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

Amen . But it is not clear why a response should have been required by a person eating alone.


XXIV. THE STORY OF THE MILL AND THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER (LB, VG)

The full details of this narrative have evidently been offensive to the author of LB, who has heroically bowdlerised it. It is obviously an independent Märchen , which has become incorporated in the traditions of Ciaran.

The Famine. -Famines are frequently recorded in the Irish Annals: and it is noteworthy that they were usually accompanied by an epidemic of raids on monasteries. The wealth of the country was largely concentrated in these establishments, so that they presented a strong temptation to a starving community. The beginning of the story is thus quite true to nature and to history, though I have found no record of a famine at the time when we may suppose Ciaran to have been at Clonard.

Transformation of Oats to Wheat, and of other Food to Flour. -Such transformations are common in the saints' Lives. We read of swine turned to sheep (CS, 879), snow to curds (LL, 127), sweat to gold (TT, 398) flesh to bread (CS, 368). The later peculiarities of the food-bread or some other commonplace material having the taste of more recondite dainties, and possessing curative properties-are not infrequently met with in folk-lore. Saint Illtyd placed fish and water before a king, who found therein the taste of bread and salt, wine and mead, in addition to their proper savours ( Cambro-British Saints , pp. 165, 474).

The Resistance of the Saint to amorous Advances. -The reader may be referred to Whitley Stokes's note ad loc. , in LL. We may recall the well-known story of Coemgen (Kevin) at Glendaloch: though it must be added that the version of the tale popularised by Moore, in which the saint pushed his importunate pursuer into the lake and drowned her, has no ancient authority. On the rather delicate subject of the arrangement made between Ciaran and the maiden's family, consult the article Subintroductae in Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities . This feature of the story is enough to show its unhistorical character, at least so far as Ciaran is concerned: for Ciaran did not belong to the Primus Ordo of Irish saints, who
mulierum administrationem et consortia non respuebant, quia super petram Christum fundati ventum temptationis non timebant , but to the Secundus Ordo , who mulierum consortia et administrationes fugiebant, atque a monasteriis suis eas excludebant (CS, 161, 162). The description of Ciaran as transcending his contemporaries in beauty is probably suggested by Ps. xlv, 2, and is another illustration of the Tendenz already referred to.

The Eavesdropper and the Crane. -This incident reappears in the Life of Flannan (CS, 647). Wonder-workers do not like to be spied upon by unauthorised persons. This is especially true in the Fairy mythology surviving to modern times. Compare a tale in the Life of Aed (VSH, ii, 308). A quantity of wood had been cut for building a church, but there was no available labour. Angels undertook the work of transportation on condition that no one should spy upon them. One man, however, played the inevitable "Peeping Tom," and the work ceased immediately. The reader may be referred for further instances to the essay on "Fairy Births and Human Midwives" in E.S. Hartland's Science of Fairy Tales .

There is a touch of intentional drollery at the end of the story where the brethren are shown as having so thoroughly enjoyed the feast miraculously provided for them that their observance of the canonical hours was disjointed. For other instances of intoxication as resulting from saints' miracles see VSH, i, p. ci.

The Stanzas in VG. -These are in ae freslige metre, so that they are probably another fragment of the poem already met with. The translation in the text reproduces the sense with sufficient literalness.

On the whole the impression which this unusually long and very confused incident makes on the reader is that originally it was an
anti-Christian narrative concocted in a Pagan circle, which has somehow become superficially Christianised.


XXV. THE STORY OF CLUAIN (VG)

One of the numerous tales told of the danger of crossing the will of a saint. It is possibly suggested by Matt, xxi, 28; but it may also be a pre-Christian folk-tale adapted to the new Faith by substituting a saint for a druid. On the cursing propensities of Irish saints see Plummer, VSH, i, pp. cxxxv, clxxiii. A curse said to have been pronounced by Ciaran on one family remained effective down to the year 1151, where it is recorded by the Annals of the Four Masters (vol. ii, p. 1096). Another curse of the same saint, and its fulfilment, is narrated in Keating's History (Irish Texts Society's edn., iii, 52 ff.), and at greater length in the life of the victim, Cellach ( Silua Gadelica , no. iv).

Note that Ciaran sends a messenger with his rod to revive Cluain. This is probably imitated from Elisha sending Gehazi similarly equipped to raise the Shunammite's son (2 Kings iv, 29).

Cluain's thanks at being delivered from the pains of hell may be contrasted with the protest of the monk resurrected by Colman (VSH, i, 260, 265) at being recalled from the joys of heaven-an aspect of resurrection stories frequently overlooked by the narrators.

The Stanza in VG. -The metre is rannaigecht gairit dialtach (a line of three syllables followed by three of seven, with monosyllabic rhymes aaba ). The literal rendering is "Cluain agreed to come / to me to-day for reaping // for an oppressive disease / caused him living in his house to be dead."


XXVI, XXVII. HOW CIARAN FREED WOMEN FROM SERVITUDE (LA, LB, VG)

Tuathal Moel-garb ("the bald-rough") was king in Tara A.D. 528-538. We have already met with Furbith in incident XIV.

Interceding for captives, with or without miracle, was one of the most frequent actions attributed to Irish saints: as for instance Brigit (LL, 1520) and Fintan (CS, 300). Doors opened of their own accord to Colum Cille (CS, 850). Paulinus of Nola gave himself as a captive in exchange for a widow's son at the time of the invasion of Alaric in A.D. 410 (see Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography , vol. iv, p. 239, col. ii, and references there). This explains the allusion in LB. The woman passing through her enemies is perhaps suggested by Luke iv, 30. The prisoner Fallamain, rescued by Saint Samthann, also passed unscathed through a crowd of jailers (VSH, ii, 255; compare ibid. , p. 259); his chains opened of their own accord, like the doors in incident XXVI. Compare Acts xii, 7 ff.


XXVIII. ANECDOTES OF CLUAIN IRAIRD (VG)

These four petits conies , found in VG only, are clearly designed to set forth the superiority of Clonmacnois above its rival establishments.

( a ) This story tells how Findian ranked Ciaran above all the notable saints and scholars of his time, and how they had to acknowledge his pre-eminence by their very jealousy. Colum Cille is the only saint whom the homilist will allow to approach his hero.

( b ) This is a thrust at the monastery of Birr. It says, in effect, "Clonmacnois is situated on the great river Shannon, Birr on the insignificant Brosna; and the relative importance of the two establishments is to be estimated by the size of their respective rivers-even Brenainn, the founder of Birr, said this himself!" There was a contest between the people of Clonmacnois and those of Birr at a place now unknown, Moin Coise Bla (the bog at the foot of Bla) in the year 756, according to the Annals of Clonmacnois and of
Tigernach . The circumstances which led to this event are not on record; but it is not far-fetched to see an echo of it in the story before us. This would give us an approximate date for the construction of the story, though the compilation in which it is now embedded is considerably later.

( c ) This story further exalts Clonmacnois as the place containing a valuable relic that ensures eternal happiness in the hereafter. Of this relic we have already spoken.

( d ) Again exalts Clonmacnois by relating a dream in which the founder is put on a level with the great Colum Cille. This vision is related also in the Lives of the latter saint (see, for instance, LL, 852). An analogous vision, not related in the Lives of Ciaran, is that of the three heavenly chairs, seen by Saint Baithin. He saw a chair of gold, a chair of silver, and a chair of crystal before the Lord. As interpreted by Colum Cille, the first was the seat destined for Ciaran, on account of the nobility and firmness of his faith; the silver chair was for Baithin, on account of the firmness and brightness and rigour of his faith; and the third was for Colum Cille himself, on account of the brightness and purity-and brittleness-of his faith.[18]


XXIX. THE PARTING OF CIARAN AND FINDIAN (VG)

Compare with this narrative the parting of Senan and Notal (LL, 2031). The metre of the stanza is cummasc etir rannaigecht mór ocus leth-rannaigecht (seven-syllable and five-syllable lines alternately, with monosyllabic rhymes abab ). The translation is literal.


XXX. THE ADVENTURES OF THE ROBBERS OF LOCH ERNE (LB, LC)

LA and VG know nothing of the visit to Loch Erne of which this is the chief incident. Ninned here appears as an abbot, which is scarcely consistent with his previous appearance as a junior fellow-student of Ciaran. There is, however, a possible hint at this tradition in the statement in VG that when Ciaran departed from Clonard he left the Dun Cow with Ninned. Ninned's island, as we learn from an entry in the
Martyrology of Donegal (18th January) was Inis Muighe Samh, now spelt Inismacsaint, in Loch Erne. The reading in both MSS. of LB,
silua for insula , evidently rests on a false interpretation of a word or a contraction in the exemplar from which R1 was copied. This seems to have been hard to read at the incident before us. Later on there is a word, which the sense shows us must have been potentes . The scribe of R1 could not read it, and left a blank, which he afterwards tentatively filled in with the meaningless word
fatentes -a word which his copyist, the scribe of R2, emended by guesswork into fac(i)entes .

Parallels. -There are several cases of the restoration to life of persons who had been decapitated. Coemgen restored two women who had been thus treated (VSH, i, 239). The famous Welsh holy well of Saint Winefred in Flintshire is associated with a similar miracle (see Rees'
Cambro-British Saints , pp. 17, 304). The story of the three murdered monks is also told of Saint Aed (VSH, i, 38), but there the blood-mark round their necks is absent. Ciaran seems to have been less expert than some of his brethren in replacing severed heads on decapitated bodies; for according to a tale preserved in the Book of Lismore , there was a certain lord of the region of Ui Maine (the region west of the Shannon), who was called Coirpre the Crooked, for the following reason: he was an evil man who did great mischief to every one, in consequence of which he was