CHAPTER II.

SOUTH ALBIN GAELS—BRIGIT.

It has been usually taken too much for granted that the early Christian preachers of Britain and Ireland succeeded in fully Christianising the districts in which they laboured, and with which their names are associated. This is a very imperfect apprehension of the results of their efforts. No missionary of the cross could excel Patrick and Columba in their enthusiasm for work, in their devotion to the Gospel cause, and in their resolute attempt to conquer the whole land for Christ. Yet we find that their evangelisation of the races to which they were respectively sent was very incomplete. Patrick writes of the large numbers who were converted under his preaching, but there is no evidence that Christianity was universally adopted by the whole people. On the contrary it is clear that the Ardri, or chief king of Ireland, continued to be a Pagan during the whole period of the mission of Patrick. It was only in the year 513 that a Christian sovereign exercised rule for the first time from the throne of Tara. This was some time after the death of the apostle of Ireland, which occurred in 493.

While Patrick was labouring to lay the foundations of the Irish Church, spiritual decay appears to have crept over the heart of his own native church among the Gaels of Strathclyde. The poetic and literary flowering of this period we have in the person of the celebrated Brigit. In those who are familiar with the revivals and declensions of church life, as unfolded in history, such a decay can excite no surprise. In our own times, with all the rich aids of civilization and Christian literature, enkindling and preservative that we possess, we find that one generation of earnest believers in a district is frequently succeeded by an apathetic one. So the living church of Strathclyde from which Patrick went forth, was in a decadent condition when his name began to shine and burn brightly on the shores of Erin.

There were many causes that contributed to the weakening of this Gaelic Church of the Clyde valleys. The Roman arms had been withdrawn and all over the Romanised provinces political disintegration set in. Dependence on a foreign rule, and the enervating luxuries of more southern lands had not only paralysed the native manliness of the British races, but had also greatly emasculated the primitive Christianity of these islands. Indeed, in southern Britain the early Christianity became so completely extinguished that it had to be re-kindled from the north in the sixth and seventh centuries. The vigorous forces of the unconverted and unconquered tribes of the north were too powerful for a Church which had been accustomed perhaps to lean too much on the civil protection afforded by an alien power. It must not also be forgotten that those early Christians had literally no help to feed the flame of their devotion. The fragments even of the Scriptures that may have been in circulation could only have been in the hands of a very limited number; while the languages in which they were written were utterly unknown to the people, and there were no translations. When all this is remembered it becomes rather a matter of marvel that the sacred glow of Christian truth survived so long in some places after the personal life that kindled it ceased to be. Those were truly ages when Christian witnesses were, and had to be living epistles known and read of all men; for the personal life became practically the literature in which the gospel was heralded. So the strength of a Church depended mainly on the character and personality of the teachers.

But notwithstanding the deadening influences around and in the Gaelic Church of the Clyde districts subsequent to the period of Patrick’s mission, we still mark in the sixth century the rays of Gospel truth struggling there with the thick inclosing darkness of Paganism. One heroic figure emerges from the surrounding gloom. It is that of Kentigern, or Mungo, forever associated with the origin and rise of the powerful commercial metropolis of Glasgow. The traditions of his life abound with myths and marvels; while his name has been a rich and suggestive theme for the etymological fancy. From the romantic literature that has gathered around his name, we glean what appears to be recognised as generally accepted facts—that he was born at Culross, and that he died at Glasgow about 601-3. He had been the pupil of the famous St. Serf in the east in the northern boundaries of the Brythonic race with Gaels to the north of them. So he may have been a Highland or a Welsh Celt. One or other of the forms of his name has been resolved, apparently with equal ease, into either a Gaelic or a Welsh etymon. Perplexing or unsatisfactory as this undoubtedly is it yet may suggest an explanation. As happens in our own and other times his name would assume various forms according to the dialects or languages of the speakers and writers. The forms of his name, therefore, furnish no key as to the race of his fathers.

When Kentigern began his labours on the Clyde the church of St. Patrick’s people had lost much of its first love. Many of the Gaels themselves had also been driven westward under Brythonic pressure from the east and from the south. As Christian soldiers or Milesians some had sailed to the north of Ireland to find a home; others had drifted into Perthshire and Argyll, which at this period became the true “Gaidhealtachd,” or the “land of the Gael.” Kentigern strove devotedly to revive the drooping church. In his cold stone bed strewn with ashes on the classic banks of the Molendinar stream he cultivated the spirit of prayer; rehearsed the sacred strains of the psalmist; and warmed his spirit by visions of divine fellowship. In the local sovereign of the name of Morken he encountered much disagreeable opposition and sarcastic interpretation of the saint’s faith in a Providence. Kentigern virtually made an application for an ecclesiastical establishment and endowment of himself and his presbyter followers. King Morken received the application for temporalities in a spirit that would do no discredit to a statesman of modern times. He reminds the saint of his own popular saying: “Cast thy care upon the Lord and he will care for thee.” But argued the King further: “Now here am I, who have no faith in such precepts, who do not seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness; yet for all that, are not riches and honours heaped upon me?” The royal granaries were full, while the Christian saints were starving. How could he expect to believe in a Providence that thus arranged the possessions of men. The saint’s replies and interpretations proved unavailing with the royal sceptic, so broken in heart the holy man retired to his oratory to pray. His emotions were profoundly stirred; he began to weep. Then as the tears started in his eyes and coursed down his cheeks, so did the waters of the Clyde begin to rise and swell into a mighty flood, which at last overflowed around the royal granaries, carrying them down the stream, and leaving them stranded at the very door of the saint on the banks of the Molendinar. The sanctity of his youth and the faith of his mature years have been in this fashion richly attested by miraculous manifestations, according to his rather credulous biographer, Jocelyn.

The earnest and heroic labours of Kentigern were not confined to Strathclyde. We obtain glimpses of him beyond the Mounth among the northern Picts of Aberdeenshire, while his Christian fellow-worker and friend, Columba, was beginning to proclaim the gospel in Perthshire. In his latter days we find him in Wales where he founded the church of St. Asaph, and where he finally died, leaving behind him a name whose holy influence has shed lustre across the course of thirteen centuries.

Kentigern is peculiarly associated with the origin of Glasgow. In the armorial bearings of this city we have perpetuated, according to very remarkable legends, three remarkable miracles which were wrought by the holy man, and which it would be probably unfair to pass by without reference, considering that the sons of Gaeldom ever since have helped and shared so very specially in the prosperity of Glasgow. A pet robin redbreast, which belonged to the college over which St. Serf presided, is represented on a shield argent by a bird proper. This bird either through accident or mischief was torn to pieces among the students. When the president appeared to punish, young Kentigern, the best boy among them, was made the scapegoat. The pieces of the bird were thrown in his lap; but the hidden holiness of the boy was such that the creature gathered up his limbs, flapped his wings, and sang a joyous song on the approach of the holy master. On another occasion Kentigern found his fire extinguished by his enemies; so he was compelled to bring a tree from the frozen forest and breathe into it the breath of fire. The remembrance of this feat is preserved in the tree or branch which forms the crest. The figure of a fish, with the ring in its mouth, recalls the scriptural reference to the finding of a fish with the needed coin in its body. The biographer of Kentigern, Jocelyn of Furness, knew well how to enrobe his hero, with the help of the mythic accounts already developed, with those miracles which had served sacred ends in the lives of other saints at that period. Fishes with rings in their bodies had always been found on critical occasions.

This brief sketch, in connection with the lives of Patrick and Kentigern, of the Gaelic Christianity of Scotland in the fifth and sixth centuries, will help to show forth in clearer outlines the work of Columba. The spiritual forces that waved forth from Iona were certainly not the first that brought religious light to the land of the Gael. Nor were they so exclusively of Irish origin as they are represented to be. In eastern Gaeldom in Scotland Christianity had been already known. But in the course of the century which elapsed from the time of Patrick it had greatly decayed. Columba came to the west of Scotland to revive and to proclaim the faith afresh. He came back among his ancestral people from the midst of whom the gospel had been sent a century previously to Ireland. In Iona the religious centre of the land of the Gaels was simply removed further west and north. The Gaelic-speaking people themselves were drifting in the same direction towards the Atlantic. As they themselves were largely absorbed by the Brythons behind them, so they absorbed in their north-west progress those brave non-Aryan clans to whom they became the missionaries of the cross and the channels of letters. They extended the area of Gaeldom, and imposed their Christian and literary tongue on the conquered just as the Christian and more literary Latin had been previously imposed on many of their own ancestors. In the fourth century we mark gospel light in Strathclyde; in the fifth we see it kindling on the shores of Ireland; in the sixth it begins to burn from Iona.

It was among these South Albin Gaels at an early period that we mark the appearance of Brigit: the Mary of the Gael. There is no standard of Gaelic maintained in the orthography of this proper name. _Brigit_ is used here as one of the most ancient forms; as also to preserve a chronological harmony with the secondary significant title of “Mary of the Gael.” As we all know the present form of the name is _Bridget_ in English; but it has been so little talked of in later ages by Gaelic Highlanders that it becomes almost a serious matter for the majority of them even to spell it in Gaelic. It is only in the compound “_La-Fheill-Brighde_”—[Brìde] or _The Day of the Feast of Bridget_, and surname MacBride, that we are familiar with this female saintly name.

This by necessary phonological laws recalls _Brigid_, which in its turn reminds us of the more ancient orthography _Brigit_, which is adopted by Dr Stokes in his “Three Middle-Irish Homilies.” Other Irish scholars have spelt it _Brigid_, even when they are quoting from productions such as the poem ascribed to Brigit, found in the Burgundian Library, Brussels, headed thus:

_Brighitt_ (CCT.) [Brigid (Cecinet)].

The distinguished Stokes follows accurately the spelling of _Leabhar Breac_, _Brigit_. This is the form which we also find in “Cormac’s Glossary” compiled originally nearly a thousand years ago. The definition or explanation appended in Cormac’s work is suggestive and instructive. “Brigit i.e. a poetess, daughter of the Dagda (doctus?). This is Brigit the female sage, or woman of wisdom, i.e. Brigit the goddess whom poets adored, because very great and very famous was her protecting care. It is therefore they call her goddess of poets by this name. Whose sisters were Brigit the female physician [woman of leechcraft]; Brigit the female smith [woman of smithwork]; from whose names with all Irishmen a goddess was called Brigit.” To this Dr Stokes adds that the “name is certainly connected with the Old Celtic goddess-name _Brigantia_ as possibly with the Skr. Brhaspati and O. Norse Bragi.” p. 23. This gives us a glimpse of a “female smith”; a “female physician”; and a “female saint” (sanct Brigit) rolled into one, and that one a goddess of Indo-European connections.

With these lofty associations and suggestions clinging to the name of Brigit we almost find it difficult to descend to the regions of ordinary earthly womanhood; and recognize in her a mere Gaelic Christian maiden. Her name has never been absolutely dissociated from the realm of myth, or rather _mythus_; but at the same time we cannot help regarding her as a historical character. Her name became celebrated very early wherever the Gaelic folks did congregate. We find her name associated with King Nectan of Albin, and with a church founded in her honour at Abernethy. So her fame was not confined to the Gaelic regions of Erin. That illustrious Scot, Patrick, a native of the district of Strathclyde, is supposed to refer to her in his confession, where he says, “There was one blessed Scottic maiden, very fair, of noble birth, and of adult age, whom I baptized; and after a few days she came to me, because, as she declared, she had received a response from a messenger of God desiring her to become a virgin of Christ, and to draw near to God. Thanks be to God, on the sixth day from that, she with praiseworthy eagerness seized on that state of life which all the virgins of God likewise now adopt.” These notices help to bring us nearer what Carlyle calls the “actual Air-Maiden, incorporated tangibility and reality,” whose electric glance has fascinated the Gaelic world. It could not be expected that the date of the birth of Brigit would be preserved; but when she became a woman of consequence in the Gaelic or Scottic world her movements began to be marked. The accounts of the fabulous lives are very circumstantial; but sober-minded critics like O’Curry are fairly satisfied with two principal dates, and most reasonable folks will be the same. These two dates are Brigit’s advent at Downpatrick on the 17th of March, 493, A.D.; and her death in 525 A.D.

The historical and fabulous lives of Brigit suggest a few interesting questions which can only be hinted at in these remarks:—

1. Her conversion by the British Patrick to Christianity.

2. The probability that she belonged to a good British family who, in the days of the Roman occupation, crossed to the nearest Irish districts: (She is described as “of Kildare,” a county close to the eastern shore).

3. And that she was a woman of exceptional character or culture, which was possible in that century, under the perpetuated influences of the Roman occupation.

That she and her people, like Patrick himself, were recent immigrants to Ireland from Roman and Christian Britain, there cannot be any serious doubt.

These may be the possible or probable facts ascertainable relating to the life of the Mary of the Gael. But around them has been woven a very interesting body of Gaelic literature which was loved and cherished and cultivated for upwards of a thousand years.

We have two ancient lives of Brigit, written on vellum; and these are regarded as the oldest; and are attributed to St. Ultán, whose death took place in the year 656. The _Liber Hymnorum_, a production of the eleventh century is our authority for the information that the “Life and Acts of St. Brigid of Kildare, were collected and written by St. Ultán,” who was her successor in her church, as Adamnan was that of Columba in Iona.

The two lives referred to are found in the _Lebar Breac_ and in the Book of Lismore. A life written within the last two hundred years on paper is also to be found in the Royal Irish Academy. Her life is generally associated with the lives of Patrick and Columba, as they also very appropriately are in “The Three Middle-Irish Homilies,” edited by Dr Whitely Stokes, (Calcutta; 1877). In one of the so-called prophetic poems, a Norse Chief Mandar, with a fleet, is represented as exhuming the body of Columba which was afterwards buried “in Downpatrick, in the same tomb with St. Patrick and St. Brigid.”

In the celebrated _Domhnach Airgid_, one of the most ancient relics of the old Gaelic civilization, we are presented with the _figure_ of Brigid.

Dr Petrie in his account of the relic says:—“The smaller figures in relief are, in the first compartment, the Irish saints Columba, Brigid, and Patrick.” Perhaps the most interesting relic associated with Brigit is “a very ancient crozier, said to have belonged to _St. Finnbarr_ (of Tormonbarry, in Connacht),—and believed to have been made by _Conlaedh_, the artificer of _St. Brigid_ of Kildare, early in the sixth century,” which is “now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.”.—_See O’Curry’s M.S. Materials._

In early ecclesiastical annals Brigit is thus on the same platform with Patrick and Columba in Gaelic Hagiology. True; her name is not found, for instance, in the Benchor Antiphonary; but her name is not unknown even in Latin Hymnology. The earliest Latin poem that recognizes her is a fragment of three stanzas, beginning with the letters X, Y, Z, respectively. It appears to have belonged to an A B C Darian hymn of a somewhat biographical nature.—[See _Anecdota_ etc., 1713: Leabhar Imuinn: Dublin, 1855-1869.] The following Latin lines give us the earliest conceptions of this “Mary of the Gael.”:—

Ymnus iste angelicae Summeque sanctae Brigidae Fari non valet omnia Virtutum miribillia Quae nostris nunquam auribus Si sint facta audivimus Nisi per istam virginem Mariae sanctae similem.

Of this the following English rendering may be given:— “This hymn, of the most angel-like and most saintly, Brigit is unable to speak of all the marvellous works of power, such as we have never heard of as been wrought, except through this virgin, like unto the Holy Mary.”

The prevalence of Brigit’s name in Gaelic Hagiology is not surprising, when we take into account her reputation for superior powers of knowledge and wisdom. And this exceptional distinction naturally suggests the question—Where could her superior learning have been obtained? The writer thinks that it can be clearly established that Brigit, like Patrick of Strathclyde, was a fruit of Ninian’s celebrated monastery of Rosnat. Indeed, there can be little doubt about this statement, although the question has not been either put or answered hitherto. Philology and history combine to make Brigit a native of that district known first as that of the Brigantes, afterwards Bernicia, and later as the Saxon Lowlands of Scotland. Professor Rhys thinks the folks of this district in Brigit’s time were Celtic and largely Cymric:—“Thus the term Bernicii would seem to have meant the people of the Brigantian land, which, in this case, was mostly that of the ancient Otadini, or Gododin of Welsh literature, together with a part probably of that of a kindred people, the Dumnonii.” According to the same learned authority _brigant_ is phonologically “the Gallo-Brythonic form of a common Celtic _brigant_, which, with the nasal suppressed, we have in the Irish name Brigit (for _Brigentis_ of the I declension), St. Bridget or Bride. On the whole then, Brigantes would seem to have meant the free men or privileged race as contrasted with the Goidelic inhabitants, _some of whom_ they may have reduced under them.”

The Gaelic entries in the Book of Deer give us the name of Brigit in compound forms, with which we are familiar. “Domnal mac giric 7 mal _brigte_,” (_Domnal_ son of Girec, _and Maelbrigte_). In the old Gaelic genitive this term is “moilbrigtae.” The Latin rendering has been “calvus Brigittae;” similar to this is again “Servus Brigittae,” or “Gillabrìghde,” as found in the Four Masters, A.D. 1146. And it ought not to be forgotten that as Columba’s name has been perpetuated in that of the Clan Calum so has that of Brigit in Gaelic Scotland been preserved in the name of MacBride.

We have thus traced all that is actually known of Brigit in philology and authentic history. But it is in poetry and fabulous biography that her figure becomes haloed over with the interest of romance and the veneration of ages.

Brigit herself was regarded as a poetess, and as we have already seen, a MS. in the Burgundian Library has preserved a poem attributed to her. This poem was probably the production of a Gaelic bard of “the time of Aengus” _Ceile De_; but the ascription of it to Brigit recalls her poetic reputation; while its sentiments reveal some of the inward life of the old Gaelic Church of Ireland and Scotland. The first stanza runs thus in the original:—

“Ropadh maith lem corm-lind mór. Do righ na righ, Ropadh maith lem muinnter nimhe Acca hòl tre bithe sir.”

_English_:

I should like a great lake of ale For the King of the Kings; I should like the family of heaven To be drinking if through time eternal.

I should like the viands Of belief and pure piety; I should like flails Of penance at my house.

I should like the men of Heaven In my own house; I should like kieves Of peace to be at their disposal.

I should like vessels Of charity for distribution; I should like caves Of mercy for their company.

I should like cheerfulness To be in their drinking; I should like Jesus Too, to be here (among them).

I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown; I should like the people Of heaven there from all parts.

I should like that I should be A rent-payer to the Lord: That should I suffer distress, He would bestow upon me a good blessing.

This production is peculiarly Celtic; and is remarkable in its freedom from the growth of superstition which characterised the Latin Church of the time. But it must not be supposed that the old Gaelic Church was free from an external growth of a superstition of its own. Indeed it set up rather a hagiology of its own in opposition to that of Rome, so keen, like all the true Scots that its members were, was its love of spiritual independence. Patrick, Columba, and Columbanus, became its _Papae_, or Papes, and Brigit herself its Virgin,—celebrated as the “Mary of the Gael.”

Brigit was a very great and saintly personage to several of the authors of the Gaelic Hymns in the _Liber Hymnorum_. Ultán of Ard Breccain, who is said to have died in A.D. 656, composed a special “Hymn in praise of Brigit,” whose extravagant sentiments and poetic power are but inadequately manifest in the following translation:—

Brigit, excellent woman, A flame golden, delightful, May (she), the sun dazzling splendid Bear us to the eternal kingdom! May Brigit save us Beyond throngs of demons! May she overthrow before us Battles of every disease! May she destroy within us Our flesh’s taxes, The branch with blossoms, The mother of Jesus! The true virgin, dear, With vast dignity: May we be safe always, With my Saint of the Lagenians! One of the pillars of the Kingdom, With Patrick the pre-eminent, The garment over _liga_, The Queen of Queens! Let our bodies after old age Be in sackcloth: With her grace may Brigit Rain on us, save us!

In Colman’s Hymn she is as usual associated with “Patron Patrick with Erin’s saints around him.” The blessing pronounced on the sacred person of Brigit runs thus:

A blessing on Patron Brigit With Erin’s virgins around her: Let all give—a fair story— A blessing on Brigit’s dignity.

The chief poetic tribute to Brigit’s name is ascribed to Broccán Cloen, who flourished about A.D. 500. The first verse in the original runs thus:

Nicar brigit buadach bith Siasair suide eoin inailt Contuil cotlud cimmeda Indnòib arecnairc ammaicc.

_English_:

Victorious Brigit loved not the world: She sat at a seat of a bird on a cliff: The holy one slept a captive’s sleep Because of her Son’s absence.

The bard then proceeds to describe her virtues in more than two hundred lines of rich and glowing language.

She was not a carper, she was not vile, She loved not vehement woman’s ear: She was not a serpent violent, speckled: She sold not God’s Son for gain.

We are told that it was in a “good hour MacCaille set the veil on Saint Brigit’s head.” The poet concludes his hymn of praise with the consolatory reflection:—

There are two nuns in heaven, Whom I rely on for my protection, Mary and Saint Brigit: Under the protection of them both be we!

The life of Brigit printed by Dr Stokes from the Lebar Brecc, a manuscript of the fifteenth century, occupies about eighteen printed pages. Like Adamnan’s life of Columba it is largely taken up with legends and traditional memories of miracles. Here is a specimen of this standard Gaelic of the 15th century:

Fecht and dorothlaig araile bannscal iressach codubthach condigsead brigit lea amuig life. arbói comthinól senaid laigen and.

The passage beginning with this sentence is translated thus:

Once upon a time a certain faithful woman asked Dubthach that Brigit might go in with her into the plain of the Liffey, for a congregation of the Synod of Leinster was held there. And it was revealed in a vision to a certain holy man who was in the assembly, that Mary the Virgin was coming thereto, and it was told him that she would not be (accompanied) by a man in the assembly. On the morrow came the woman to the assembly, and Brigit along with her. And he that had seen the vision said “This is the Mary that I beheld!” saith he to Brigit. The holy Brigit blessed all the hosts under the name and honour of Mary. Wherefore Brigit was (called) “the Mary of the Gael” thenceforward.

The last sentence in the original is as follows:—

Conidhi brigit muire nangædel ósin ille.

Dr Stokes points out how this life of Brigit furnishes a good “example of the way in which heathen mythological legends became annexed to historical Christian saints.” He shows how the story of Brigit, in many of its recorded incidents, belonged originally to the myth or ritual of some goddess of fire. In proof of this the following incidents in the life are referred to: Brigit was born at sunrise; and her name, in cognate Sanskrit _Bhargas_ is associated, it is thought, with fire. Her birth takes place neither within nor without a house. She is bathed in milk. Her breath revives the dead. A house in which she is staying flames up to heaven. Cowdung blazes in her presence. Oil is poured on her head. The milk she is fed with comes from a white, red-eared cow. A fiery pillar is seen rising from her head. Her wet cloak is supported by sun-rays. And while she remains a virgin, she is yet described as one of the two mothers of Christ the Anointed One.

Other authorities have described her as having perpetual ashless fire, which was watched by twenty nuns, of whom she herself was one, blown by fans or bellows only, and surrounded by a hedge, within which no male could enter.

Various other interesting allusions, illustrative of the ancient institutions of Gaeldom, are made in this life, such as the purchase and sale of slaves, mulcts, (_eric_), witchcraft, dowry. We are also reminded that leprosy once existed in Ireland; that Gaels practised ale-brewing; that jewellery was in use; and that wattling was employed for buildings.

But further discussion of these matters must be left to a future volume. In the meantime, the writer’s best wishes for all who hear of the name of Brigit, are that they may all be endowed with the moral beauty, goodness, and dignity, which have been assigned to the godly _Mary of the Gael_.

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