The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran by Anonymous (recommended reading txt) 📖

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Ciaran of Clonmacnois was not the only saint of that name. Besides his well-known namesake of Saighir (Seir-Kieran, King's Co.), there were a few lesser stars called Ciaran, and there is danger of confusion between them. The name reappears in Cornwall, with the regular Brythonic change of Q to P, in the form Pieran or Pirran. This Pieran is wrongly identified by Skene[8] with our saint; a single glance at the abstract of the Life of St. Pieran given by Sir T.D. Hardy[9] will show how mistaken this identification is. A similar confusion is probably at the base of the curious statement in Adam King's Scottish Kalendar of Saints , that Queranus was an "abot in Scotl[ a]d under king Ethus, [anno] 876" and of Camerarius' description of him as "abbas Foilensis in Scotia."[10]

The four documents of which translations are printed in this book relate almost, though not quite, the same series of incidents. There is a sufficient divergence between them, both in selection and in order, as well as in the minor details, to make the determination of their mutual relationship a difficult problem. We must regard all four as independent compositions, though based on a common group of sources, which, in the first instance, were doubtless disjointed
memorabilia , preserved by oral tradition in Clonmacnois. These would in time gradually become fitted into the four obvious phases of the saint's actual life-his boyhood, his schooldays, his wanderings, and his final settlement at Clonmacnois. It is not difficult to form a plausible theory as to how the systematisation took place, and also as to how the slight variants between different versions of the same story arose. The composition of hymns to the founder and patron would surely be a favourite literary exercise in Clonmacnois. In such hymns the different incidents would be told and re-told, the details varying with the knowledge and the metrical skill of the versifiers. There are excerpts from such hymns, in Irish, scattered through VG: and LB ends with a pasticcio of similar fragments in Latin. As a number of different metres are employed, both in the Irish and in the Latin extracts, there must have been at least as many independent compositions drawn upon by the compilers of the prose Lives: and it is noteworthy that there are occasionally discrepancies in detail between the verse fragments and their present prose setting. Most probably the prose Lives were based directly on the hymns; one preacher would use one hymn as his chief authority, another would use another, and thus the petty differences between them would become fixed, perhaps exaggerated as the prose writer filled in details for which the exigencies of verse allowed no scope. It is probably impossible to carry the history of the tradition further.

In order to facilitate comparison between the four documents, I have divided them into incidents , and have provided titles to each. These titles are so chosen that they may be used for every presentation of the incident, however the details may vary. The titles are numbered with Roman numerals, whilst the successive incidents within each of the Lives are numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. The
Harmony of the Four Lives , which follows this Introduction, will make cross-reference easy.

No modern biography, no edition of the ancient homiletic Lives, of Ciaran could be considered complete without a history of Clonmacnois, through which being dead he yet spake to his countrymen for a thousand years. It was the editor's intention to include such a history in the present volume; and this part of the projected work was drafted. But as it progressed, and as the indispensable material increased in bulk, it became evident that it would be impossible to do justice to the subject within the narrow limits of a volume of the present series. A slight or superficial history of Clonmacnois would be worse than none, as it would block the way for the fuller treatment which the subject well deserves. The materials collected for this part of the work have therefore been reserved for the present: it is hoped that their publication will not be long delayed.


[Footnote 1: The name is pronounced as a dissyllable, something like
Kyee-raun , with a stress on the second syllable.]

[Footnote 2: The Bollandists long ago remarked as the special characteristics of Irish Saints' Lives, their doubtful historicity, their late date, and their continual repetition of stock incidents. ( At priusquam id agam, lectorem duo uniuersim monitum uelim; primum est, quod Hibernorum sanctorum acta passim dubia sint fidei, et a scriptoribus minime accuratis ac aetate longe posterioribus conscripta; alterum est, quod in iisdem frequens occurrat rerum simillimarum narratio, quas uariis sanctis adscribunt, ita ut nescias cui tuto adscribi possint. -Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii, p. 372).]

[Footnote 3: Even the date of Ciaran's death may have been manipulated, in order to make his age conform to the age of Christ. As we shall see below, traditions vary.]

[Footnote 4: The end of the world is not actually mentioned in the Annals, but the expected plague referred to was undoubtedly the apparition of the mysterious Roth Ramhach , or "oar-wheel," an instrument of vengeance that was to herald the end of all things. For the references to this prophecy see O'Curry's Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (index, sub voce "Roth Ramhach"), and the present writer's Study of the Remains and Traditions of Tara (Proceedings Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxxiv, sect. C, p. 231 ff.).]

[Footnote 5: The following corrections may be noticed. Page 201 of printed text, line 7, for Et cum read Cumque. Same page, line 24,
for factum read factam ( sic ). Page 202, line 6, after vitulum
add ilico canis famelicus iruit ( sic ) in uitulum. Same page, line 25, after fregit add et fracto capite effussoque cerebro canis periit. Same page, line 33, after narrabant add hoc. Same page, lines 35, 38, for vaccam read vacam. Page 203, line 35, for Angeli read Angli. Same page, line 39, insert et after generis. Page 204, line 7, Innsythe appears to be written in the MS. as one word. Same line, insert uidit before zabulum. Same page, line 18,
after flumen add et ibi mersum est. Page 205, line 32, read est ostensum. Page 206, line 18, after libri add ad locum. Same page, line 32, after manducans add in illa die. Same page, line 38,
read Kyaranus. Same page, line 40, read Maelgharbh. Page 207, line 13, after recepit add ipse. Page 208, line 16, for complebit
read implebit. Page 209, line 23, delete et after clamor; and in the next line for impediebant read -bat. Page 211, line 14,
insert in before istis. Same page, line 16, read loco isto. Same page, line 40, read edifficio. Page 212, line 2, read edifficiorum. Page 213, line 10, after ignem insert nostrum. Same page, line 21, for ipsi read ipsum. Same page, line 37, after paciencie insert nostre. Page 214, footnote 3, note that the first "uas" is struck out. Same page, footnote 7, the first "sanctus" is expuncted.]

[Footnote 6: Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie , vol. v, p. 429.]

[Footnote 7: Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore , Oxford, 1890, pp. 117-134.]

[Footnote 8: Four Ancient Books of Wales , i, 124.]

[Footnote 9: Descriptive Catalogue of Materials for the History of Great Britain, vol. i, p. 102.]

[Footnote 10: Forbes. Kalendars , s. v. Queranus; Bollandist Acta .]

* * * * *


A HARMONY OF THE FOUR LIVES OF SAINT CIARAN


To the incidents of Ciaran's life VG prefixes-

I. The Homiletic Introduction (VG I)

not found in any of the Latin Lives.

A. Ciaran was born A.D. 515. The first section of his life, his Childhood and Boyhood, may have covered the first ten or twelve years of his life-say in round numbers 515-530. Fifteen incidents of this period are recorded, which are found in the Lives as under-

LA LB LC VG
II. The origin and birth of Ciaran; the
wizard's prophecies 1 1 1 2
III. How Ciaran raised the steed of Oengus
from death 2 2 2 3
IV. How Ciaran turned water into honey 3 3 3 4
V. How Ciaran was delivered from a
hound 6 9 4 5
VI. How Ciaran and his instructor conversed,
though distant from one another 4 - - 6
VII. Ciaran and the fox - - - 7 VIII. How Ciaran spoiled his mother's
dye-stuff - - - 8
IX. How Ciaran restored a calf which a
wolf had devoured 5 8 5 9
X. How Ciaran