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

assembled all the physicians of Ireland, and that they could not help him. Then said Saint Colum: 'Mine advice unto you is to make your repair to Clonmacnois, to the place where your ghostly father and friend Saint Ciaran is buried: and there to put a little of the earth of his grave or of himself in your ears, which is the medicine which I think to be most available to help you.' The king having received the said instructions of Saint Colum, took his journey immediately to Clonmacnois; and finding Oenna maccu Laigsi, who was abbot of the place after Saint Ciaran, absent, he spoke to Lugaid, then parish priest of Clonmacnois, and told him of Saint Colum's instructions unto him. Whereupon priest Lugaid and king Diarmait fasted and watched that night in the Little Church where Saint Ciaran was buried, and the next morning the priest took the bell that he had, named then the White Bell,[28] and mingled part of the clay of Saint Ciaran therein with holy water, and put the same in the king's ears, and immediately the king had as good hearing as any in the kingdom, and the whole sickness and troubles of his brains ceased at that instant, which made the king to say, Is feartach an ní do ní an clog orainn , which is as much as to say in English, 'The bell did do us a miraculous turn.' Which bell Saint Lugna conveyed with him to the church of Fore, where he remained afterwards. King Diarmait bestowed great gifts of lands on Clonmacnois in honour of Saint Ciaran, for the recovery of his health."

The bell, called the bóbán of Coemgen, reappears much later in history as a relic on which oaths were taken ( Annals of Clonmacnois , anno 1139; Four Masters , anno 1143). It was doubtless a relic preserved at Glendaloch, in which the people of Clonmacnois rightly or wrongly claimed a part-proprietorship. The name is obscure: it means, according to O'Davoren's Glossary, a calf or little cow: and Plummer (VSH, i, p. clxxvii) suggests that this name may be an allusion to its small size. But why "calf"? Is it an allusion to the original use of the type of bells used for ecclesiastical purposes in Ireland, as cow-bells?

Angels were seen by Saint Colman to fill the space between heaven and earth to receive the soul of Pope Gregory (VSH, i, 264).


LI. THE EARTH OF CIARAN'S TOMB DELIVERS COLUM CILLE FROM A WHIRLPOOL (LA, LB)

This is perhaps an imitation of the tale of the Empress Helena, who, when returning after her discovery of the True Cross, was delivered from a storm by casting one of the Nails into the sea. Colum Cille was saved from the whirlpool of Coire Bhreacain (Corrievreckan, between Jura and Scarba) on another (?) occasion, by reciting a hymn to Brigit (LL, 1706).

The Visit of Colum Cille to Clonmacnois. -This took place during the rule of Ailithir, the fourth abbot of Clonmacnois (A.D. 589-595). It is described in Adamnan's Vita Columbae , where we read of the honour paid to the distinguished visitor, and how he was greeted with hymns and praises, while a canopy was borne over him on his way to the church, to protect him from inconvenient crowding. A humble boy, a useless servitor in the monastery, came behind Columba to touch the hem of his garment: the saint, miraculously apprised of this, caught him by the neck and held him, despite the protests of the brethren that he should dismiss this "wretched and noxious boy." Then he bade the boy stretch forth his tongue, and blessed it, prophesying his future increase in wisdom and knowledge, and his eminence as a preacher. The boy was Ernin or Ernoc, the patron saint of Kilmarnock; and Adamnan had the tale from Failbe, who was standing by as Ernin himself related the incident to Abbot Segine of Í. Colum Cille also prophesied the Easter controversy, and told of angelic visitations that he had had within the precincts of Clonmacnois: but Adamnan says nothing about the hymn to Ciaran, or the wonder-working clay from his tomb, although elsewhere in his book the terrors of Corrievreckan are alluded to. According to a prophecy of Colum Cille narrated in O'Donnell's Life of that saint, Patrick is to judge the men of Ireland on the Last Day at Clonmacnois.

The Hymn of Colum Cille. -This composition has not been preserved in its entirety. Fragments of it are introduced into the Homiletic Introduction of VG, which are enough to identify it with a short hymn to be found in the Irish Liber Hymnorum , and published by Bernard and Atkinson in their edition of that compilation.[29] It is as follows-

Alto et ineffabile apostolorum coeti
celestis Hierosolimæ sublimioris speculi
sedente tribunalibus solis modo micantibus
Quiaranus sanctus sacerdos insignis nuntius

inaltatus est manibus angelorum celestibus
consummatis felicibus sanctitatum generibus
quem tu Christe apostolum mundo misisti hominem
gloriosum in omnibus nouissimis temporibus

rogamus Deum altissimum per sanctorum memoriam
sancti Patrici episcopi Ciarani prespeteri
Columbæque auxilia nos deffendat egregia
ut per illorum merita possideamus premia

Obviously the third stanza, with its reference to Colum Cille himself, is a later addition, so that only the first two stanzas belong to the original hymn. The sixth line, quem tu Christe , is quoted in the section of VG referred to; but the three other excerpts, lucerna ...,
custodiantur ..., propheta ..., do not appear in the text before us: nor do the surviving stanzas justify the extravagant praise said to have been heaped on the composition at Clonmacnois-though no doubt a composition by Colum Cille, had it only the artless simplicity of a nursery jingle, would have been sure of an appreciative audience. However, the text seems to indicate something much more elaborate, and probably the original composition was an acrostic, like Colum Cille's great Altus Prosator .[30] The two authentic stanzas of the Liber Hymnorum are incorporated in the metrical patchwork at the end of LB.

Another version of the hymn was known to Colgan, and is given by him in TT, p. 472. Unfortunately he quotes only one couplet-

Quantum Christe O Apostolum mundo misisti hominem
Lucerna huius insulæ lucens lucerna mirabilis

which is evidently corrupt, and (as Colgan seems to regard it as the opening stanza) must show that the whole text had become disturbed by the time when Colgan wrote. Indeed, it does not appear that Colgan knew any more of the hymn than these two lines.


LIII. THE ENVY OF THE SAINTS (VG)

Note how the Latin texts soften down the saying attributed in VG to Colum Cille. A curious incident of disagreement between Ciaran and Colum Cille is thus related by Colgan (TT, p. 396). "Once there arose a petty quarrel between Kieranus and Columba, in which perhaps Kieranus, jealous for the divine honour, appeared either to prefer himself to Columba, or not to yield him the foremost place. But a good Spirit, descending from heaven, easily settled the quarrel, whatever it may have been, in this wise. He held out an awl, a hatchet, and an axe, presenting them to Kieranus: 'These things,' said he, 'and other things of this kind, with which thy father used to practise carpentry, hast thou abjured for the love of God. But Columba renounced the sceptre of Ireland, for which he might have hoped from his ancestral right and the power of his clan, before he made offering.'" The same tale is told in Manus O'Donnell's Life (ed. O'Kelleher, p. 60).

The authorities differ as to the attitude which Colum Cille adopted with regard to Ciaran. But as regards the other saints of Ireland there is no ambiguity. The cutting-short of Ciaran's life was one of the "three crooked counsels of Ireland" according to the glosses to the Martyrology of Oengus (9th September): the same authority adds that the saints "fasted for Ciaran's death," as otherwise all Ireland would have been his. The ancient legal process of fasting was an inheritance from Pagan times. If A had a case against B, he might, and under certain circumstances was obliged to, abstain from food till the case was settled; he was then said to "fast upon B." The idea probably was that if a litigant permitted his adversary to starve to death, the angry ghost would ever afterwards disturb his rest. Parallels have been found in ancient Indian practice. Sometimes B performed a counter-fast; in such a case he who first broke his fast lost his cause. But the process seems to have been strangely extended, even in Christian times, to obtain boons from the supernatural Powers. We read of a saint "fasting upon God" that a king might lose a battle; and in Revue celtique , vol. xiv, p. 28, there is printed a story of a childless couple who fasted with success upon the Devil, that he might send them offspring. Two of the saints-Odran of Letrecha Odrain and Mac Cuillind of Lusk-went and told Ciaran for what they were fasting: Ciaran simply replied, "Bless ye the air before me"-the air through which I must travel in passing heavenwards-"and what ye desire shall be given you." The Book of Leinster contains a poem attributed to Saint Ciaran relating to the shortness of his life: as it has apparently never been printed it is given here with a translation, so far as the obscurity of the language permits-

An rim, a rí richid ráin corbom etal risin dáil:
co cloister cech ní atber i sanct cech sen, a Dé máir.

(Stay for me, O King of glorious heaven, till I be pure before the assembly; till everything that I shall speak be heard in the sanctuary of every blessing, O great God.)

A Mic Maire, miad cen ón ammochomde corric nem,
a ruiri na nangel find, innanfa frim corbom sen?

(O Son of Mary, a dignity without blemish, O my Lord as far as Heaven, O King of the white angels, wilt Thou stay for me till I am old?)

Attchimse mo guide rutt arbaig Maire diandit Macc
menbad tacrad latt a Ri condernaind ni bud maith latt

(I make my prayer unto Thee, for the love of Mary to whom Thou are Son, if it be not displeasing in Thy sight, O King, that I may do somewhat pleasing to Thee.)

Maccan berair rian a ré ní fintar feib ar a mbé
asaóete lenta baeís aggáes