotland. This old
system of inherited peculiarity was first confronted with one founded on
different principles, when the Celtic clergy of Scotland met in council,
to listen during three days to the addresses of the Saxon princess,
whose speeches were translated into the language of the Gael by her
husband the King. Just as in the other great social movements of later
times in the Highlands, the influences that undermined the old order
were not the result of natural progress in the Celtic polity, but of
foreign ideas and principles introduced from without. It was these that
led to the destruction of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions on
which the old regime rested. In the train of Queen Margaret had come
into Scotland a race of Saxon, and afterwards of Norman settlers, whose
presence in the country led to a quickening of the national life, and
the awakening of a feeling of unity such as could find no place among
the divided clans of a Celtic people.
In the Book of Deer we still have the old patriarchal system in full
swing. There is the Ardrigh or High King. Under him and over the
provinces are the mormaers, and under the mormaers the tribal or
district chieftains known as toisechs. All these had their exactions out
of the land, besides having their own fat manor lands. They had rights
of personal service, civil and military; of entertainment when
travelling; and of exacting rent in kind or in money. There were neither
dioceses nor parishes as yet. The patriarchal idea was carried out even
in the monastic system. Each tribe or tuath had a monastery. Its abbot
belonged to a leading family of the tuath or of the founder, in which
family the office was hereditary. The system gave rise to great abuses;
for as the monastery grew rich in lands the abbot took to do more with
the temporal than with the spiritual management, and often the lands
passed out of the possession of the monastery altogether into the hands
of the laymen.
“It was not so in the case of Deer, the clerics of which down to the
middle of the twelfth century were still receiving from the bounty of
the Gaelic chiefs of this district additions to their monastic
inheritance, in the whole of which they were secured by King David I.,
with full immunity from all secular exactions.” It is plain, however,
from the terms of the royal charter, that attempts had been made to
fleece them, and that they were able to maintain their rights in virtue
of the grants recorded in their book.
The abuses of the lay abbacies, though not wholly removed, were fairly
checked by Queen Margaret and her sons, through the creation of
bishoprics and the gradual supersession of the monastic by the parochial
system. Soon, dioceses and parishes, which cannot be traced farther back
than the time of Alexander I., began to appear in the records. They had
been established in England much earlier.
Other new civil divisions and distinctions emerge. The old “countries”
and “provinces” become shires. Towns spring up, and the number of
individuals and corporations holding personal property and corporate
rights increased. A large part of the best land was given by charter
from King David to men who held of the crown in feudal tenure.
The mormaer became merged in the Earl, and the toisech in the Thane. In
short, with the growth of feudal law, and the change to the parochial
system, the old Celtic regime was fast becoming a thing of the past,
though many of the customs and traditions associated therewith lingered
on till the great overthrow of the Forty-five, and even in some
localities almost to our own times.
We are thus able, through the medium of this venerable Book of Deer, to
reach a hand over time to Columcille and his faithful Drostan, to Bede
the Pict, to the monks of Buchan, and that succession of the Ardrighs,
mormaers, and toisechs who lived in the old and primitive conditions,
before the new institutions and the regime under which we ourselves
exist were evolved. We can hardly think of Scotland to-day apart from
the categories of parishes, burghs, individual freedom, English
language, and many others, and yet in these far-off times the monks of
Deer and their contemporaries had to be doing without them. For all
this, these men were not lacking in culture or pious devotion. Their
book shows us that they revered the spiritual Columba as their Chief,
and founder of their monastery, and besides being expert caligraphists,
having some skill in painting and illumination, they were educated with
a sufficient knowledge of Latin to transcribe it intelligently and use
it in the services of the church. “This is not much to say of them,”
says Dr. Anderson in his Rhind Lectures, “but,” he adds, “it is a great
deal more than we have it in our power to say of any other community or
institution from similar evidence, if we except the parent community of
Iona itself.”
Of the Gaelic of the Book of Deer there are three editions. The first
was prepared, Latin and Gaelic together, with valuable preface and
facsimile plates, by Dr. Stuart, and published by the Spalding Club in
1869. It is one of the many excellent and beautifully printed volumes we
owe to that distinguished Association. Mr. Stokes was responsible for
the English translation. The second publication he has given himself, in
his own _Goidelica_. There we find all the later entries of the codex
with translation, notes, and glossary. A similar service has since been
rendered by Dr. Macbain of Inverness, who provides the text with
translation, notes, and glossary of his own, founded on the work of the
previous editors, but throwing additional light on the vocabulary. This
contribution appears in the eleventh volume of the _Transactions of the
Gaelic Society of Inverness_ (1884–85), and is a welcome aid to the
study of the text.
As in the case of the oldest book of Scotland, so in the case of this
second oldest, it is to be regretted that the Book of Deer has strayed
outwith our own land, yet no doubt, it is to this fact that we owe the
existence of both to-day; for no other book of so ancient a calibre has
been able to survive the many stormy convulsions and turbulent ferments
known as Scottish history. Cast up like flotsam and jetsam in a late
age, and treasured in the high places of learning, they both add a
lustre and a glory now to our ancient language and literature which we
would otherwise in vain desiderate.
CHAPTER VI
THE MS. LEGACY OF THE PAST
A fresh start in the study of Celtic literature—Advent of foremost
scholars—The new basis found by Zeuss—Resurrection of ancient
texts—Unexpected light—H. d’Arbois de Jubainville and his mission
to this country—The numbers, dates, and localities of Gaelic MSS.:
(1) on the Continent; (2) in the British Isles—Subject
matter—Examples of the oldest written Gaelic poetry in Europe—The
great books of saga—Leabhar Na h’Uidhre—Books of Leinster,
Ballymote, and Lismore—Quotations—Account of the Ancient
Annals—Tighernach—The _Chronicon Scotorum_—The “Four
Masters”—Romance of the fugitive documents.
It is practically within the last fifty years that the great revival in
the study of Celtic literature has taken place. About the middle of last
century the foremost scholars began to arrive, and since then there has
been quite a galaxy of experts, both on the Continent and in the British
Isles, who have approached the subject on scientific lines, and by
careful literary research have not only opened to us the treasures of
the past, but have also thrown a flood of light on them.
Prior to their advent, Celtic studies had no solid basis, for the
sufficient reason that the materials were not available. Old-time
convulsions had dispersed the documents to the four winds, and they
remained where they lay, buried for ages from the public eye.
Such learned men as occupied themselves with these studies before the
middle of last century confined their attention in great part to the
languages and literatures of the Neo-Celtic races—the Welsh and the
Bretons. They sought in these light to dissipate the obscurity that hung
over the early history of the Celtic race—the period anterior to the
conquest of Gaul by the Romans. They consulted grammars and dictionaries
published in Brittany, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, during the last
three centuries. Of the texts themselves, the oldest they knew were
Welsh, dating from about the thirteenth century; and some poems of Welsh
bards preserved in MSS., of which the most ancient went no farther back
than the end of the twelfth century. These were literary treasures
indeed, with the characteristic Celtic flavour, as may be seen from the
beautiful critiques of Renan and Matthew Arnold, both of whom were
charmed by the spirit and sentiment they breathe.
But in general it may be said that the early scholars had only mastered
the more modern forms of the language, and it was from texts
comparatively recent that they sought illumination of a past removed
from them by more than nineteen centuries.
Such was the stage Celtic study had reached—a kind of arrested
development—when suddenly a unique resuscitation took place.
The first of the new scholars to arrive were O’Donovan and O’Curry.
Eugene O’Curry, Professor of the Catholic University of Ireland, went
straight to the necessities of the case by publishing in 1849 a
catalogue of the Gaelic MSS. in the British Museum, and then, of those
in the Royal Academy of his native land. Afterwards, besides other
valuable contributions, he gave to the world his _Lectures on the MS.
Materials of Irish History_, enhancing the interest of the work by
putting a very large and varied selection of facsimiles of the ancient
writings in the appendix. A very Tischendorf was this indefatigable MS.
hunter and interpreter. Very aptly indeed did he speak of himself as an
underground worker. Much had been done by other labourers, but the
foundation was still to seek and still to lay. And it is significant of
former methods, that he knew not one man previous to his own time who
had qualified himself for the work in hand, either by mastering the
ancient Gaelic, or by making himself acquainted with the MSS. And yet
these are the genuine sources of historical and antiquarian knowledge in
this department.
Close after O’Curry came the great Continental savant Zeuss, who may be
regarded as the real founder of the new and solid basis on which Celtic
studies now rest. His monumental work, the erudite _Grammatica Celtica_,
appeared in Leipzig in 1853, giving a new impetus all over Europe to a
study which hitherto had attracted but a languid, or at the best, a
restricted attention. And when, following up this great work, the German
grammarian published the glosses found in some of the oldest Gaelic MSS.
on the Continent, it was recognised that he had opened up a new and most
fertile field for future explorers. These latter were immediately
forthcoming—learned authorities, like Nigra, Ascoli, Ebel, Stokes,
Windisch, and Zimmer, who brought to light other important documents and
explained their significance. Thus was the new movement in Celtic study
duly inaugurated, with what results we shall see.
The glosses published by Zeuss, though they furnish no fresh ideas,
offer to the learned world a grammatical interest of the highest kind.
They belong, some to the eighth century, others to the ninth, and the
venerable Gaelic in which they are couched presents certain antique and
curious characteristics which are entirely lacking to the Welsh of the
same period, and still more to that of the twelfth and following
centuries—the only forms known to the scholars before Zeuss.
Since his time the new basis which he found for Celtic studies has been
wonderfully enlarged, chiefly through the discovery of other Gaelic
texts contemporary with some of those that served for his own beautiful
work. And then the remarkable publications of erudite men in Dublin, and
the excellent work of Windisch, Professor of Sanskrit at Leipzig, have
called the attention of experts on the continent to a great mass of
documentary material in the British Isles. Under the transcription and
retouching of many of these MSS. by later copyists, there are found
original compositions, primarily in the ancient Gaelic of which Zeuss
was the first interpreter.
Unlike the glosses, they furnish us with a vast storehouse of new ideas
and traditions of every sort, comprising especially the mythological and
legendary, the legal also, and even the grammatical under various forms.
Their originality is unquestionable. These texts, in carrying us back to
pagan times, throw quite unexpected light on the incomplete though
precious accounts which ancient writers like Cæsar, Diodorus of Sicily,
and Strabo have given of the primitive civilisation of the Gauls. We
should expect to find in this mass of curious heroic literature some
expression of the traditions common to all the Celtic race before the
settlement of the different branches in the countries which now bear
their name, and we are not disappointed. The MSS. preserved do give us a
crowd of fresh thoughts on the beliefs and customs of the Celts in the
most ancient epochs of their history.
In this respect they help to gratify the longing desire of living men to
know something of the actions, the range of thought, the character of
mind, the habits, the tastes, the arts, the religion, and, in short, the
everyday life of so old and venerable a race as our own, which has
played such a wonderful part in the drama of history.
The French authorities have been fully alive to the value of these
studies, and on one occasion, at least, the Minister of Public
Instruction showed his interest in a very practical and laudable way. In
February of 1881 Jules Ferry, who was in office at the time, appointed
H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, Professor of Celtic in the College of
France, as a special commissioner to visit the British Isles, and
investigate and make a list of all the Gaelic MSS. he could find. This
literary mission De Jubainville carried out the same year, subsequently
embodying his report in a book which gives not only his catalogue of
MSS. inspected in England and Ireland, but also a list of those on the
Continent. For some reason or other he omitted to include Scotland in
the area of his research, and so the large collection of valuable
documents in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, is not chronicled in his
interesting résumé. Yet still, we have now for the first time a pretty
general estimate of all the more important material available.
We need not follow this enthusiastic MS. hunter in his peregrinations
through the British Isles and on the Continent, entering, as he
frequently did, the precincts of ancient universities, cloisters, and
museums, sitting in odd corners in libraries, poring over musty leaves,
deciphering antique characters, looking at some documents through glass
cases which he would fain see opened, handling others with eager,
hurried scrutiny, while a verger or a monk mounts sentry over the
inquisitive foreigner, watching the precious relics with jealous care,
and limiting the time for observation.
What concerns us most are the tabulated results; and we might look in
the passing at some of the more striking facts which they exhibit.
And first of all it is not a little surprising to learn that, while the
libraries of the Continent possess twenty MSS., or more correctly twenty
portions of MSS., written in the Gaelic language before the eleventh
century, in the libraries of England and Ireland there are only seven of
that remote age. But after that date the British libraries take the
lead, since the number of their Gaelic MSS. before the seventeenth
century amount to 133, whereas the total on the Continent down to the
seventeenth century is only thirty-five. Of course this excludes the
Celtic Latin MSS., of which there are upwards of 200 in European
libraries.
Altogether there are just fifty-six Gaelic documents that are known to
be on the Continent of dates ranging from the eighth to the nineteenth
century, and these are distributed as follows:—
8th century 2 Milan, Cambray.
8th to 9th century 2 St. Paul in Carinthia, Vienna.
9th century 13 Berne, Carlsruhe (2), Dresden, Laon, Leyden,
Nancy, Paris (2), Rome, St. Gall (2), Turin.
9th to 10th century 1 Würzburg.
10th century 2 Paris.
11th century 6 Carlsruhe, Rome (2), St. Gall, Vienna (2).
11th to 12th century 1 Klosterneuburg.
12th century 1 Engelberg.
13th to 15th century 1 Rennes.
14th to 16th century 1 Paris.
16th century 1 Stockholm.
17th century 12 Brussels (11), Paris.
18th century 5 Paris (4), Rouen.
19th century 4 Paris (2), Rouen (2).
Dates uncertain 4 Berne, Florence, Milan (2).
Besides the number, antiquity, and wide distribution of these MSS., we
are struck with two things. First, the fact that Milan and Cambray, two
Continental cities, have the honour of possessing the two most ancient
Gaelic MSS. now extant. One of these relics is a Latin commentary on the
Psalms, the other a Latin sermon, but in both there are glosses in Irish
or Gaelic written in the eighth century. Earlier than that we cannot go
for actual writing still extant in the native tongue.
The other striking thing about the list is the entire absence of Gaelic
MSS. in the northern countries of Europe, such as Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark, where we should most expect to find them. There is one indeed
at Stockholm, but it is merely a copy written in the sixteenth century.
Surely this goes far to confirm the sinister reputation of the marauding
Danes and Norsemen with regard to learning. Keating, writing 250 years
ago, asserts their destructiveness. “It was not allowed to give
instruction in letters.... No scholars, no clerics, no books, no holy
relics, were left in church or monastery through dread of them. Neither
bard nor philosopher nor musician pursued his wonted profession in the
land.”
Apparently these northern pillagers, who laid waste so many monasteries,
instead of removing the rare and precious books to their own lands, were
no better than the Vandals in their mad business of burning and
destroying on the spot what they evidently themselves could not value or
appreciate.
But coming now to the British Isles, we might briefly consider the
literary legacy which the learned Frenchman found in those libraries of
England and Ireland that he visited. In all, he mentions 953 as the
number of MSS. to which he had access, and these were located as
follows:—
At Cambridge 3
„ British Museum 166
„ Oxford 15
„ Royal Irish Academy 560
„ Trinity College, Dublin 63
„ Franciscans, Dublin 22
„ Lord Ashburnham 63
„ Some special libraries 61
———
Total 953
===
So far from being exhaustive, our literary commissioner thinks these
figures very far below the actual number of Gaelic MSS. in the British
Isles. Though he makes no reference in this respect to Wales or
Scotland, he is aware that there must be many in private libraries that
he has not indicated. And he admits that, according to O’Curry, Trinity
College has 140 instead of the 63 he mentions. And besides its 559
catalogued MSS., the Royal Academy of Ireland possesses about as many
more not catalogued, of which only one, the Book of Fermoy, was
described to him as worthy of his special attention.
Though in point of antiquity there is none of all these British MSS. to
compare with the oldest glosses on the Continent, there are two which
come near it. They date from the ninth century, and are both located in
Trinity College. These are the Book of Armagh and the Book of Dimna.
Next in order, between the ninth and tenth centuries, come (1) the Irish
Canons at Cambridge; (2) the Gospel of Maeielbrid Mac Durnâin, tenth
century, at Lambeth Palace; (3) the Psalter of Southampton, end of the
tenth century or beginning of the eleventh, at St. John’s College,
Cambridge; (4) The Book of Deer, with its Latin, ninth to tenth, and
Gaelic entries tenth to twelfth, also at Cambridge in the University
Library; and (5) the Gaelic portion of the Missal of Stowe, bought by
the British Government with the rest of Lord Ashburnham’s collection for
their Museum.
These seven MSS. are the most ancient, the only ones, in fact, in which
you find Gaelic written before the eleventh century within the British
Isles. Yet they are not Gaelic MSS., strictly speaking, but Latin ones
in which are found some words or phrases or paragraphs written in the
native tongue. The Gospel of Maeielbrid, for example, contains only a
line and a half of Gaelic, the Book of Armagh four pages.
To find what we would strictly call Gaelic documents, we must come down
as far as the closing years of the eleventh century, which yields us
four. Henceforth there is no lack of abundant and rich material. The
twelfth century is credited with seven, the thirteenth with eight, the
fourteenth with eleven, the fifteenth and sixteenth with ninety-six, the
seventeenth with sixty-six, the first half of the eighteenth with
seventy-seven. Total down to the year 1750, 276 MSS. in the British
Isles of the whole number 953 catalogued by De Jubainville. So that the
remainder, the vast majority of the British MSS., are of comparatively
recent date, subsequent in fact even to the days of Macpherson of
Ossianic fame.
More important than the number, dates, and distribution is the
subject-matter of our literary legacy, and this now falls to be
considered. It is very difficult to classify the MSS. according to their
contents, as so many of them are miscellaneous. Yet they do admit of
being brought under certain categories. Leaving aside for the present
all the later ones written after 1600, we have in all 168 Continental
and British documents to deal with.
Of these we must place in a section apart all the Latin ones that only
contain glosses or poems or notes in Gaelic which are additional or
secondary to the original text. This is the case with all the
Continental MSS. concerned, except three, one at Rennes, one at Paris,
and one at Stockholm. It is also the case with ten Britishers, viz. (1)
the Book of Deer, (2) the Irish Canons, (3) the Psalter at Cambridge,
(4) the Gospel of Maelbrigte hua Maelûanaig, (5) the Book of Dimna, (6)
the Book of Armagh, (7) the Book of Kells, (8) the fragment of Psalter
attributed to St. Camin, (9) the Missal of Stowe, and (10) the Gospel of
Maeielbrid Mac Durnâin at Lambeth Palace.
That makes a total of forty-two in which the Gaelic is only added in
notes to a Latin original. Yet they comprise the most ancient of all we
have, and though their grammatical value is very considerable, their
literary interest is but meagre—almost nil in fact—with the exception of
the few poems at Milan, St. Gall, Dresden, St. Paul in Carinthia, and
Klosterneuburg.
As these poems seem to lie like wayside flowers in our path, it is worth
our while, before passing on, to turn aside for a little to cull some of
the verses.
Of the two poems in the Milan codex, Dr. Stokes declares they are
difficult to decipher and more difficult to translate. But of the four
quatrains on the margin of the Priscian of St Gall, here are two
charming examples, very characteristic of the Gael’s love of nature and
learning, as well as reminiscent of his wild environment. The first is
not unlike the lyric of Columcille himself, when he describes the peace
of Durrow:—
A grove surrounds me:
The swift lay of the blackbird makes music to me—
I will not hide it;
Over my much-lined little book,
The song of the birds makes music to me.
The author of the second, as Professor Mackinnon has fancied, must often
have seen the storm burst upon a wild spot on the west of Ireland, or,
more likely still, on Iona, Tiree, Oronsay, or Skye.
Is acher in gaith innocht:
Tufuasna fairggae findfholt;
Ni ágor reimm mora minn
Dond laechraid lainn oa Lochlind.
Wild blows the wind to-night:
The white-haired billows rage;
The bold warriors from Norway
Fear not the path of a clear sea.
In the Codex Boernerianus of Dresden we have the following lines.
Translated literally, they run thus:—
To go to Rome is much of trouble, little of profit. The King whom thou
seekest here, unless thou bring him with thee thou findest not.
Great folly, great madness, great loss of sense, great folly since
thou hast proposed (?) to go to death, to be under the unwill of
Mary’s Son.
It was the late Herr Mone, Archivdirektor at Carlsruhe, who discovered
the Gaelic poems in the MS. belonging to St. Paul in Carinthia, and sent
the first verse of the first of these poems to Dr. Reeves. Thereafter
Dr. Whitley Stokes wrote him requesting to be favoured with the
remainder, with which request he not only complied, but also sent two
other extracts from the same codex, and a letter dated Carlsruhe,
January 24th, 1859. There are in all five short Gaelic poems or
fragments in the MS.
The first, of eight stanzas, is in praise of Aedh, son of Diarmad, and
has been translated by Eugene O’Curry.
We give here simply the first and last verses:—
Aedh great to institute hilarity,
Aedh anxious (desirous) to dispense festivity,
The Straight Rod, the most beautiful,
Of the hills of cleared Ro-er-enn.
At ale-drinking, poems are sung
By companies among people’s houses
Sweet-singing bards announce
In pools of ale the name of Aedh.
The next to be quoted is part of a longer poem found in the Books of
Leinster, Ballymote, Glendaloch, Lismore, and a Bodleian MS. The copy
from the Book of Leinster is given in full by Dr. Whitley Stokes in his
_Goidelica_, but here are the two quatrains of it in the Carinthian
codex:—
He is a bird round which a trap shuts,
He is a leaky bark in dangerous peril,
He is an empty vessel, he is a withered tree,
Who so doth not the will of the King above.
He is pure gold, he is a heaven round the sun,
He is a vessel of silver full of wine,
He is an angel, he is wisdom of saints,
Every one who doth the will of the King.
The third poem, Dr. Stokes says, is exceedingly obscure. It seems to
mean—
There remains a fort in Tuain Inbir ... with its stars last night,
with its sun, with its moon.
Gobhan made that: let its story be perceived by you: my heartlet, God
of heaven, he is the thatcher that thatched it.
A house wherein thou gettest not moisture; a place wherein thou
fearest not spear-points. More radiant it is than a garden, and it
without an _udnacht_ around it.
Another of the pieces in this Carinthian MS. is of a very different
order. A monk in a humorous and facetious strain, according to Professor
Zimmer, contrasts his own serious studies with the very different
pursuits of another person whom he calls Pan Gurban (or Panqur ban,
Windisch), a Slavonic name, meaning, as Zimmer thinks, “Mr. Hunchback.”
Omitting the forty-two Gaelic documents from the 168, we have 126
remaining which have been written before the year 1600, and these deal
with a great variety of subjects: religion, law, medicine, astronomy,
grammar, history, and legendary history.
The texts that treat of theology, mysticism, lives of saints, and
martyrologies, are very numerous; those of law few. Medicine figures in
a class apart. Astronomy gets even a smaller place than medicine. Its
most ancient monument dates from the fourteenth century.
One of the most curious and least known of all the Gaelic relics is a
treatise on Gaelic grammar, written in Gaelic. It is divided into four
books, and is preserved to us in ten MSS. of the fourteenth, fifteenth,
and sixteenth centuries. The four books of which it is composed are
attributed, the first to Cennfaelad, an historic personage who died in
678; the other three to mythical, prehistoric authors, such as
Fercertné, Amergin Glûngel, and Fenius Farsaid. The antiquity and
ability of the latter grammarian for the work, may be inferred from the
somewhat startling statement that he is said to have composed the Gaelic
tongue out of seventy-two languages, and afterwards his son Nial visited
Egypt to teach the languages after the confusion of Babel. Verily the
Celts were an enterprising race to have a grammarian first in the field,
and the nebulous Fenius Farsaid deserves a grave as high as Browning’s
hero, for even before Moses “ground he at grammar.” It is a pity that
this rare old treatise which Ireland possessed in the Middle Ages has
not been published. The MSS. are in the British Museum, Royal Academy of
Ireland, Trinity College, and with the Franciscans of Dublin.
But not in any of the above-named categories do we find the body and
soul of Celtic literature. The real breathing spirit of the past speaks
to us rather in the great MSS. of the Middle Ages, those which deal with
romance and history—the earlier sagas and the later annals; and these
deserve more than a passing reference. The saga or heroic literature is
far and away the most curious and abundant. De Jubainville himself
chronicles no less than 540 pieces of this class. But its greatest
monuments are the miscellaneous MSS. known as the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre,
the Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lecain, and Book of
Lismore.
No more precious and important document in the whole range of ancient
Gaelic literature has reached us than the Leabhar Na h’Uidhre, or Book
of the Dun Cow, said to be so called after an original text of that name
now lost, but of which it contains a copy. St. Ciaran, it appears, wrote
down from the dictation of the risen Fergus, the tale of the “Táin Bó
Chuailgné,” in a book which he had made from the hide of his pet cow.
This favourite from its colour was called the Odhar (or Dun), of which
Na h’Uidhre is the genitive. The existing Leabhar Na h’Uidhre is a MS.
of the end of the eleventh century, and, even more than the Book of
Hymns, its contemporary, it merits the distinction of being the earliest
exclusively Gaelic document that we have. Besides preserving St.
Ciaran’s version of the Táin, it contains a copy of Dallan Forgaill’s
famous “Amra” in praise of Columcille, and quite a number of ancient
sacred and secular pieces, some of which are of great interest. The
compiler of this venerable codex was Maelmuiri, son of the son of Conn
nam-Bocht, a writer who met his death in 1106 in the middle of the great
stone church of Clonmacnois, at the hands of a band of robbers. There is
a quaint inscription at the top of folio 45 in his own original
handwriting. The words run, “This is a trial of his pen here by
Maelmuiri, son of the son of Conn.”
Next in importance to Leabhar Na h’Uidhre comes the Book of Leinster,
written fifty years later. Rich in saga, it contains the fullest account
of the “Táin Bó Chuailgné.” O’Curry sets so high a value upon this codex
that he writes: “I think I may say with sorrow that there is not in all
Europe any nation but this of ours that would not long since have made a
national literary fortune out of such a volume, had any other country in
Europe been fortunate enough to possess such an heirloom of history.”
The Book of Ballymote belongs to the end of the fourteenth century—that
of Lismore to the fifteenth. The latter is the property of the Duke of
Devonshire, having been discovered in his Castle of Lismore, county of
Waterford, Ireland, so late as the year 1814. Besides containing Lives
of saints, etc., it is considered specially important in point of view
of the Ossianic cycle.
Of all the heroic sagas the greatest and the longest is that for which
we are indebted to the Book of Leinster and Leabhar Na h’Uidhre—the
“Táin Bó Chuailgné.” This is not the place to deal with such a lengthy
story; but by way of illustrating the quality and literary interest of
these old world MSS., preserving as they do the most characteristic
traits of Celtic genius in the age before writing, we give two
quotations from this wonderful saga.
And the first will show the keen perception, the wealth of pictorial
detail, and descriptive power of language so characteristic of the
Gaelic ursgeuls and poems. It is the personal account of the Ulster
chiefs as given in the Táin.
“There came another company there,” said Mac Roth; “no champion could
be found more comely than he who leads them. His hair is of a deep-red
yellow, and bushy; his forehead broad and his face tapering; thin red
lips; pearly shining teeth; a white smooth body. A red and white cloak
flutters about him; a golden brooch in that cloak at his breast; a
shirt of white kingly linen with gold embroidery at his skin; a white
shield with gold fastenings at his shoulder; a gold-hilted long sword
at his left side; a long, sharp, dark-green spear with a rich band and
carved silver rivets in his hand.” “Who is he, O Fergus?” said Ailill.
“The man who has come there is in himself half a battle; the fury of
the slaughter hound,” etc.
Truly a wonderful accoutred warrior was this, and gorgeous in his
apparel for his age. Like our Oriental Nabobs and savage chiefs he
believed in colour and luxurious display.
But I fancy it would be hard to beat the second quotation as an
illustration of the riotous luxuriance of the Celtic imagination in the
days when it was at its best, unsobered by science, unrestricted by
reason. The quotation is from the description of the fight between the
two rival bulls in Queen Meve’s country. In the poetic language of the
tale, “the province rang with the echoes of their roaring, the sky was
darkened by the sods of earth they threw up with their feet, and the
foam that flew from their mouths; faint-hearted men, women, and children
hid themselves in caves, caverns, and clefts of the rocks, whilst even
the most veteran warriors but dared to view the combat from the
neighbouring hills and eminences. The Finn-bheannach or White-horned at
length gave way, and retreated towards a certain pass which opened into
the plain in which the battle raged, and where sixteen warriors bolder
than the rest had planted themselves; but so rapid was the retreat and
the pursuit that not only were all these trampled to the ground, but
they were buried several feet in it. The Donn Chuailgne at last coming
up with his opponent, raised him on his horns, ran off with him, passed
the gates of Meve’s palace, tossing and shaking him as he went, until at
last he shattered him to pieces, dropping his disjointed members as he
went along. And wherever a part fell, that place retained the name of
that joint ever after.” And thus it was that “Ath Luain, now Athlone,
which was before called Ath Mor or the Great Ford, received its present
name from the Finnbheannach’s luan or loin having been dropped there.”
This “Táin Bó Chuailgné” opens a window upon the past, and were it only
for the rich and abundant historical details it so lavishly furnishes,
must be held a treasure. “Notwithstanding the extreme wildness of the
legend,” says O’Curry, “I am not acquainted with any tale in the whole
range of our literature in which the student will find more of valuable
details concerning general and local history; more of description of the
manners and customs of the people; of the druidical and fairy influence
supposed to be exercised in the affairs of men; of the laws of Irish
chivalry and honour; of the standards of beauty, morality, valour,
truth, and fidelity exercised by the people of old; of the regal power
and dignity of the monarch and the provincial kings, as well as much
concerning the division of the country into its local dependencies;
lists of its chieftains and chieftaincies; many valuable topographical
names; the names and kinds of articles of dress and ornament; of
military weapons; of horses, chariots, and trappings; of leechcraft as
well as instances of perhaps every occurrence that could be supposed to
happen in ancient Irish life. All of these details are of the utmost
value to the student of history, even though mixed up with any amount of
the marvellous or incredible in poetical traditions.”
So much for the sagas and monuments of heroic literature. There remain
the other great class of MSS. to which we have referred—the Annals. They
serve as a basis for Irish history, and only the more quaint and
important need be mentioned here, such as the Annals of Tighernach, the
_Chronicon Scotorum_, the Annals of Innisfallen, the Annals of Boyle,
the Annals of Ulster, the Annals of Loch Cé, the Annals of Clonmacnois,
and most important of all, the book called the “Four Masters.”
Of all these the Annals of Tighernach is the most ancient and most
reliable, having for author the abbot of that name who died in 1088. It
is supposed that in compiling this work he had as basis a chronicle kept
by the monks from the founding of the abbey in 544. The MS. of this
history belongs to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A considerable
part of it is in Gaelic, interspersed with numerous quotations from
Latin and Greek authors. Dr. O’Conor, commenting on this, remarks that
Tighernach’s balancing of these authorities against each other manifests
a degree of criticism uncommon in the early age in which he lived.
The precious historical composition known as the _Chronicon Scotorum_
exists in a copy written towards 1650 by Duald Mac Firbis. The original
belonged to the twelfth century, the chronicle itself ending in 1135. It
begins with the following title and short preface by the compiler:—
The chronicle of the Scots (or Irish) begins here—
Understand, O Reader, that it is for a certain reason, and
particularly to avoid tediousness that our intention is to make only a
short abstract and compendium of the history of the Scots in this
book, omitting the lengthened details of the historical books;
wherefore it is that we beg of you not to criticise us on that account
as we know that it is an exceedingly great deficiency.
He then passes rapidly over the first three ages of the world,—the
earlier colonisation of Ireland, the death of the colonists at Tallaght
in the county of Dublin, and the visit of Nial, the son of Fenius
Farsaid, to Egypt to teach the languages. With winged speed the compiler
reaches the year 375, when St. Patrick was born, and then the red letter
date 432 which witnessed his arrival in Ireland. Columcille’s prayer at
the battle of Cooldrevna is given under the year 561, and numerous
scraps of poems here and there quoted as authorities. A large deficiency
occurs between 722 and 805 A.D., where the compiler has written, “The
breasts (or fronts) of two leaves of the old book out of which I write
this, are wanting here, and I leave what is before me of this page for
them, I am, Dubhaltach Firbisigh.” A similar defect, it may be noted,
occurs in the Annals of Tighernach from 756 to 973.
The other Annals above-mentioned carry the history down towards the end
of the sixteenth century.
Almost contemporary with the _Chronicon Scotorum_ arose the greatest of
all, _The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters_,
commonly cited as the “Four Masters,” a name given to its authors by
Colgan. It was the work of Michael O’Clery and other three great
scholars, begun in 1632 and finished in 1636. All the best and most
copious Annals he could find throughout Ireland were collected by him
for this _magnum opus_. Like so many others of these historical
compilations, it begins far back, in the year of the world 2242, and
finishes in 1616 A.D. “There is no event of Irish history,” says Dr.
Hyde, “from the birth of Christ to the beginning of the seventeenth
century, that the first inquiry of the student will not be, ‘What do the
“Four Masters” say about it?’ for the great value of the work consists
in this, that we have here in condensed form the pith and substance of
the old books of Ireland which were then in existence, but which, as the
Four Masters anticipated, have long since perished.”
The work has been published by O’Donovan in 1851. His is regarded as the
best and most complete edition in translation and notes. It forms six
volumes, without counting the supplementary index. The autograph MS.
still exists, composed of two volumes, of which the first, stopping at
the year 1169, forms No. XXI. of the Stowe Collection. Of the second
volume there are two autograph copies: the one complete, in the library
of the Royal Academy of Ireland; the other, comprising only the years
1335 to 1605, is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin.
And now looking back over this long legacy of vellum, is there not
something eerie in the thought of these old-world musty MSS. creeping
out once more into the light, after ages of gravelike oblivion?
If we could follow their actual history, from their slow genesis under
the pen of ancient amanuenses through their subsequent fortunes, when
perhaps some of them under the cloak of a fleeing monk, or in a shaky
coracle at sea, barely escaped the fury of illiterate warriors or the
waves; some of them other perils on land in their wanderings through the
British Isles and the Continent,—what a revelation of life and destiny
that would be! They have slept a long sleep through turbulent ages since
then, apparently unappreciated, buried, neglected, and forgotten, but
now in this new age, as we have seen, there is a mighty hunt and
scramble for the resurrected relics. Many of them have been already
published, and there is a movement afoot by the Irish Text Society to
print the more important of the rest. Libraries and individuals compete
with each other for possession of the originals. So that now, in the
eyes of the wise and the wealthy, the hitherto obsolete MSS., often cast
aside in odd chests and closets as mere brown rubbish, are more prized
and coveted as rare treasure than even their rivals of to-day. And what
a legacy of vellum all-told we owe to the old scribes of cell and
cloister; from the legended Fenius Farsaid all the way down to the “Four
Masters.”
CHAPTER VII
THE SCOTTISH COLLECTION OF CELTIC MSS.
Cabinet in Advocates’ Library—Curious assortment of vernacular
literature—Number and character—Origin of the collection—Highland
Society and Kilbride MSS.—Subsidiary additions—Work for the
expert—Fate of some luckless documents—Value of MSS. XL., LIII.,
and LVI.—Three literary monuments of the Western Highlands: (1)
The Book of the Dean of Lismore—History, description, value,
contents, extracts, names of contributors; (2) The Fernaig
MS.—Characteristics—Interesting details of supposed author; (3)
The Book of Clanranald—Quaint relic—Two MSS., the Red and the
Black—History and contents, with specimen prose-poem and elegy.
In a cabinet in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, may be seen what
looks like the decayed and mouldering remains of some obsolete
literature. Very rarely is the case opened, and only once in a while
does the casual observer show any more than a passing interest in these
faded and tattered remnants. Why should he? In comparison with the vast
variety of neatly printed and handsomely bound volumes around, their
appearance is uninviting. Handwritten, many of them with frayed edges,
leaves missing, ink faded, words illegible, it is only too apparent they
have not escaped the marks of age, damp, soot, and moths.
Here is No. IX., for example, a portion of a single leaf of dirty
paper—no more. And No. LII., loose leaves and scraps gathered together
under one cover; XXXVII., one of the best known of all, with several of
its leaves torn, and in many places quite illegible. No. XL., five
layers of different origin stitched together in a vellum cover. And what
shall we say of the curious little volume only two inches long and one
and a half in breadth and thickness, bound together with thongs in quite
primitive fashion? On a page in the middle is written: “Is e so leabhar
Neil Oig” (“This is Neil the Younger’s book”). And here and there on
some other musty records we find such entries as these: “Is mise Eoin o
Albain” (“I am John from Scotland”), or “Is mise Domhnall a foghlumach
Maigbeathadh” (“I am Donald Bethune the Scholar”).
All are not equally tattered and faded. The handwriting in several is
fresh and clear as on the day of production. It varies from the coarse
and careless to the highly finished and artistic, from the merest daubs
to the richly coloured and ornamental.
Yet to the superficial observer with no antiquarian tastes, there is
little here to attract, the more because most of these torn and dirty
fragments exhibit a language and orthography hard to decipher, and much
harder to read and understand. It took the late Dr. Maclauchlan of
Edinburgh five years to decipher and copy a single MS.—No. XXXVII., and
he tells us pathetically that it was the hardest piece of work he was
ever engaged in.
The interested spectator, on the other hand, if his eye happens to be
directed to the obscure and tattered miscellany, naturally inquires, and
learns to his surprise that this is the Scottish collection of Gaelic
MSS., all that could be gathered into one place in this country of the
vernacular MS. literature of the past. A swift inspection shows upwards
of threescore documents, of which thirty-six at least are parchments,
the rest paper or paper and parchment combined. Alongside lie later
volumes—transcripts of tales, ballads, and other lore. A few of the
parchments hail from the fourteenth century, but the majority were
written in the fifteenth and sixteenth. The paper MSS. were all produced
within the last 350 years, mainly in the end of the seventeenth and the
first half of the eighteenth centuries, while the adjacent accretions of
transcripts and books belonged to men who lived within the last 100
years.
It is easy to tell the tale of this assortment. Ireland, England, and
the Continent had their rich collections long ago. With Scotland such a
thing seems to have been an afterthought. Only in 1861 were these
literary monuments of the past brought together and deposited as a kind
of national treasury in the Advocates’ Library, and this laudable result
is due mainly to the energy and interest of Dr. Skene, author of _Celtic
Scotland_, and formerly Historiographer-Royal in Edinburgh.
He knew of two collections fairly large and representative that had been
made earlier, and exerted himself to have them united and housed where
they might be reasonably accessible. These belonged, one to the Highland
Society, the other to the Kilbride family.
The former was made in the opening years of the nineteenth century,
while the battle still raged over the authenticity of Macpherson’s
Ossian. With Mr. Henry Mackenzie, author of the _Man of Feeling_, as
their chairman, the Society instituted an inquiry into the whole
question, and scoured the country far and near for Ossianic MS.
literature. In this way they secured a good many documents, the greater
number of which came from London through Macpherson’s literary executor.
It was well known that in his lifetime Macpherson had carried away from
the North-West Highlands and Islands some very old literary MSS., which
he afterwards deposited with his London publishers for public
inspection. But so few cared to see them that the originals thus
exhibited cannot now be identified.
It is highly probable that some of those which the Highland Society
received from the Metropolis were among the number. The rest came to
them from other quarters. Some were purchased, and the whole reported on
in the Proceedings of 1805.
The history of the Kilbride[17] collection is even more fortuitous. A
letter from Lord Bannatyne to the Chairman of the Society and Committee
tells how it was first discovered. Acting on the suggestion of Lord
Hailes, Bannatyne when Sheriff of Bute, and accustomed to attend the
Circuit at Inverary, made inquiries among the Highland gentlemen he met
there regarding any fugitive Gaelic MSS. they might happen to be
cognisant of, and in this way there came into his hands one of the
Kilbride collection, belonging to Major Maclachlan. It appears that from
the time of the Reformation, the Kilbride family had cultivated a taste
for Celtic antiquities, as a result of which they possessed a very large
number of Celtic documents, gleaned partly in the Highlands and partly
in Ireland. Following up the clue thus incidentally found, the
enthusiastic Sheriff obtained permission for a delegate “to take
inspection and bring an account of the MSS. in Major Maclachlan’s
possession.” These were found to number twenty-two, exclusive of five
that were lent. They are catalogued V. to XXXI. in the Edinburgh
Cabinet.
We need not dwell upon the subsidiary additions to this original and
double nucleus in the Advocates’ Library. But it may be noted, there are
besides in the University Library of Edinburgh, a Gaelic medical MS.;
one collection of poetry made in the middle of the eighteenth century,
by Jerome Stone; another in the beginning of the nineteenth, by Irvine,
and a fragment of a Gaelic grammar. The Library of Scottish Antiquaries
also exhibits a Gaelic curio in the form of a translation of the “Lilium
Medicinæ” of Bernardus Gordonus, a foreign physician. And counting the
few extra productions in private hands, these comprehend all the MS.
literature of the Gael now extant in Scotland, so far as known.
Not a satisfying sum-total by any means. The harvest truly was plentiful
but the gleaners were few, and this forlorn remnant hardly does credit
to our national prestige and veneration for the past. It cannot compare
either in number, variety, antiquity, or content, with the rich
assortments elsewhere, such as those in Ireland, England, and the
Continent. Yet this collection, such as it is, has a value of its own,
and in some important respects supplements the material of other more
ancient and valued documents.
The wonder is that so many of these manuscripts have survived to tell
their tale of dool, considering the haphazard way in which they have
been preserved. There is something to be said for the apparent apathy
and neglect, when we remember the stormy past, the national vicissitudes
and convulsions that continued down almost to last century.
And how should our Scottish ancestors know that there was any purpose to
be served in preserving books which nobody could read? The peculiar
idiom and orthography had long since become obsolete. Until fifty years
ago no scholar could interpret the scrolls, and the wiseacres of the
past, no less than the multitude of illiterate clansmen, might well be
pardoned if it never occurred to them that the brain of a modern critic
would some day forge a key for these old-world hieroglyphics, and
through the study of the derelict parchments, make a dead language
speak.
Instances are on record of the fate of some luckless MSS., which serve
to illustrate the doom of many more.
Before the Forty-five, for example, a valuable collection of old Gaelic
poetry was made in Strathglass, which afterwards found its way to the
Catholic College of Douay. The last heard of this vagrant volume was
that the Principal, while yet a student there, saw the leaves of the
mutilated document torn out to kindle the fire in their stove.
A similar vandalism overtook the library of the Macvurichs, seanachies
of Clanranald, who had been accumulating material for seventeen
generations, from the time of Muireach Albanach, about 1200. There were
many parchments, according to the testimony of a recent illiterate
descendant, and among them the Red Book made of paper, but none of these
are now to be found, because, when deprived of their lands, his family
lost their literary taste and zeal. He knew not what became of the
parchments. Two or three he saw cut down by tailors to make measuring
tapes, and although he himself fell heir to some after his father’s
death, being without education, he set no value upon them and they
disappeared.
Dr. Skene has prepared a general catalogue of the Scottish collection.
But half of the documents have never been read or described. No Zeuss or
Zimmer has yet arisen in Scotland with leisure or patience enough to
decipher them.
Strange that the cry “Made in Germany” should apply even to the key to
the ancient Gaelic, that the Continent had to come to our aid to
interpret our own literature, and that now, the key having been handed
over, these remaining relics should continue, hieroglyphically locked in
the land of their nativity. Yet it is so. With the exception of a few
specimens culled here and there, we have no English rendering of some of
the finest pieces of this MS. literature.
Though poor in history and law, and destitute of dramatic writings, the
collection is fairly rich in the poetic, the heroic, the legendary, and
more wonderful still, the medical. The latter treatises have a quaint
interest of their own, and offer a basis of comparison for measuring the
progress in the medical department of science. What would our modern
savants, for example, think of the “Notes according to Jacques de
Forli”? Even the old-fashioned doctor himself might be puzzled to get at
their meaning.
Jacques de Forli says that there are two ways of administering an
electuary; according as it is intended for the vitals or the
extremities. For the extremities there is tria sandaili for the side,
and diamargariton for the head, and pliris for the brain, and sweet
electuary to strengthen the parts of the bladder, and diacostum in the
folds of the diaphragm, and each of these is to be given before food,
that they may affect the part at a distance from the stomach; for the
food prevents the moving of the electuary towards the parts which it
is necessary to invigorate.
Dr. Kuno Meyer has described MS. XL. as one of the most important. Its
principal claim on our attention lies in the fact that it contains a
considerable number of old texts, of which no other versions or no other
equally old and good versions are known to exist. The handwriting of the
oldest part is of the fourteenth century. Initial letters are coloured,
and the contents are seven Aideda or Death-tales of the heroic cycle of
early Irish legend. It supplements the Book of Leinster by relating the
death of Conchobar, who was hit in battle by a ball made of lime mixed
with the brains of a slain foeman known as Mesgedra, and though the
bullet could not be removed from his head, the wound was stitched with
thread of gold to match his auburn hair. Afterwards when debarred from
physical exertion, an awful trembling shook creation, and on inquiring,
the king learned from his Druids that Christ was pitilessly crucified
that day. Whereupon a great rage seized Conchobar for the iniquity
thereof, and drawing his sword he rushed against a wood, attacking the
trees till the wood was level. And with the fury the brains of Mesgedra
started out of his head, his own brains following after, so that he fell
dead.
From the versions in LIII, and LVI., much valued by scholars, Dr.
Whitley Stokes has published the Tale of the Sons of Uisneach (_Irische
Texte_: Stokes and Windisch, Leipzig, 1887).
Specially interesting, from the purely Scottish point of view, are the
three well-known literary monuments hailing from the Western Highlands,
and they deserve more than a passing reference.
The first figures in the Advocates’ Library as a MS. collection of
Gaelic poetry taken down from oral recitation as early as 1512 to 1526.
It is known as “The Book of the Dean of Lismore,” the accepted belief
being that Sir James Macgregor, at that time Dean of Lismore in
Argyllshire, and his brother Duncan were the compilers.
Originally it was brought into notice by John Mackenzie, Esq., of the
Temple, London, literary executor of Macpherson, who gave it among the
other documents to the Highland Society. How it came into his hands or
where it lay for the 300 years that elapsed between the Dean’s time and
the beginning of last century is not known.
The book, as it stands, consists of 311 quarto pages. Several are
amissing at the beginning and at the end. Many of the leaves are stained
and almost illegible from the effects of damp. Others are worn by use
and exposure. But apart from these defects, which are common to other
codexes, the MS. differs from all the MSS. in the Scottish collection in
two essential features. It is written in the current Roman hand of the
period, and the spelling is phonetic.
There are two distinct handwritings, and thus apparently two compilers.
On the lower margin of the 27th page stands the inscription:—
Liber Domini Jacobi Macgregor Decani Lismoren,
the handwriting of which has a striking resemblance to that of the major
part of the volume. And this is really all there is to show that the
Dean was compiler.
The other Macgregor, whose name occurs on page 144, is for good reasons
identified as his brother:—
Duncha deyr aclyth Mac Dhowl vic Eone Reawych
“Duncan (the ‘deyr aclyth’ is untranslatable), son of Dugald, son of
John the Grizzled.”
The book is of great interest on account of its age, orthography, and
contents. It has a double value, as Dr. Skene has pointed out—linguistic
and literary. Linguistic, because its peculiar orthography presents the
language at the time in its aspect and character as a spoken language,
and enables us to ascertain whether many of the peculiarities which now
distinguish the Gaelic were in existence 400 years ago. Literary,
because it contains poems attributed to Ossian, and to other poets prior
to the sixteenth century which are not to be found elsewhere; and thus
presents to us specimens of the traditionary poetry current in the
Highlands prior to that period, which are above suspicion, having been
collected nearly 400 years ago, before any controversy on the subject
had arisen.
In other words, we have here the oldest written Scottish Gaelic, except
that in the Book of Deer, with numerous productions of the time
antecedent to the Reformation, and some even of the fourteenth century,
for comparison with our modern Gaelic. And we have the complete
refutation of Dr. Johnson’s bold assertion that the language had nothing
written. “The Erse never was a written language,” said that vigorous
critic; “there is not in the world an Erse (that is, a Gaelic) MS. a
hundred years old.” Into what strange neglect had our literature fallen
when such an emphatic dictum could be made on the housetops.
This one was at that time over 200 years old, and could it have been
resurrected from its nameless obscurity would surely have satisfied the
unconvinced and sceptical Doctor.
Voluminous and various are its contents, culled from about sixty-six
different authors, the whole extending to 11,000 lines of Gaelic poetry,
with 800 in the genuine Ossianic style. The pieces vary from
half-a-dozen to a hundred lines. And a peculiarity of the Ossianic
fragments in this MS. is the frequent introduction of St. Patrick, who
is represented as holding dialogues with the bard. Seeing that in the
poems of Macpherson the saint never emerges, it is surmised that he
regarded all references to him as unauthentic, interpolations of later
times, when the Church ideas and dogmas crept into vogue. The Dean’s
collection is divided naturally into two parts, one more ancient and
untouched by Christian sentiment, the other more modern, and not free
from ecclesiastical leaven. To the former category belong those poems
superscribed “The author of this is Ossian,” and of these the finest is
the bard’s eulogy of his father Finn. “The ideal here set forth is
perfectly Homeric,” wrote Professor Blackie; “Achilles in his best
moments and most favourable aspect might have stood for it.”
In its English rendering, which is poetically inferior to the original,
it runs thus:—
’Twas yesterday week,
I last saw Finn;
Ne’er did I see
A braver man;
Teige’s daughter’s son,
A powerful King;
My fortune, my light,
My mind’s whole might.
Both poet and chief,
Braver than kings,
Firm chief of the Feinn
Lord of all lands,
Leviathan at sea,
As great on land,
Hawk of the air,
Foremost always,
Generous, just.
Despised a lie,
Of vigorous deeds,
First in song,
A righteous judge,
Firm his rule,
Polished his mien,
Who knew but victory,
Who is like him,
In fight or song?
Resists the foe
In house or field.
Marble his skin,
The rose his cheeks,
Blue was his eye,
His hair like gold.
All men’s trust,
Of noble mind,
Of ready deeds,
To women mild,
A giant he,
The field’s delight.
Ne’er could I tell,
Though always I lived,
Ne’er could I tell,
The third of his praise,
But sad am I now
After Finn of the Feinn!
and so on.
As it is quite impossible to produce in English the euphonious effect of
the peculiar rhythm of the original Gaelic, with its alliteration and
vocalic concords, here is an example from the above description:—
DEAN TEXT MODERN VERSION
Fa Filla fa flaa Fa filidh, fa flath,
Fa ree er gire Fa righ air gach righ,
Finn flah re no vane Fionn flath righ nam Fiann,
Fa trea^t er gy^t teir Fa triath air gach tir,
Fa meille mor marre Fa miol mor mará
Fa lowor er lerg Fa luthmhor air leirg,
Fa schawok glan gei Fa seabhag glan gaoithe
Fa sei^t er gi carde Fa saoi air gach ceird.
Fa hillani^t carda Fa h’ oileamhnach ceirde
Fa m’ky^t nor verve Fa marcach nar mheirbh,
Fa hollow er znei^t Fa ullamh air gniomh,
Fa stei^t er gi scherm Fa steidh air gach seirm,
Fa fer chart a wrai Fa fior cheart a bhreith,
Fa tawicht toye Fa tabhach tuaith,
Fa Ly’seich naige Fa ionnsaigheach ’n aigh
Fa bra^ta er boye. Fa breadha air buaidh.
At page 87 there is a curious fragment on Tabblisk, supposed by some to
be chess, by others backgammon:—
Ruinous is Tabblisk, few men but know it,
Of what I know myself, I have a little tale to tell,
On a certain day I was travelling through Foytle. The land,
Variegated, beautiful, pleasing. I came there at noon,
When a maiden of red lips met me in the town,
And asked me to join in one of these games;
She produced a chess-board, etc.
Here follows the description of this game.
They made much of blood in those days, even as we do of heredity now:—
The blood of forty and three kings in the blood of the Great King,
The blood of many races is thy pure blood which we cannot name,
The blood of Arthur in thy gentle veins....
The blood of Conn of the two Conns beneath thy soft skin;
The blood of Grant, as also of the race of Neil, etc.
It is quite interesting to note the names of some of the contributors to
the Dean’s book. They are so various in rank and character.
Of these Duncan Mor O’Daly was Abbot of Boyle in 1244. Some of his
pieces have reference to persons and events in Irish history. One of
them, beginning, “Mayst thou enjoy thy belt, O Cathal,” gives a very
full description of that ornamented article of attire and its adjuncts.
There is another whose name has been preserved by tradition, namely,
Muireach Albanach, and he has been claimed by Scottish Gaels as the
first of the celebrated Macvurichs.
Four of the poems in the MS. are by Campbell, the Knight of Glenorchy,
who fell in the battle of Flodden; three by the Earl of Argyll, and
other three by the Countess Isabella.
The compositions generally are very difficult to read, yet the book is
not lacking in colour. Here are aphorisms from Phelim Macdougall,
reflecting, no doubt, the fashionable virtues and vices and partialities
of the age:—
’Tis not good to travel on Sunday,
Not good to be of ill-famed race;
Not good to write without learning,
Not good is an Earl without English.
Not good is a sailor if old,
Not good a priest with but one eye,
Not good a parson if a beggar.
Not good is a lord without a dwelling,
Not good is a woman without shame,
Not good is fighting without courage,
Not good is entering a port without a pilot;
Not good is a maiden who backbites,
Not good is neglecting the household dogs,
Not good is disrespect to a father,
Not good is the talk of the drunken,
Not good is a knife without an edge,
Not good is the friendship of devils;
And thy Son, oh Virgin most honoured,
Though he has saved the seed of Adam,
Not good for himself was the cross.
The Fernaig MS. is another Highland production that was not known in
Johnson’s day. In 1807 it was in the west of Ross-shire, at the place
whose name it bears, and afterwards came into the possession of Dr.
Skene. This collection was made between the years 1688 and 1693, in the
country of the Macraes, in far Kintail, and breathes the spirit of the
times, politically and religiously, as then reflected in Highland
Jacobite circles.
The MS. consists of two paper volumes in brown pasteboard cover,
containing 4200 lines of poetry. There are several leaves loose, and
others blank, a few half pages written upon, and one folded in. The
second part was never finished. In one place six leaves closely written
on both sides have been neatly removed.
Like the Dean of Lismore’s, the handwriting is in the current Roman
character, and the spelling phonetic. The collection includes
compositions by different authors within the area extending from South
Argyll to the north of Sutherland, Bishop Carsewell being among the
number. Some of the pieces date back to the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Strange to say for a Highland gleaning, there is no love or
drinking song. Wine and women have scant notice here. The Gaelic in
great part is practically the dialect still spoken in Kintail and
district.
Little is indicated of the history of the book or of the author in the
text itself. But on the first page of volume I. occurs the significant
and suggestive superscription:—
Doirligh Loijn Di
Skrijvig Lea Donochig
Mack rah 1688.
Professor Mackinnon, adopting this clue, made careful search, and is
satisfied that the writer was Duncan Macrae of Inverinate, chief of that
name. In the course of his investigation, the professor alighted upon
some curious and interesting facts, full apparently of local colour.
It appears there were two Duncan Macraes of some note living on the
shores of Loch Duich at that time. Big Duncan of Glenshiel, a warrior
who fell at Sheriffmuir, and whose mighty claymore, said[18] to be
preserved in the Tower of London as “the great Highlander’s sword,” with
one terrible stroke cut through trooper and steed, ere he succumbed
himself in the onslaught. The other, Donnachadh nam Piòs, or Duncan of
the silver plate, so called from the magnificence of his table service,
was our author. Born about 1640, in early life he studied in the
University of Edinburgh, and was known as a man of unique ingenuity and
mechanical skill. As evidence thereof it is said he had something to do
with bringing the water into Edinburgh, and it is related how, on one
occasion, a foreign vessel having got dismasted in passing through Kyle
Rhea, he made a new mast for the craft by splicing pieces of wood
together. For this the captain, deeply grateful, gave him the famous
silver herring, which remained in the family for generations, and was
reputed to attract the herring from far and near into Loch Duich.
The oak trees now at Inverinate he reared from French acorns.
Like his brother John, who graduated at the University, King’s College,
Aberdeen, on July 12th, 1660, Duncan possessed the bardic gift. Poems
attributed in the MS. to “an certain harper” and “Tinkler” are, by good
authorities, set down to his own Muse, these being simply _noms de
plume_.
Cultured, liberal, and deeply religious, he was ecclesiastically an
ardent Episcopalian, politically a vehement Jacobite. His wife, the
heiress of Raasay, it appears, diddled him out of her property by
conveying the title-deeds to a relative to keep the lands for her own
clan. Blood was thicker than the marriage bond.
But in spite of this the Kintail chief prospered, and bought lands in
Glen Affaric from the Chisholm. Like the passing of Arthur, his death
was rather dramatic. He had gone to Strathglass, attended by a single
follower, to settle about this new property, and was returning with the
papers in his possession. On coming to Dorisduan he found the Connag
River in high flood, but ventured to cross, only to be carried away in
the attempt. Unfortunately for him, his companion possessed the fatal
gift of _or na h’Aoine_, by which, according to local belief, he could
cause the death, if he wished, of any one seen by him crossing the
stream on a Friday. And at this juncture the unhappy man, seeing his
master battling with the flood, and unable to keep from looking at him,
much less to render assistance, in his distress exercised his sinister
gift, thereby drowning the poetic Duncan, his own chief.
The Fernaig MS., apart from other considerations, is of great value as
representing the literary output of the seventeenth-century period in
the Highlands, and so helping to fill the gap between the Dean of
Lismore’s time and the pregnant Forty-five.
One other very interesting relic of Highland MS. literature remains to
be noticed. It is the Book of Clanranald, found in two MSS. known as the
Red and the Black. The latter, a thick little paper codex strongly bound
in black leather boards, is of the size of a New Testament and of the
nature of a commonplace book, containing accounts of the families of the
Macdonalds, and the exploits of the great Montrose, together with some
of the poems of Ossian.
The history of the book is obscure. Many years ago Dr. Skene picked it
up among some old Irish MSS. at a bookstall in Dublin, and, buying it,
sent the fugitive back to the family of Clanranald, in whose possession
it now is.
But of the two MSS. the Red is far and away the more famous, as it
figured largely in the Ossianic controversy, and gives the Macdonald and
Montrose histories fuller. On Macpherson’s visit to the West he received
this MS., by consent of Clanranald, from Nial Macvurich, and it was only
after Macpherson’s death that the present Red Book was restored.
Authorities are not certain that this is the real original, but
Clanranald believes that it is, and the editors of _Reliquiæ Celticæ_
are of the same opinion.
Since its return it has been much consulted by Ossianic inquirers, as
well as by the historians of the country. A transcript and translation,
not very accurate, were made of the historical parts early in last
century. Sir Walter Scott made use of these in his notes, _Lord of the
Isles_, and Mark Napier in his _Montrose_, to throw light upon the
obscurer points of Highland conduct in that great chief’s campaign. In
later times a better rendering has been given by the great Irish
scholar, O’Curry, who translated the history for Dr. Skene’s _Celtic
Scotland_.
Both MSS., the Red and the Black, are closely allied and supplement each
other. The only English in the former is a satire on Bishop Burnet,
whereas nearly the whole of the last half of the latter is in that
language. The writers were the Macvurichs, hereditary bards of the
Clanranald chiefs, who traced their descent from Muireach Albanach. The
early history of the Macdonalds, down to about 1600, was probably
composed by successive members of this line, but the record of the
Montrose wars and following events is evidently the work of Nial
Macvurich, whose life extended from the reign of Charles the First
beyond Sheriffmuir. It may have been written prior to 1700. Its chief
purpose is to vindicate the Gael in his marvellous exploits under
Montrose. Here Alasdair Macdonald and not the brilliant Lowland leader
is hero.
Needless to say, besides Ossianic fragments, old as the _Ages of the
Feinn_ and _Cnoc an Air_, the MSS. contain genealogies, chronologies,
history, poetry, geography, grammar, and various disconnected jottings.
A most curious production is the genealogy of Clanranald as far back as
Adam, often with name and date, and some of the names are portentously
long.
The Macdonald history begins with the superscription, “The age of the
World at the time the sons of Milé came into Ireland 3500” (that is,
1700 B.C.), and in the opening sentence announces that Amergin Whiteknee
was poet and historian and judge to them, and the first Gaelic author.
There is a wonderful prose poem on page 210 of the Red Book, on the
“Army and Arming of the Last Lord of the Isles,” part of which is worth
quoting for the way in which it hits off the characteristics of the
clans, and the graphic description it gives of the armour of this
supreme King of the Gael.
And they were in well arranged battalions, namely, the proud, luminous
countenanced, finely-hued, bold, right-judging, goodly, gifting Clan
Donald; the ready, prosperous, routing, very bold, right judging
Clanranald; the attacking, gold shielded Clan Alister; the protecting,
firm, hardy, well-enduring Macphees; the fierce, strong men, the
Maclachlans; the lively, vigorous, liberally-bestowing, courageous,
austere, brown-shielded Macdougalls; the cheerful, chief-renowned,
battle-harnessed Camerons; the inimical, passionate, hardy Macneils;
the manly, sanguinary, truly noble Mackinnons; the fierce, undaunted,
great-feated Macquarries; the brave, defending, foraging, valiant,
heroic, ale-abounding Mackenzies; the active, spirited, courteous,
great-bestowing Clan Morgan (or Mackay) and the men of Sutherland came
as a guard to the Royal Prince; and the powerful, lively, active,
great-numbered, arrogant Mackintoshes in a very large powerful force
around the Chief of Clan Chattan in active, hardy battalions with
their champions. There came along with these warriors earls, princely
high chiefs, knights, chiefs, lords, barons and yeomen, at one
particular place, to the noble son of Alexander, and these numerous,
rejoicing, heroes, and powerful, active, fierce, sounding hosts
gathered together.