Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum Part 11

Moreover, her great virtues were confirmed by many miracles, so that crowds of men and women came from all parts of the country either to make a pilgrimage, or place themselves permanently under her guidance. But Brigid did more than this. One of her greatest virtues was her hospitality to all the ecclesiastics who came to visit her, and especially to the bishops. She seems, too, to have accepted their invitations, and to have made many journeys, especially through the South and West of Ireland, where she made so deep an impression by her preaching, her miracles, and her example, that her memory is still fondly cherished in all parts of the country. She became the "Mary of Ireland"--what Patrick was for the men, she was for the women--their national saint and patroness. They called their daughters by her sweet name. The wells at which she drank and prayed became for ever blessed wells. The parishes which she visited were in many instances placed under her special protection, and called by her name.[132] And so we have Tubber-bride and Kil-bride in all parts of the country, exactly as we have Kil-patrick and Tubber-patrick.

It is very manifest that St. Brigid felt from the beginning that a monastery of men at Kildare, presided over by a bishop, would be a great means of protecting her own nunnery of tender virgins and widows. It was a lawless age, as the history of St. Enda shows, and hence Brigid wished for security, as well as for instruction and religious guidance, to have the bishop and his clergy near her. She was anxious to have a complete and self-sufficing religious city at Kildare, and such, in fact, it very soon became. Besides St. Conlaeth to rule and to ordain, she had another bishop, St. Nadfraoich, to instruct herself and her nuns, for Bishop Mel had told her that she should never take food without having first heard the Word of G.o.d preached to her. She had secured another holy prelate, St.

Ninnidhius, to administer the viatic.u.m to her when dying, and that saint hearing this covered his right hand with a case or sh.e.l.l of metal, so that the hand which was to give the Communion to Brigid might never be defiled.

Hence he was called Ninnidh of the Clean Hand.

It is said--but the tradition is rather uncertain--that Brigid had the consoling privilege of weaving with her own hands the winding sheet in which the body of St. Patrick was laid. At the time of his death, if, as is generally believed, he died in A.D. 493, Brigid must have been a nun for several years, and have already founded her own great convent at Kildare. She lived, however, until A.D. 523, or more probably until A.D.

525, and then dying in her own holy city, was buried at the right of the High Altar--Bishop Conlaeth, having been already laid on the left hand of the same altar, and both within the sanctuary.

Brigid is called by aengus the chaste head of the nuns of Erin; and St.

Cuimin of Connor describes her "as Brigid of the blessings, fond beyond all women of mortification, of vigils, of early rising to pray, and of hospitality to saintly men." Her very name was prophetic, for it signifies either a 'fiery dart' or the 'strength' of her virtue--_brigi_ being the Celtic for strength or might.

Kildare, as might be expected, became, during the life and after the death of Brigid, a great city and a great school--Cogitosus, with pardonable exaggeration, describes it as the head city of all the bishops, and calls Conlaeth and his successors Arch-bishops of the Bishops of Ireland, and Brigid (and her successors) the Abbess, whom all the Abbesses of Ireland hold in veneration. He says that no one could count the crowds of people coming to Kildare from all the provinces of Erin; that some come for the feasting or food--_ad epulas_--that the sick come to be healed; the rich come with gifts for the shrine of St. Brigid, especially on the 1st of February; and that sight-seers come to enjoy the wonderful spectacle.

He also gives a most interesting description of the great Church of Kildare in his own time. It was very lofty and very large, richly adorned with pictures, hangings, and ornamental door-ways. A part.i.tion ran across the breadth of the church near the chancel, or sanctuary; at one of its extremities there was a door which admitted the bishop and his clergy to the sanctuary and to the altar; at the other extremity, on the opposite side, there was a similar door by which Brigid and her virgins and widows used to enter to enjoy the banquet of the Body and Blood of Christ. Then a central part.i.tion ran down the nave, dividing the men from the women--the men being on the right and the women on the left, each division having its own lateral entrance. These part.i.tions did not rise to the roof of the church, but only so high as to serve their purpose. The part.i.tion at the sanctuary, or chancel, was formed of boards of wood, decorated with pictures and covered with linen hangings, which might, it seems, be drawn aside at the consecration to give the people in the nave a better view of the Holy Mysteries. Such was the great Church of Kildare in the seventh and eighth centuries, before the advent of the Danes to Ireland.

In connection with St. Brigid and the School of Kildare, we may here make brief reference to the celebrated scholars who have compiled her biography.

The first of the six Lives printed by the learned Father John Colgan is the metrical Hymn of the Saint commonly attributed to St. Brogan Cloen of Rostuire in the Diocese of Ossory. The original Hymn is written in the Irish language; Colgan also gives a Latin translation. But the Irish original has been printed by Dr. Whitley Stokes, and also in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_ for February, 1868. This Irish original has been preserved in the _Liber Hymnorum_, and also in a MS. in Trinity College of very recent date. The following Irish preface is prefixed to the Hymn in the MS. of St. Isidore's, now in Merchants' Quay, Dublin.

The place where this hymn was composed was Sliabh Bladhma (Slieve Bloom), or Cluain Mor Moedhog. The author was Brogan Cloen. The time (to which it refers) was when Lughaidh, son of Laeghaire, was King of Ireland, and Ailill, son of Dunlang, King of Leinster. The cause of writing it, viz., "Ultan of Ardbraccan, the tutor of Brogan, requested him to narrate the miracles of Brigid in suitable poetical language, for Ultan had collected all the miracles of Brigid for him."

We gather from this interesting statement that St. Ultan of Ardbraccan, who was an uncle on the mother's side of St. Brigid, collected the materials for this poem. It is true St. Ultan did not die until the year A.D. 656 or 657, but if he were then, as is stated in the _Martyrology of Donegal_, 189 years of age, he might well have been the uncle and contemporary of the Virgin Saint. He was a very celebrated man, and was especially remarkable for his love of poor orphans, for he often had no less than 200 of them together, whom he used to feed with his own hands.

He was also very mortified in his life, sleeping on the bare board in his narrow stone cell, and bathing his body in cold water in the sharpest blasts of the wintry wind. "It was he," says the same authority, "that collected the miracles of Brigid in one book, and gave them to his disciple Brogan Cloen to render them in verse."

St. Brogan Cloen himself lived, it seems, for some time in the monastery near Slieve Bloom, founded by St. Molua, and afterwards in that of Clonmore, in the barony of Bantry, county Wexford, which was founded by St. Aidan about the year A.D. 620. The scholiast doubts whether he composed this hymn while at Slieve Bloom or Clonmore; so we may fairly suppose that it was composed sometime between A.D. 620 and 657, when St.

Ultan died. The statement of the scholiast as to the time of the hymn seems to refer not to the time of its composition, but to the time of the events which it narrates; and which, he says, took place during the reign of Lughaidh, King of Tara, and Ailill, King of Leinster. The former reigned 25 years and died in A.D. 503; the latter died in A.D. 523, so that their joint reigns would exactly mark the period during which St.

Brigid flourished in Kildare. The hymn consists of 212 lines or 53 stanzas of four lines each. It describes at great length the virtues and miracles of St. Brigid, but is unhappily too meagre in historical facts. The writer a.s.sumes that because her history was well known in his own time, it would continue to be equally well known to future generations. It is, however, a most interesting monument of our early Irish Church, and competent judges p.r.o.nounce it to be an admirable specimen of early Celtic versification.

There is also in the _Book of Hymns_ published by Dr. Todd, what seems to be a fragment of an ancient Latin hymn in praise of St. Brigid. The preface to this Hymn attributes it either to St. Ninnidh of the Clean Hand, Brigid's chaplain, or to St. Fiacc of Sleibte, or to St. Ultan of Ardbraccan. This last conjecture, however, seems to arise from the statement that Ultan collected the miracles of St. Brigid into one book.

It was an abecedarian hymn originally, and is undoubtedly a very ancient composition. At present it consists of four stanzas of four lines each, having a rhyme or a.s.sonance in the middle and at the end of each line, which properly should consist of sixteen syllables. The first line at present is:--

"Christus in nostra insula quae vocatur Hibernia,"

and notwithstanding the statement of the scholiast that the hymn was abecedarian, these words--Christus in nostra insula--appear to have been always regarded as the beginning of the hymn. In the eighth line Brigid is declared to be "Mariae sanctae similem," an expression which may have given origin to the saying that Brigid was the "Mary of the Irish." The following pa.s.sage from the _Leabhar Breac_ gives a glowing eulogy of St.

Brigid, and formally calls her the "Mary of the Gaedhil."

"There was not in the world one of more bashfulness and modesty than this holy virgin. She never washed (as was then not unfrequent,) her hands, or her feet, or head before men. She never looked a man in the face. She never spoke without blushing. She was abstinent, unblemished, fond of prayer, patient, rejoicing in G.o.d's commands, benevolent, humble, forgiving, charitable. She was a consecrated shrine for the preservation of the Body of Christ. She was a temple of G.o.d. Her heart and mind were the throne of the Holy Spirit; she was meek before G.o.d. She was distressed with the miserable. She was bright in miracles. And hence in things created her type is the Dove among birds, the Vine amongst trees, and the Sun above the stars."

This beautiful eulogy concludes by declaring that Brigid is "The Queen of the South. She is the Mary of the Gaedhil."

The _Second Life_, printed by Colgan, is the celebrated work of Cogitosus, to which we have already referred. He tells us himself that he was a monk of Kildare, and that he wrote in obedience to the wishes of the community, not of his own presumptuous motion. In the last chapter he asks a prayer, "Pro me Cogitoso culpabili," but it is evident when he calls himself a 'nepos,' that he does not mean that he was the 'nepos' of St. Brigid, as some have fancied. In his humility he uses the word in its secondary cla.s.sical sense, and calls himself a sinful spendthrift of G.o.d's time and of G.o.d's graces. The use of the word 'nepos,' therefore, furnishes no argument that this Life was written shortly after the death of St. Brigid.

On the other hand, there is nothing in this Life that, as Basnage insinuates, 'smells of a later age' than the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century. As we have already observed, the description which Cogitosus gives of the great Church of Kildare, of its wealth, of the tomb of its founders, and the inviolable character of the city, clearly proves that it must have been written earlier than the ravages of the Danes.

There are, however, some expressions that show it was written a considerable time after the decease of St. Brigid and St. Conlaeth. The writer speaks of 'the prosperous succession' of prelates and abbesses who ruled in the sacred city, _ritu perpetuo_, a strong expression, which points to a long series of successors in Kildare. The very use of the Latin word 'archiepiscopus,' which Cogitosus uses when speaking of the prelates of Kildare, shows that the work cannot have been written before the eighth century. Petrie in his observations on this subject makes one remark which we venture to think is founded on a false a.s.sumption.[133]

Cogitosus tells us that in his own time the bodies of St. Brigid and of St. Conlaeth were placed in tombs richly adorned, one on the right and the other on the left of the high altar. Now the _Annals of Ulster_ state that A.D. 799, the relics of Conlaeth were placed in a shrine of gold and silver, whence Petrie infers that Cogitosus must have written after this enshrining, that is, after A.D. 799, but before A.D. 835, when Kildare was pillaged by the Danes and half the church burned. But Cogitosus speaks of the bodies of the saints as being placed in _tombs_, not of the enshrining of the relics of one of them, which is a very different thing. The shrine was a metal case, highly ornamented, for containing the relics of a saint, not a tomb for the body. Rather the language of Cogitosus clearly shows that he must have written before this enshrining of the relics of Conlaeth, for in his time the body of that saint was in a tomb. The truth seems to be that about this time, and through fear of the Danes, the relics of St. Brigid were carried to Downpatrick as being then a safer place, and at the same time the relics of Conlaeth were also taken from the tomb-monument, and placed in the rich shrine, which was easily portable, and might be carried off at the approach of danger, with its precious contents.

The language and style of Cogitosus show considerable acquaintance with the Latin tongue, and the work furnishes us with a very creditable specimen of the scholarship possessed by the monks of Kildare in the eighth century.

We need make no special reference to the other four anonymous Lives printed by Colgan. The Third is attributed, but without any proof, to St.

Ultan; the Fourth is probably the work of a monk called Animosus, of whom nothing else is known; the Fifth was written by an Englishman, Laurence of Durham, in the twelfth century. The Sixth, like the First Life, is a poetic work in Latin, which Colgan got from Monte Ca.s.sino, and which the MS. itself attributes to Chilien, or, perhaps, more properly, Coelan, a monk of Iniscaltra, or the Holy Island, in Lough Derg, who probably flourished in the eighth century. We know that many monks from Holy Island went abroad in the ninth and tenth centuries to preach the Gospel, and, doubtless, one of them carried this MS. with him either to Bobbio, or some other Benedictine Monastery, whence it might easily find its way to Monte Ca.s.sino. The prologue of the poem is attributed to Donatus, an Irish prelate in Tuscany, during the ninth century. This also helps to explain how the Irish-born prelate would get this volume from some of his countrymen abroad, and also write a prologue to this poetic life of the Queen of Ireland's virgin saints.

Kildare is the only religious establishment in Ireland which preserved down to a comparatively recent period the double line of succession, of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, and what is more, the annalists take care to record the names of the abbesses as well as of the abbots. This, no doubt, arose from the fact that at least in public estimation the lady-abbesses of Kildare enjoyed a kind of primacy over all the nuns in Ireland, and, moreover, were in some sense independent of episcopal jurisdiction, if, indeed, the Bishops of Kildare were not rather to some extent dependent on them.

St. Conlaeth was not only a scholar and a bishop, but also a most cunning artificer in metal work, and made all kinds of chalices, patens, bells, and shrines for the use of his churches and monasteries. It appears to be quite evident, too, that he founded a school of metal work and decorative art at Kildare, which was conducted with much success under his successors in that see. In our own times sacred art is left to take its chance; little or no official patronage is extended to the workmen, and no special care is given to their training. Not so in ancient Erin. The greatest attention was paid to these subjects, and, as we know, the arts of metallurgy, of the illumination of MSS., of sculpture, and of architectural ornamentation were carried to the greatest perfection under the patronage of distinguished ecclesiastics.

The ancient buildings of Kildare have, with the exception of the Round Tower, completely disappeared. This is all the more to be regretted, when we see the beautiful ornamental door-way of the Round Tower, a cla.s.s of buildings in which ornamentation of any kind is rarely met with. Even in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis it was a venerable building, and he tells a story of a falcon that used to nestle in its summit all alone, admitting no mate, and was on quite familiar terms with the monks and citizens, for it was called St. Brigid's bird. This beautiful tower, the tallest in Ireland, is 136 feet 7 inches in height, and still pointing heavenward, as of old, marks out for every stranger who travels by the Great Southern Line, the sacred city of St. Brigid, in the great plain of the Liffey.

Notwithstanding the ravages of the Danes, we find the obits of many of the Professors of the School of Kildare recorded in the Annals. We find also reference made to the Chief Professor of Kildare, Cosgrach, who died A.D.

1041; and Cobthac, another professor of Kildare, who died in A.D. 1069, was celebrated for "his universal knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline."

In A.D. 1110, died Ferdomhach, the Blind Professor of Kildare, who was eminently skilled in the Holy Scriptures. In A.D. 1135 Diarmaid Mac Murrogh, who had even then begun his career of violence and crime, "forcibly carried away the Abbess of Kildare from her cloister, and compelled her to marry one of his own people." Next year Diarmaid O'Brian and his brothers plundered and burned the town. Yet the holy line of Brigid's successors was still carried on--there was a Comorbana of Brigid who died in A.D. 1171. But in A.D. 1220 Henry de Loundres put out the fire of St. Brigid, called the inextinguishable, which had been preserved burning by the nuns of St. Brigid, in all probability from the time of the foundress herself. It was lit again by order of the Bishop of Kildare, and continued to burn in spite of all the troubles of the times down to the total suppression of the monasteries by Queen Elizabeth.

We find no satisfactory account of the origin and purpose of this perpetual fire of Kildare. De Loundres thought, perhaps, there was something savouring of paganism or superst.i.tion about it, or he would hardly undertake the risk and odium of having it extinguished. His conduct would be still more inexplicable if this fire were kept always burning in the guest house, as some think, for the comfort of benighted travellers.

But English prelates have never been discerning judges of Irish usages, and we are not bound to set much store on the soundness of the Norman bishop's judgment in this instance. They came over to reform, as well as to conquer; and if abuses did not exist, it was necessary for appearance sake to a.s.sume their existence. Can it be that the Kildare nuns antic.i.p.ated the general and now obligatory rule of keeping a perpetual lamp before the Blessed Sacrament? Or was it a sacred fire that was kept always burning before the tomb of their holy foundress? "The early Christians, as well as the Jews and pagans, were accustomed to place lamps in the company of the dead,"[134] great numbers of which have been found in the catacombs and elsewhere. Many of them, too, are beautifully wrought in various material, and bear characteristic Christian symbols. In all probability the perpetual fire of Kildare was for the purpose of keeping the lamps lit before the shrines of its holy founders. Many accidents might lead to the lamp itself being extinguished, but the sacred fire, night and day, under the sedulous care of St. Brigid's daughters, might be cherished 'through long ages of darkness and storm,' if not extinguished by the Danes or reformers like Henry de Loundres.

Gerald Barry also tells us another fact which shows to what a degree of perfection the art of illumination was carried in the monastic schools of Kildare. Nothing, he says, that he saw at Kildare appeared to him more admirable than the wondrous book, which as report goes, was written from the dictation of an angel in the time of the holy virgin herself. It was a ma.n.u.script of the Four Evangelists, according to St. Jerome's version, but every page was illuminated with various figures, delineated with the utmost distinctness in every variety of colouring. The symbolical figures of the Evangelists themselves were wrought with extraordinary subtilty and grace, and all the other drawings and figures likewise were so delicate, and subtile, so close and so narrow, so knotted and intertwined together, yet every most intricate line and point and knot so vivid, as if with quite recent colours, that one would think it all was the work of angelic, and not of mere human skill. The more carefully he looked at it, the more he was astonished, and the more things he saw worthy of admiration.

Gerald Barry's description of this famous Evangelistarium, which unfortunately appears to have perished, will not appear exaggerated to any person who has ever seen the _Book of Kells_. They were both written about the same period, and illuminated by equally skilled hands; still it is greatly to be regretted that this wondrous _Book of Kildare_,[135] which won such a eulogy from the fastidious Welshman, is no longer amongst the extant literary treasures of Ireland.

It is not unlikely that the great ma.n.u.script known as the _Book of Leinster_, was originally compiled and preserved in Kildare; or perhaps, more accurately speaking, it was copied from originals that were compiled and preserved at Kildare. The work of copying in great part was certainly executed by Finn Mac Gorman, who was Bishop of Kildare from A.D. 1148 to 1160, when his death is recorded. He was evidently a man of much learning, and an entry in his own hand testifies that he wrote the work for Hugh Mac Crimthann, tutor of Diarmaid Mac Murrogh, King of Leinster. The work was no doubt written by O'Gorman before A.D. 1148, when he became Bishop of Kildare. The ma.n.u.script at present consists of 177 loose leaves of vellum, which are preserved in Trinity College, and seven additional leaves of the same original, which belong to the Franciscans of the Irish Province. No doubt the entire work belonged to them originally, but was taken from them by force or fraud, and thus found its way to Trinity College. Its contents are of an exceedingly various and interesting character--heroic tales and poems, genealogies, calendars of saints, and various tracts used in the Irish monastic schools, dealing with both sacred and profane learning.

CHAPTER VII.

MINOR MONASTIC SCHOOLS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.

"The chapel where no organ's peal Invests the stern and naked prayer!-- With penitential cries they kneel And wrestle; rising then with bare And white uplifted faces stand, Pa.s.sing the Host from hand to hand."

--_Arnold._

I.--THE SCHOOL OF NOENDRUM.

There were a few other early monastic schools founded during the lifetime of St. Patrick to which reference must be made here, before we pa.s.s to the more celebrated schools of the sixth century. Although St. Patrick could not attend in person to the government and organization of these seminaries, he gave every encouragement to his disciples in carrying on that necessary and excellent work. It was specially for this purpose, as we have already seen, that he placed St. Benignus over his own school at Armagh. With the same purpose in view, he chose the youthful Mochae, or Mochay, of Noendrum first to be his own disciple, and afterwards to be the guide and teacher of others in their preparation for the sacred ministry.

Mochae was one of St. Patrick's earliest converts in Ireland. Like St.

Benignus, he seems to have been a mere boy, when he first believed and was baptized, before St. Patrick had yet met King Laeghaire on the royal Hill of Tara.

It is thus narrated in the _Tripart.i.te_:--"Now whilst Patrick was going on his journey from Saul (near Downpatrick) he saw a tender youth herding swine. Mochae was his name. Patrick preached to him and baptized him and tonsured him, and gave him a Gospel and Ma.s.s-chalice. And he gave him also later on a crozier, that had been bestowed on them by G.o.d, to wit, it fell from heaven with its head in Patrick's bosom, and its foot in Mochae's bosom, and this is the _Etech_ of Mochae of Noendrum. And Mochae promised a shaven pig every year to Patrick (that is, to his Church), and this is still offered."[136]

This is a very interesting pa.s.sage, and points to Patrick's mode of procedure, when he found a youth suitable for the ecclesiastical state.

This boy was, we are told,[137] the son of Bronach, daughter of Milchu, with whom Patrick himself had spent the years of his own captivity at the same occupation--herding swine. Patrick had been probably acquainted with the mother of this youth; he remembered his own boyhood, which he spent in the midst of many sorrows and much labour on the barren slopes of Slemish; so his heart was touched, and he preached the new Gospel of peace and love to this grandson of the master who had held him so long in bondage. The boy's heart, too, was touched by grace--he believed, was baptized, and tonsured. The tonsuring, if it took place then, could only mean that Patrick destined the youth for the sacred ministry. We are also told that he gave him a copy of the Gospels, doubtless when he had learned to read a little Latin, and a _menister_, which Stokes strangely translates 'credence-table,' but which is manifestly a loan-word from the Latin _ministerium_,[138] and signifies the chalice and paten necessary for offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s. Later on this youth became a bishop, he was consecrated by Patrick himself, and Patrick gave him this crozier--a heavenly gift--which came to be known from that circ.u.mstance as the _Etech_, or flying crozier of Mochae of Noendrum.

This name is simply Oendrum with the article prefixed, and the island in which Mochae founded his monastery and school was so called because it was formed as it were of a single hill or rising ground--_oen-druim_--the one-ridged island. It is now corrupted into Mahee Island from the name of its holy founder, which still survives in the mouth of the 'stranger'

though its origin is quite forgotten. The island contains about 170 acres of land, and is situated not more than a quarter of a mile from the western sh.o.r.e of Strangford Lough, anciently known as Lough Cuan. The saint built his monastery and church on the very summit of the ridge, which rises to about the height of sixty feet, and commands a fine view of the far-reaching inland sea, whose western marge especially is studded with pleasant islets and bordered by many a gra.s.sy down and fertile field, rich, when we saw them, with the promise of abundant harvests. The original edifice was, as we gather from a story in the saint's life, constructed of wood, which he helped to hew down himself and carry on his own shoulders. The later buildings, however, were of stone, and the church--for many centuries a cathedral church--was 58 feet long by 22 wide. Only its foundations can now be traced; but the castle on the summit of the hill, and the outer concentric earthworks that were thrown up to protect it, can still be seen. During the Danish incursions it suffered much, and a small round tower was built as usual near the church's western door to afford an asylum to the monks. A small portion of it still remains.

Mochae was about the same age as Benignus, and it is not improbable that he founded his island monastery quite as early as St. Patrick founded the See of Armagh. Patronised as it doubtless was by St. Patrick, and presided over by one of his earliest disciples, Noendrum soon became a celebrated centre of sanct.i.ty and learning. Two very remarkable men received their education there--St. Colman of Dromore and St. Finnian of Moville. Of the latter we shall speak later on when we come to give an account of his own celebrated school at the head of Lough Cuan. The life of Colman, however, furnishes us with some interesting particulars concerning Noendrum and its monastic school.

Colman, like Mochae, was a native of the territory of Dalaradia, and in his youth was sent, we are told, by his parents to the blessed Caylan, otherwise called Mochae, the Abbot of Noendrum, that he might be trained in learning and virtue. The young man made great progress in his studies, and still more in the practice of all virtue, so that once when he had got his lesson by heart, and asked the holy abbot what he was to do next, the abbot replied: "Break up that rock which is in the way of the brethren when going to matins." Matins were recited before day dawned, and no doubt the rock was an obstacle in the darkness to the brethren when going from their cells to the church. Obedience is the first virtue of a monk, so Colman made the sign of the cross over the rock, and forthwith it split up in pieces. "Now, cast them into the sea," said the abbot, and Colman did so with the help of G.o.d's angels; and lo! the fragments were again united together into the great stone on the sea-sh.o.r.e before the monastery, which is still called Colman's Rock.