The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran Part 13

_The Stanza in VG._--This is in the metre known as _rannaigecht mor_, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 i 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 _Marchen_ 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 a.s.sociated with its victims as an act of self-abas.e.m.e.nt. 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. lx.x.xii, etc.). In incident x.x.xVII, 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 x.x.xVI 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.

cx.x.xviii) 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 Kiera.n.u.s, 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 grat.i.tude to him, said, 'And I,' said he, 'on behalf of G.o.d, 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 quaec.u.mque_, etc., presented him with it.

"Thine be half of Ireland!" said Colum Cille. It is worth pa.s.sing 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 _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 _Marchen_, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 quant.i.ty 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 subst.i.tuting a saint for a druid. On the cursing propensities of Irish saints see Plummer, VSH, i, pp. cx.x.xv, clxxiii. A curse said to have been p.r.o.nounced 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 h.e.l.l 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.