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

the story of the cow is recorded in the glosses to the Martyrology of Oengus (9th September). Here Ciaran applied to his father , who, so far from refusing his request, bade him go through the herd and take whatever beast would follow him. "The Dun Cow of Ciaran" yielded to the test. Further, the same cow followed him when he left Clonard, instead of remaining with Ninned as in the Lives before us.

Note how the author of LA has been unable to keep a very human touch out of his arid record: matri displicebat, uolebat enim eum secum semper habere . This is our last glimpse of poor Darerca, and it does much to soften the rather lurid limelight in which our homilists place her.

The Division of Kine and Calves. -This miracle is one of the most threadbare commonplaces of Irish hagiographical literature; it is most frequently, as here, performed by drawing a line on the ground between the animals with the saint's wonder-working staff. It is attributed,
inter alia , to Senan (LL, 1958), Fintan (CS, 229), Ailbe (with swine, CS, 240), and Finan (CS, 305).

A miraculous abundance of milk was also given by kine belonging to Brigit (CS, 44) and to Samthann (VSH, ii, 255).

The Hide of the Cow. -Plummer quotes other illustrations of such mechanical passports to the Land of the Blessed (VSH, i, p. xciii). The main purpose of this whole incident is doubtless to explain the origin of a precious relic, preserved at Clonmacnois. Its history is involved in some doubt: it is complicated by the fact that there exists a well-known manuscript, now preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, written at Clonmacnois about A.D. 1100, and called the Book of the Dun Cow , from the animal of whose hide the vellum is said to have been made. But whether this book has any connexion with the Dun Cow of Ciaran may be considered doubtful. For down to the comparatively late date at which our homilies were put together, the hide of Ciaran's Dun was evidently preserved as a hide , on or under which a dying man could lie: therefore it cannot have been made into a book. Yet Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe (p. 124 of the printed text) tells us, for what it may be worth, that Ciaran wrote the great epic tale called Táin Bó Cúalnge upon the hide of the Dun Cow. There is actually a copy of this tale in the existing book; but the book was written not long after the time when our homilists were describing the relic as an unbroken hide. Either there were two dun cows, or the name of the Manuscript has arisen from a misunderstanding.

The stanza in VG is another example of ae freslige metre. The literal translation is "Fifty over a hundred complete / the Dun of Ciaran used to feed, // guests and lepers / people of the refectory and of the parlour."

The School of Findian. -Findian was born in the fifth century. He went to Tours for study, and afterwards to Britain; he then felt a desire to continue his studies in Rome, but an angel bade him return to Ireland and there continue the work begun by Patrick. After spending some time with Brigit at Kildare, and establishing various religious houses, he settled at Cluain Iraird, in the territory of Ui Neill: now called Clonard, in Co. Meath. His establishment there became the chief centre of instruction in Ireland in the early part of the sixth century. He died in 549, at an advanced age: indeed, he is traditionally said to have lived 140 years. Nothing now remains of the monastery, though there were some ruins a hundred years ago.


XVIII. THE ANGELS GRIND FOR CIARAN (LA, LC, VG)

The angels grinding have already been seen in incident XIV.

The Stanza in VG. -This is in the metre known as rannaigecht mór , seven syllables with monosyllabic rhymes, usually abab . The translation adequately expresses the sense and, approximately, the metre.[16] The number of saints enumerated is thirteen, not twelve, but the master, Findian of Clonard, is not counted in the reckoning. The names, the principal monasteries, and the obits of these saints are as follows-

Findian of Cluain Iraird (Clonard, Co. Meath), 12 December 548.
Findian of Mag-bile (Moville, Co. Donegal), 12 September 579.
Colum Cille of Í Choluim Cille (Iona), 9 June 592.
Colum of Inis Cealtra (Holy Island, Loch Derg), 13 December 549.
Ciaran of Cluain maccu Nois (Clonmacnois), 9 September 548.
Cainnech of Achad Bo (Aghaboe, Queen's Co.), 11 October 598.
Comgall of Beannchor (Bangor, Co. Down), 10 May 552.
Brenainn of Birra (Birr, King's Co.), 29 November 571.
Brenainn of Cluain Fearta (Clonfert, King's Co.), 16 May 576.
Ruadan of Lothra (Lorrha, Co. Tipperary), 15 April 584.
Ninned of Inis Muighe Saimh (Inismacsaint in Loch Erne),
18 January 5..(?).
Mo-Bi of Glas Naoidhean (Glasnevin, Co. Dublin) 12 October 544.
Mo-Laise mac Nad-Fraeich of Daimhinis (Devenish, Loch Erne),
12 September 563.


XIX. CIARAN AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER (LA, VG)

Parallels. -Maignenn never would look on a woman, "lest he should see her guardian devil" ( Silua Gadelica , i, 37). The story has some affinity with the curious Märchen of the Mill and the Bailiff's Daughter (incident XXIV). Cuimmin of Connor, in his poem on the characters of the different Irish saints, spoke thus of Ciaran, doubtless in reference to this incident: "Holy Ciaran of Clonmacnois loved humility that he did not abandon rashly; he never spoke a word that was untrue, he never looked at a woman from the time when he was born."

The Stanza in VG. -Metre ae freslige . Literally thus: "With Ciaran read / a girl who was stately with treasures // and he saw not / her form or her shape or her make."

In LA the father of the maiden is king in Tara: in VG he is king of Cualu, the strip of territory between the mountains and the sea from Dublin southward to Arklow.


XX. HOW CIARAN HEALED THE LEPERS (VG)

Leprosy, or at least a severe cutaneous disease so called, was common in ancient Ireland; and there are numerous stories, some of them extremely disagreeable, that tell how the saints associated with its victims as an act of self-abasement. We have already seen how Patrick was said to have kept a leper. Brigit also healed lepers by washing (LL, 1620), and Ruadan cleansed lepers with the water of a spring that he opened miraculously (VSH, ii, 249). Contrariwise, Munnu never washed except at Easter after contracting leprosy (VSH, ii, 237). The miraculous opening of a spring is a common incident in Irish hagiography; we have already seen an example, in the annotations to incident I.

Whitley Stokes points out (LL, note ad loc. ) that the "three waves" poured over the lepers are suggested by the triple immersion in baptism.


XXI. CIARAN AND THE STAG (VG)

Parallels. -We have already noted the use of wild animals by Irish saints. Findian yoked stags to draw wood (LL, 2552). Patrick kept a tame stag (TT, p. 28, cap. lxxxii, etc.). In incident XXXVII, Ciaran is again served by a stag. Cainnech, like Ciaran, made a book-rest of the horns of a stag (CS, 383), and books which Colum Cille had lost were restored to him by a stag (TT, Quinta Vita , p. 407). In the life of Saint Cadoc we read an incident which combines docile stags drawing timber and a forgotten book untouched by rain ( Cambro-British Saints , pp. 38, 329).

For Ciaran's prompt obedience to the summoning sound of the bell, compare what is told of Cainnech, who happened to be summoned by the head of the monastic school when he was writing, and left the letter O, which at the moment he was tracing, unfinished, to obey the call (VSH, i, 153).

There is a parallel in incident XXXVI for the book unwet by rain. Books written by Colum Cille could not be injured by water (LL, 956). It is perhaps hardly necessary to infer with Plummer (VSH, i, p. cxxxviii) that this was a myth of solar origin.


XXII. THE STORY OF CIARAN'S GOSPEL (LA, VG)

This striking anecdote is unique, and probably founded on an authentic incident. The two versions before us differ in some respects, as a comparison will show. The story is told in another form in the Quinta Vita Columbae (TT, p. 403) to the effect that "Once Saint Kieranus, whom they call the Son of the Wright, on being asked, promised Columba that as he was writing a book of the Holy Gospels, he would write out the middle part of the book. Columba, in gratitude to him, said, 'And I,' said he, 'on behalf of God, promise and foretell that the middle regions of Ireland shall take their name from thee, and shall bring their taxes or tribute to thy monastery.'" The same version appears in O'Donnell's Life of Colum Cille (printed text, p. 128). Yet another version appears in the glosses to the Martyrology of Oengus (9th September), according to which Colum Cille wished to write a gospel-book, but no one except Ciaran had an exemplar from which to make the copy. Colum Cille went to Ciaran's cell and asked for the loan of the book; Ciaran, who was preparing his lesson, and had just come to the words Omnia quaecumque , etc., presented him with it. "Thine be half of Ireland!" said Colum Cille. It is worth passing notice that the verse in question, here treated as the central verse of the gospel, is not one-fifth of the way through the book. Had the original narrator of the tale a copy with misplaced or missing leaves?

The Stanza in VG. -This is apparently slightly corrupt, but the metre is evidently meant to be ae freslige . It probably belongs to one poem with the previous stanzas in the same metre: its first line echoes the stanza in incident XIX. Literally, "With Findian read / Ciaran the pious, with diligence // he had half a book without reading / half of Ireland his thereafter."

The Saying of Alexander. -I regret to have to acknowledge that I have been unable to get on the track of any explanation of this appendix to the incident, as related in VG. It is probably a marginal gloss taken into the text. The "Alexander" is presumably one of the popes of that name, and if so, must be Alexander II (1061-1073), as the first Pope Alexander is too early, and the remaining six are too late. I have, however, searched all the writings bearing his name without discovering anything like this saying, nor can I trace it with the aid of the numerous indexes in Migne's Patrologia .


XXIII. THE BLESSING OF CIARAN'S FOOD (LA, LC)

I cannot find any authority for the ritual indicated by this curious story, in which the blessing of a second person is necessary before food can be consumed. There is a Jewish formula described by Lightfoot,[17] in which, when several take their meals together, one says Let us bless , and the rest answer