Part 8
He it is who never put tasty food or heady drink into his body, from the time when he embraced the religious life. He it is who never drank milk or ale, till a third of it was water. He it is who never ate bread, till a third part of sand was mixed with it. He it is who never slept save with his side on the bare ground. Beneath his head was never aught save a stone for a pillow. Next his skin never came flaxen or woollen stuff.
A man with choice voluntary full offerings to the Lord, like Abel son of Adam. A man with zealous entreaties to God, like Enoch son of Jared. A steersman full-sufficient for the ark of the Church among the waves of the world, like Noah son of Lamech. A true pilgrim with strength of faith and belief, like Abraham son of Terah. A man loving, gentle, forgiving of heart, like Moses son of Amram. A man patient and steadfast in enduring suffering and trouble, like suffering Job. A psalmist full-tuneful, full-delightful to God, like David son of Jesse. A dwelling of true wisdom and knowledge like Solomon son of David. A rock immovable whereon is founded the Church, like Peter the apostle. A chief universal teacher and a chosen vessel for proclaiming truth, like Paul the apostle. A man full of the grace of the Holy Spirit and of chastity, like John the breast-fosterling.
A man full of likeness in many ways to Jesus Christ the Head of all things. For this man made wine of water for his folk and his guests in this city, as Jesus made choice wine of water at the feast of Cana of Galilee. This man is called "son of the wright," as Christ is called "Son of the wright" in the Gospel (_hic est Filius fabri_, that is, of Joseph). Thirty-three years in the age of this man, as there are thirty-three years in the age of Christ. This man arose after three days in his bed in Cluain to converse with and to comfort Coemgen, as Christ arose after three days from the grave in Jerusalem, to comfort and strengthen His mother and His disciples.
So for these good things, and for many others, is his soul among the folk of heaven. His remains and relics are here with honour and renown, with daily wonders and miracles. And though great is his honour just now in this manner, greater shall be his honour in the holy incorruptible union of his body and his soul in the great assembly of Judgment, when Saint Ciaran shall be judge of the fruit of his labour along with Christ Whom he served. So shall he be in the great assembly, in the unity of holy fathers and prophets, in the unity of apostles and disciples of the Saviour Jesus Christ, in the unity of the nine grades of angels that have transgressed not, in the unity of the Godhead and Manhood of the Son of God, in the unity nobler than every other unity, the Unity of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I beseech the mercy of the Lofty Omnipotent God, by the intercession of Saint Ciaran, that we may reach that unity. May we dwell there, _in saecula saeculorum!_
[Footnote 1: Following the reading _córdus_ in the _Leabhar Breac_ text of the Homily from which this section is an extract, instead of the unintelligible _comhlud_ of the MSS. of the _Life_.]
[Footnote 2: This Latin extract in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 3: In this paragraph the less corrupt Brussels text is followed. In the original the Latin passages, here printed consecutively, are interspersed sentence by sentence with the Irish translation here rendered into English.]
[Footnote 4: This is the apparent sense of the passage: the MSS. are here corrupt.]
[Footnote 5: Only the first two words of this extract in the Lismore MS. The Brussels MS. erroneously repeats _reg[i]mina_ after _Diuulgata_.]
[Footnote 6: The last two words in the Brussels MS. only, which also adds "of the Elements" after "Lord," two lines further down.]
[Footnote 7: Following the Brussels MS.: the Lismore text is here again corrupt.]
[Footnote 8: The bracketed words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 9: The bracketed words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 10: The bracketed words represent the sense of a passage that has evidently dropped out of the MSS.]
[Footnote 11: _Sic_ MSS.: we should read "Iustus."]
[Footnote 12: The Lismore text is slightly imperfect in this paragraph: it is completed with the aid of the Brussels MS.]
[Footnote 13: This represents the sense of a passage that must have dropped out.]
[Footnote 14: _Ut dixit_ and the stanza following in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 15: Bracketed words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 16: In Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 17: Emending the _dia fhoglaim_ of the text ("as he was learning") to _dia fhognam_.]
[Footnote 18: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 19: "Apostle" in the Brussels MS.]
[Footnote 20: From "as is verified" to the end of the stanza in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 21: The Lismore MS. is here illegible: the rendering follows the Brussels MS.]
[Footnote 22: The Lismore MS. is here illegible: the translation follows the Brussels MS.]
[Footnote 23: The Brussels MS. adds "and may it be on thy cheek as thou goest to thy house."]
[Footnote 24: Bracketed words represent the sense of a passage evidently lost from the MSS.]
[Footnote 25: Literally "intoxication."]
[Footnote 26: In Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 27: The bracketed words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 28: The MSS. read "Findian."]
[Footnote 29: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 30: In this incident again it is necessary to follow the Brussels MS. in places, as the Lismore MS. is corrupt and unintelligible.]
[Footnote 31: Literally "'tis a drowning that shall drown this kiln."]
[Footnote 32: These words in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 33: In Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 34: This name in the Brussels MS. only.]
[Footnote 35: Here the Brussels MS. is corrupt.]
[Footnote 36: _Sic_ MSS. We should read "came from heaven,"]
* * * * *
ANNOTATIONS TO THE FOREGOING LIVES
I. THE HOMILETIC INTRODUCTION (VG)
The three Latin lives plunge _in medias res_ at the beginning; but VG prefixes an introduction borrowed from a Homily on _Charity_. The Irish text of this homily, with the original Latin, will be found printed from the fifteenth-century MS. called _Leabhar Breac_ ("The speckled book") in Atkinson's _Passions and Homilies_ (Dublin 1887). The text announced by the preacher is clearly suggested by incident XXII. It has already been shown in the Introduction, that this Life, with its homiletic preface, was a sermon written to be preached or read on the festival of the saint (9th September) at Clonmacnois.
The keynote of the Irish homily is struck in this first section. It is the work of some scholar of Clonmacnois, with a warm enthusiasm for the dignity of his _alma mater_. The sermon is as much a eulogy of Clonmacnois as of Ciaran. In the preacher's view, Clonmacnois is the chief and central church of Ireland, and the source of all ecclesiastical discipline in the country. Its founder excelled his fellow-saints as the sun excels the stars (§ 2). His pre-eminence was recognised by angels, who relieved him of labour when his turn came (§ 13): and on several occasions Findian showed a like favouritism (§§ 18, 20, _a_, _d_, 23). Clonmacnois was superior to the rival house at Birr (§ 20 _b_); and possessed in the hide of the Dun Cow an infallible passport to heaven (§ 20 _c_). The vision of the tree seen by Enda and by Ciaran prophesied the pre-eminence of Clonmacnois (§ 24). The other saints were envious of his renown and of the glory of his monastery (§ 40).
_The Hymn of Colum Cille._--Following the usual practice of Irish prose literary composition, the homilist intersperses his work throughout with verse extracts, appealed to as the authority for the various statements which he has occasion to make. In the present section he draws upon a hymn made by Colum Cille in honour of Ciaran. To this hymn, and to its surviving fragments, we shall return in commenting upon incident LI, where the composition of the hymn is alluded to.
_The Ante-natal Prophecies._--Patrick is said also to have prophesied the advent of Senan (LL, 1845)[1] and of Alban (CS, 505); and Becc mac De that of Brenainn (LL, 3343). But the parallels drawn between the Life of Ciaran and that of Christ have made such prophecies especially appropriate in the present case.
The prophecy of Saint Patrick took place under the following circumstances (VTP, p. 84 ff.).[2] The leper whom, in accordance with a custom frequent in early Irish monasticism, Patrick is said to have maintained--partly for charity and partly for self-abasement--departed from Patrick when the latter was on the holy mountain of Cruachan Aigli (Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo). He made his way to the then empty site of Clonmacnois, and sat in the split trunk of a hollow elm tree. A stranger made his appearance, and the leper, having assured himself that he was a Christian, requested him to uproot a bundle of rushes and to give him in a clean vessel of the water that would burst forth. Then the leper begged of the stranger to bring tools for digging, and to bury him there; and he was the first dead man to be buried in Clonmacnois. Now after this had taken place, the nephew of Patrick, Bishop Muinis, chanced to be benighted on the same spot, when returning from a mission to Rome on which the apostle had sent him. There were angels hovering over the leper's grave, and thus Muinis recognised it as the burial-place of a man of God. He deposited the relics which he was bearing back from Rome, for the night, in the hollow elm; but he found in the morning that the tree had closed upon them, and that they could not be recovered. In sorrow for their loss, he related the event to Patrick, and for his comfort he was told that a Son of Life--to wit Ciaran, son of the wright--was destined to come thither, and that he would need the relics. These relics are mentioned in VG 41, though "Benen and Cumlach" [the leper] are there said to have left them, not Muinis. From this reference we learn that they were attributed to Saints Peter and Paul.
It is quite clear that this curious story has reached us in a fragmentary and expurgated form, and that if we had the whole narrative before us it would afford us an indication that Clonmacnois was the site of an earlier, Pagan, sanctuary. It will most probably be found to be an invariable rule that the early Christian establishments in Ireland occupy the sites of Pagan sanctuaries; the monastery having been founded to re-consecrate the holy place to the True Faith. The hollow elm was doubtless a sacred tree; the well which miraculously burst forth was a sacred well: the buried leper may have been a foundation sacrifice, like Oran on Iona. The old pre-Christian name of the site is suggestive--_Ard Tiprat_, "the high place of the [holy] well." By no stretch of language can the site of Clonmacnois be called physically high; as in the stanza quoted in VG 30, the word _Ard_ must be used in the sense of distinguished, eminent, or sacred.
Of the prophecy attributed to Brigit there appears to be no record in any of her numerous _Lives_: nor can I identify with certainty the story of "the fire and the angel." There were "Crosses of Brigit" at Armagh;[3] but as there were probably many other crosses throughout the country dedicated to this popular saint we cannot infer that Armagh was the scene of the prophecy.
Becc mac De was chief soothsayer to King Diarmait mac Cerrbeil. Very little is certainly known of him; most of the traditions relating to him consist of tales of his remarkable gift of foretelling the future--tales similar to those related of the Covenanter Alexander Peden in Scotland, or of the seventeenth-century Mayo peasant Red Brian Carabine.[4] He died in or about the year A.D. 555 (the annalists waver between 552 and 557); and the _Annals of Clonmacnois_ tell us that he began to prophesy in 550. As Ciaran is said to have died in 548, the statement that Becc mac De foretold his coming is anachronistic. The prophecy here attributed to him does not appear in the list of prognostications attributed to him (given in the MS. Harleian 5280, British Museum, edited in _Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie_, ix, 169), or in _Leabhar Breac_, p. 260, where some further particulars about him are given.
I have ventured to emend the passage regarding Becc mac De slightly, restoring the verse form which the prophecy seems to have had originally. As it appears in the _Lismore Lives_ printed text it is given in prose; an insignificant transposition of the words, and the taking of the word _andsin_ out of the inverted commas is all that is necessary.[5] In the rendering in the text an attempt is made to reproduce to some extent the elaboration of alliteration, but the end-rhymes and the vowel-assonances cannot be imitated without sacrificing the sense. The metre resembles that known as _mibhasc_ (four-syllable and six-syllable lines alternating, but with trisyllabic rhyme in the short lines).
The person to whom Colum Cille uttered his prophecy was Aed mac Brenainn, Prince of Tethba (Teffia), the region comprising various baronies in the modern Co. Westmeath and part of Co. Longford. This Aed gave Dermag (Durrow) to Colum Cille a few years before the latter's departure for Scotland. There is, however, no record of the prophecy in the lives of Colum Cille; probably his visit to Clonmacnois from Durrow is in the writer's mind. Ard Abla, identified by O'Donovan with Lissardowlin, Co. Longford, was in the territory of Tethba. The Lismore scribe has written the name of Aed's father incorrectly (Brandub); the correction ("or Brenainn") is a marginal note.
II. THE ORIGIN AND BIRTH OF CIARAN: THE WIZARD'S PROPHECIES (LA, LB, LC, VG)
_The Pedigree_ (VG).--The pedigree in VG traces Ciaran's descent from Tigernmas, fabled to have reigned in Tara 3580-3657 _Anno Mundi_ (1620-1543 B.C.).[6] Through Tigernmas the line is traced to Mil of Spain, the eponymous ancestor of the "Milesians," or Celtic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland.
There is another pedigree, totally different, which connects the saint, not with the Tara kings, but with those of the Ulaid or Ulster folk, through the dethroned Fergus who figures so prominently in the epic tale _Táin Bó Cualnge_. This pedigree appears in the _Book of Leinster_ (facsimile, pp. 348, 349) and _Leabhar Breac_ (facsimile, p. 16), the Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B 506, p. 154 _d_, and in the MS. in Marsh's Library containing LA, at the foot of the column where LA begins; with an added note stating that Ciaran was "of the true Ultonains of Emain": its authenticity is adopted by Keating (I.T.S. edition, vol. iii, p. 48). Correcting one copy with another this genealogy runs as follows--
Ciaran son of Coscrach son of Aislithe son of Beodan " Mesinsuad " Modruad " Bolcan " Mesinsulad " Follomain " Linned " Erce " Deoda " Corc " Erc (or Oscar) " Eochaid " Daig " Mechon " Corc " Cunneda " Nechtan " Fergus " Cass " Aed Corb " Ros " Froech " Aed Gnoe " Rudraige
Thus both genealogies claim a royal descent for the saint. This is an instance of a widespread policy, of which many traces are to be found in the old Irish Genealogies. The whole country was divided into territories of different clans, under which were subordinate and tributary septs. The latter bore the chief burden of taxation; and they were for the greater part composed of descendants of the aboriginal pre-Celtic tribes, who had been reduced to vassalage on the coming of the Celtic-speaking invaders (about the third or fourth century B.C.). When a tributary sept became strong enough to resist the pressure of these imposts, exemption was claimed by a sort of legal fiction, by which they were genealogically affiliated to the ruling sept. This practice led to the fabrication of spurious links, and even of whole pedigrees.
In point of fact several indications show that Ciaran belonged to a tributary sept, and was of pre-Celtic blood. These tributary septs were distinguished from their Celtic conquerors by social organisation, racial character, and probably still to some extent by religion and language. They had much the same position as the _perioeci_ in ancient Sparta. The following are the evidences of his pre-Celtic nationality--
(_a_) The tribal names of his parents (Latharna, Glasraige). There are two forms of tribal names in ancient Ireland; those consisting of two words, and those consisting of one. The first are in such formulae as "tribe of NN," "seed of NN" or the like--NN being the name of a more or less legendary ancestor. The second are either simple names which cannot be analysed, or else are derived from an ancestral name by adding the suffix _-rige_ or _-raige_. As a rule the names consisting of one word only are fundamentally pre-Celtic, or denote pre-Celtic septs, though in many cases they have been fitted with Celticising genealogies.
(_b_) The names of Ciaran himself and his brothers, and of one of his sisters. Donnan, Ciaran, Odran, Cronan are all diminutives founded upon colours--the little brown, black, grey, and tawny one. These indicate that the family was dark complexioned, which would also accord with a pre-Celtic origin. The Celts were fair, their predecessors dark. One of the sisters was called Pata, with an initial P. This is impossible in a Gaelic name.
(_c_) The subordinate position of Ciaran's father, and his liability to taxation. In the _Book of Leinster_ and, in part, in _Leabhar Breac_, after the genealogy, we read "He [_i.e._ Ciaran] was of one of the seven clans of the Latharna of Molt. His father was originally in slavery in Britain; he went thereafter to Ireland to Cenel Conaill [north of Co. Donegal], and after that to Connacht[7] to avoid a heavy tax, so that Ciaran was born at Raith Cremthainn in Mag Ai." LA describes Ciaran's father as "a rich man," and certainly the family seems to have been comfortably provided with cattle, the chief wealth of their time. In reference to his father's trade Ciaran is regularly called _mac in tsáir_, "son of the wright." The Rabelaisian extravaganza called _Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe_ ("The Adventures of the Burdensome Company") introduces Ciaran as himself practising smith's craft;[8] but no importance can be attached to so irresponsible a production. Analogous in this respect are the references to our saint in _The Adventures of Léithin_,[9] which also introduces Ciaran and his monks; but as Dr. Hyde points out in his edition, these are merely a kind of framework for the legend, and the story, though in itself extremely curious and interesting, tells us nothing about either Ciaran or Clonmacnois.
(_d_) The fact, specially mentioned in LA, that Ciaran was reared by his parents, not put out to fosterage as would have been done had he been of gentle birth.
(_e_) The pre-eminent position of Ciaran's mother in the home. The pre-Celtic tribesmen of Ireland, like their Pictish kinsmen in Scotland, were organised on the system of mother-right, in which property and descent and kinship are all traced through the maternal side of the ancestry. Throughout the _Lives_, Beoit is a cypher: the house and its contents and appurtenances are almost invariably treated as Darerca's property. Matriarchate usually implies exogamy, a man choosing his wife from a sept differing from his own; and the children are related to the mother's, not the father's kin. The male responsible for the education of the child is not so much the father as the maternal uncle. The law of exogamy was strictly followed in the case before us. Beoit comes from north-east Ulster; Darerca belonged to a family which drew its origin from the south-east of the present county Kerry, though she seems to have settled in Cenel Fiachach at the time when Beoit met her. Incidents VIII and X of Ciaran's Life are laid in that territory, which falls in with a tradition, presently to be noted, that the dwelling-place of the family of the saint was not Raith Cremthainn, but the place where the parents had first met--which would be an instance of the husband dwelling with the wife's people, as is frequent under the matriarchate. The Celtic authors of the _Lives_ have transferred the kinship of the son to the father's clan, in accordance with their own social system; but an older tradition has left an unmistakable trace in the confusion of the relationships of "father" and "uncle" in LA, §§ 9, 10.
It is possible that the prominence of the mother in the household, and Ciaran's birth away from his ancestral home as the result of a taxation, are specially emphasised because they offer obvious parallels with the Gospel story. The character of Darerca is, however, by no means idealised, as we might have expected it to be, had this been the chief purpose of the narrator.
_The Parents of Ciaran, their Names and Origins._--The name of Ciaran's father is variously Latinised in the Latin Lives. The Irish lives call him Beoit, a name analysed in the _Book of Leinster_, p. 349, into _Beo-n-Aed_, which would mean something like "Living Fire." The _-n-_ is inserted, according to a law of Old Irish accidence, because _áed_, "fire," is a neuter word. Thus arises the Latin form _Beonnadus_. By metathesis the name further becomes transformed to _Beodan_ or _Beoan_. The _Latharna_ were the people who dwelt around the site of the modern town of _Larne_, which preserves their name; Mag Molt ("the plain of wethers") is probably the plain surrounding the town. The _Aradenses_, to whom LB ascribes the origin of Beoit, were the people known in Irish record as _Dal n-Araide_, the pre-Celtic people of the region now called Antrim.
Dar-erca, "daughter of brightness" or "of the sky," was a common female name in ancient Ireland. The Glasraige to whom she belonged was a tribe with divisions scattered in various parts of Ireland. Irluachra was south-east Kerry with adjoining parts of Cork and Limerick. Of her poet grandfather Glas nothing is known.
It would perhaps be too far-fetched to see a hint at a mythological element in the traditions of Ciaran in the signification of his parents' names. Indeed, considering the _Tendenz_ of the Ciaran _Lives_, it is remarkable that there is no supernormal element in the account of the birth of this particular saint; supernatural births are almost a commonplace in Irish saints' lives as a rule.
The saint's own name is regularly spelt with an initial K or Q in the Latin texts, doubtless because Latin _c_ was pronounced as _s_ before _e_ and _i_ in mediaeval Ireland.