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

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5. The independence of parental control which the youthful Ciaran displays will not escape notice.

The Stanza. -This is written in a peculiar metre; two seven-syllable lines, with trisyllabic rhymes, followed by two rhyming couplets of five-syllable lines with monosyllabic rhymes.

Iarcain is a word of uncertain meaning: it probably denotes the waste stuff left behind in the vat.


IX. HOW CIARAN RESTORED A CALF WHICH A WOLF HAD DEVOURED (LA, LB, LC, VG)

Parallels. -Practically the same story is told of Abban (VSH, i, 24; CS, 508) and of Colman (CS, 828). A similar story is told of Saint Patrick (LL, 91), but it is not quite identical, inasmuch as here the wolf voluntarily restored a sheep which it had carried off. Something like this, however, is indicated in the Latin verse rendering of the story (No. 2 of the Latin verse fragments at the end of LB). More nearly parallel is the tale of Brigit (LL, 1250; CS, 19) who gave bacon which she was cooking to a hungry dog; it was miraculously replaced. A converse of this miracle is to be found in the Life of Ailbe, who first restored two horses killed by lions, and then miraculously provided a hundred horses for the lions to devour (CS, 239). Aed gave eight wethers to as many starving wolves, and they were miraculously restored to save him from the indignation of his maternal aunt (VSH, ii, 296). It is obvious, but hypercritical, to complain that in these artless tales the kindness shown to the beasts is illogically one-sided!

The Process of Resuscitation. -The important point in the tale, though the versions do not all recognise this, is the collection of the bones of the calf. VG preserves the essential command to the wolf not to break these. Colum Cille reconstituted an ox from its bones (LL, 1055). Coemgen gave away to wayfarers the dinner prepared for the monastic harvestmen, and when the latter naturally protested, he collected the bones and re-clothed them with flesh, at the same time turning water to wine (VSH, i, 238). Aed performed a similar miracle in the nunnery at Clonmacnois, replacing Ciaran's dinner which he himself had eaten (VSH, i, 39). There is here no mention of the bones, but very likely this has become lost in the process of transmission. By all these tales we are reminded of the boar Sæhrimnir, on whose flesh the blessed ones in Valhalla feast daily-sodden every evening and reconstituted from its bones every morning.[13] In a Breton folk-tale, La princesse Troïol , the hero has been burnt by the wiles of his enemy, but his sorceress fiancée seeks among the ashes till at last she finds a tiny splinter of bone. With this she is able to restore her betrothed; without it she would have been powerless.[14]

Very probably the practice of "secondary interment" of human bones, which we find so far back as the later stages of the Palaeolithic age, is based upon the same belief; that if the bones are preserved, their owner has a chance of a fresh lease of life.

There is a curious variant of the story in the Life of Coemgen. Here the cow is driven home, and Coemgen, called upon to soothe its lamentations, fetches, not the bones of the eaten calf, but the culprit wolf, which comes and plays the part of the calf to the satisfaction of all concerned (VSH, i, 239). It is evident that in this case there is another element of belief indicated: the personality of the calf has passed into the wolf which has devoured it-in fact, the wolf is the calf re-incarnate.

Resurrection of Beasts. -Calling dead animals back to life is a not infrequent incident in the lives of Irish saints. We have already seen Ciaran resuscitating a horse. Mo-Chua restored twelve stags (VSH, ii, 188); but perhaps the most remarkable feat was that of Moling, who, having watched a wren eating a fly, and a kestrel eating the wren, revived first the wren and then the fly (VSH, ii, 200). Saint Brynach's cow having been slain by a tyrannical king, was restored to life by the saint ( Cambro-British Saints , pp. 11, 297).

The Stanza in VG. -The metre is ae freslige . The rendering in the text is close to the literal sense.

The Ejaculation "Mercy on us" -or, more literally, "mercy come to us." The sentence recording this habitual ejaculation, in VG, breaks so awkwardly into the sense of the passage in which it is found, that it must be regarded as a marginal gloss which has become incorporated with the text. It has dislodged a sentence that must have legitimately belonged to the text, restored in the foregoing translation by conjecture. Probably the lost sentence, like the intrusive one, ended with the word trocuire , "mercy," which, indeed, may have suggested the interpolation; this might easily have caused the scribe's eye to wander. An habitual expletive is also attributed to St. Patrick ( modébroth , apparently "My God of Judgment!").

Here, again, the versions in LB and LC are very closely akin.


X. HOW CIARAN WAS DELIVERED FROM ROBBERS (LA, LC, VG)

Parallels. -Robbers were smitten with blindness (cf. Genesis xix. II) by Darerca (CS, 179) and restored on repentance. The same fate befell a man who endeavoured to drive Findian from a place where he had settled (CS, 198). Robbers who attempted to attack Cainnech (CS, 364, 389; VSH, i, 153), Colman (VSH, i, 264), and Flannan (CS, 669), were struck motionless. The story before us is a conflation of the two types of incident, blindness and paralysis being accumulated on the robbers. The same accumulation befell a swineherd who attempted to slay Saint Cadoc ( Cambro-British Saints , pp. 31, 321).

Note that this incident, like No. VIII, belongs to the Cenel Fiachach tradition. We have already seen that it was known to the compiler of the Annals of Clonmacnois , though he ignores the miraculous element.


XI.-XIII. HOW CIARAN GAVE CERTAIN GIFTS (LA): XIV. HOW CIARAN GAVE THE KING'S CAULDRON TO BEGGARS AND WAS ENSLAVED (LA, LC, VG)

These four incidents may be considered together: they are all variants of one formula.

Parallels .-Brigit took "of her father's wealth and property, whatsoever her hands would find, ... to give to the poor and needy" (LL, 1308). A story is told in the Life of Aed which is evidently a combination of our incidents XII and XIII: to the effect that when ploughing he made a gift of one of his oxen and of the coulter, and continued to plough without either (VSH, i, 36).

The angels grinding for Ciaran reappear in incident XVIII: this is a frequent type of favour shown to saints. Angels ground for Colum Cille at Clonard (LL, 850), swept out a hearth for Patrick (LL, 121), and harvested for Ailbe (CS, 241).

Beoit an Uncle. -This is an important link between incidents XII and XIII in LA. Its bearing upon the question of the origin of Ciaran's family has already been noticed.

The Oxen ploughing. -Incident XIII would be meaningless if we did not understand from it that at the time of the formation of the story it was not customary to use horses in the plough. This is an illustration of the way in which these documents, unhistorical though they may be in the main, yet throw occasional sidelights, which may be accepted as authentic, on ancient life.

King Furbith. -I have not succeeded in tracing this personage, who reappears in incident XXVII. But the story of his cauldron is found in the Life of Ciaran of Saigir (CS, 815), in a rather different form-to the effect that he deposited his considerable wealth for safe-keeping with Ciaran, who was already abbot of Clonmacnois. Ciaran promptly distributed it to the poor. Furbith was human enough to be annoyed at this breach of trust, and ordered Ciaran to be summoned before him in bonds. This done, he addressed him "insultingly," as the hagiographer puts it, in these words: "Good abbot, if thou wilt be loosed from bonds, thou must needs bring me seven white-headed red hornless kine:[15] and if thou canst not find them, thou shalt pay a penalty for my treasures which thou hast squandered." Ciaran undertook to provide the required cattle, "not to escape these thy bonds, which are a merit unto me, but to set forth the glory of my God"; and therefore he was set free to obtain them. Another variant of these stories-a common type, in which the saint gives away the property of other people in alms, but has his own face miraculously saved-is illustrated by the tale of Coemgen, who, when a boy was pasturing sheep. He gave four of them to beggars, but when the sheep were led home at night the number was found complete "so that the servant of Christ should not incur trouble on account of his exceeding charity" (VSH, i, 235).

The site of Cluain Cruim (LA) is unknown (perhaps Clooncrim, Co. Roscommon). The Desi (VG), or Dessi, were a semi-nomadic pre-Celtic people once established in the barony of Deece, Co. Meath, but afterwards in the baronies of Decies in Waterford: both these baronies still bear their name. A branch of them settled in Wales. Evidently the donors of the cauldrons which purchased the freedom of the saint were of the Decies; they are said to have been Munster folk (the name of the province is variously spelled).


XV. HOW CIARAN REPROVED HIS MOTHER (LA, LC)

I have found no parallel to this story; it contains no miraculous element, and may quite possibly be at least founded on fact. Its chief importance is the prominence given to the materfamilias .


XVI. THE BREAKING OF THE CARRIAGE-AXLE (LA, LC)

Unlike LA, LC seems to imply that the injury to the axle was not repaired. This would be parallel to the story of Aed, who, when his carriage met with a similar mishap, was able to continue his journey on one wheel only (CS, 336; VSH, i, 36).


XVII. HOW CIARAN WENT WITH HIS COW TO THE SCHOOL OF FINDIAN (LA, LB, LC, VG)

The blessing of the Cow. -In this story we again note the prominence of the materfamilias : it is she who in most of the versions withholds the desired boon. Note how LB endeavours to tone down the disobedience of the saint by making the cow follow him of her own accord, or, rather, upon a direct divine command. The Annals of Clonmacnois presents the story in a similar form: "He earnestly entreated his parents that they would please to give him the cow [which had been stolen and recovered; ante , p. 108], that he might go to school to Clonard to Bishop Finnan, where Saint Colum Cille ... and divers others were at school: which his parents denied: whereupon he resolved to go thither as poor as he was, without any maintenance in the world. The cow followed him thither with her calf; and being more given to the cause of his learning than to the keeping of the cows, having none to keep the calf from the cow, [he] did but draw a strick of his bat between the calf and cow. The cow could not thenceforth come no nearer [ sic ] the calf than to the strick, nor the calf to the cow, so as there needed no servant to keep them one from another but the strick." A totally different version of