Columba the Protector of Sailors and Agriculturists, the Friend of Laymen, and the Avenger of the Oppressed
His univeral solicitude and charity during all his missionary life. — The sailor-monks: seventy monks of lona form the crew of the monastic fleet their boats made of osiers covered with hides. — Their boldness at sea the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. — Columba's prayer protects them against sea monsters. — Their love of solitude leads them into unknown seas, where they discover St. Kilda, Iceland, and the Faroe Isles. — Cormac in Orkney, and in the icy ocean. — Columba often accompanies them: his voyages among the Hebrides. — The wild boar of Skye. — He subdues tempests by his prayer: he invokes his friend St. Kenneth. — He is himeelf invoked during life, and after his death, as the arbiter of winds. — Filial complaints of the monks when their prayers are not granted. — The benefits which he conferred on the agricultural population disentangled from the maze of fables: Columba discovers fountains, regulates irrigations and fisheries, shows how to graft fruit trees, obtains early harvests, interferes to stop epidemics, cures diseases, and procures tools for the peasants. —His special solicitude for the monkish laborers: he blesses the milk when
180 K Scitote quod nullus ultra Alpes compar illi in cognitione Scripturarum divinarum et in magnitudine scientiie reperitur.,.. Numquid ille sapientior est quara sanctus Columba nutricius illius? Ille enim non tam sapientibus litteratis, sed patriarchis et prophetis Dei et apostolis magis comparandus est.... Vera humilitas Christi robustissime in eo regnat, tanquam a natura ei hsereret.... Cum hoc testimonium vir sanctus in medio sapientura proferret.... Ille enim sapiens cum sapientibus, rex cum regibus, anachoreta cum auachoretis, et monachus cum monachis... et pauper corde cum pauperibus." — Act. S. Bolland., voL ii. June, p. 238. it is brought from the cow: his breath refreshes them on their return from harvest. — The blacksmith carried to heaven by his alms. — His relations with the layman whose hospitality he claims: prophecy touching the rich miser who shuts his door upon him. — The five cows of his Lochaber host. — The poacher's spear. — He pacifies and consoles all whom he meets. —His proplietic threats against the felons and reivers. — Punishment inflicted upon the assassin of an exile. — Brigands of royal blood put down by Columba at the risk of his life. — He enters into the sea up to his knees to arrest the pirate who had pillaged his friend. — The standard-bearer of Caesar and the old missionary.
During all the rest of his life, which was to pass in his island of lona, or in the neighboring districts of Scotland which had been evangelized by his ^ unwearied zeal, nothing strikes and attracts the historian so much as the generous ardor of Columba's gj.* 7/1?®'°'^' charity. The history of his whole life proves that he was born with a violent and even vindictive temper; but he had succeeded in subduing and transforming himself to such a point that he was ready to sacrifice all things to the love of his neighbor. It is not merely an apostle or a monastic founder whom we have before us — beyond and beside this it is a friend, a brother, a benefactor of men, a brave and untiring defender of the laborer, the feeble, and the poor: it is a man occupied not only with the salvation but also with the happiness, the rights, and the interests of all his fellowcreatures, and in whom the instinct of pity showed itself in a bold and continual interposition against all oppression and wickedness.
Without losing the imposing and solemn character which always accompanied his popular fame, he will now be revealed to us under a still more touching aspect, through all the long succession of his apostolic labors, and in the two principal occupations — agriculture and navigation— which gave variety to his missionary life.
For navigation alternated with agriculture in Maritime the labors of the conobitos of lona. The same l,',onks"of monks who cultivated the scanty fields of the holy island, and who reaped and threshed the corn, accompanied Columba in his voyages to the neighboring isles, and followed the sailor's trade, then, it would seem, more general than now among the Irish race.^^i Communication was then frequent, '*' " Lugbeus quadam ad Sanctum die post frugnm veniens triturationem.... Idem simul cum sancto viro ad Caput Regionis (Cavtyre) pergens, uauclerum et nautas adventantis barcae interrogans." — Ai)A3ikan, i. 28. not only between Ireland and Great Britain, but between
Ireland and Gaul. We have already seen in the port of
Nantes an Irish boat ready to carry away the founder of Luxeuil.1^2 The Gaulish merchants came to sell or offer their wines as far as to the centre of the island, to the Abbey of Clonmacnoise.^^3 In the life of our saint, seafaring populations,^^'^ are constantly spoken of as surrounding him, and receiving his continual visits; and exercises and excursions are also mentioned, which associate his disciples with all the incidents of a seafaring life. As a proof of this we quote four lines, in very ancient Irish, which may be thus translated:—
" Honor to the soldiers who live at lona
There are three times fifty under the monastic rule,
Seventy of whom are appointed to row,
And cross the sea in their leathern barks."
Boats of These boats were sometimes hollowed out of the ed'with^^"^" trunks of trees, like those which are still found hides. buried in the hogs or turf-mosses of Ireland; but most generally they were made of osier, and covered with buffalo-skins, like those described by Ca^sar.^^^ Their size was estimated by the number of skins which had been used to cover them. They were generally small, and those made of one or two skins were portable. The abbot of lona had one of this description for the inland waters when he travelled beyond the northern hills {dorsum Britannice), which he crossed so often to preach among the Picts.^^*^ At a later
'"' Vol. i. p. 5G7. " Navis quae Scotorum commercia vexerat," says the biography of St. Columbanus.
''*^ Vita S. Kiarani, c. 31, cited by Reeves, p. 57.
184 " Nautte, navigatores, remiges, nautici."
185 li Corpus navium viminibus contextual coriis integehatur." — Bell, Civil., i. 54.
" Primum cana salix, madefacto vimine, parvam Texitur in puppim caesoque induta juvenco."
LucAN, iv. These boats were called in Celtic Curach, from which comes curriica or currica in monkish Latin. These osier canoes are still in use, under the name of coracle, in the Welsh seaports. They are composed of a light construction of willow lathes, covered either with skin or with tarpaulin. After their day's work the fishers put the coracle to dry, and, taking it on their backs, carry it to their cottage door. This has been seen by M. Alphonse Esquiros at Caermarthen. — Revue des Deux Mondes, loth February, 1865.
186 u Mitte te in navim unius pellis.... Carabum ex duobus tantum coriis et demidio factum.... Nunc, nunc celerius nostram quam ultra rivum naviculam posuistis in domum, hue citius advehite, et in viciuiore domuncula ponite." — Adamnan, 1. 34. period the community possessed many of a much larger size, to convey the materials for the reconstruction of the primitive monastery at lona, and the timber which the sons of Columba cut down and fashioned in the vast oak forests which then covered the whole country, now so sadly deprived of wood. They went like galleys, with sail or oar, and were furnished with masts and rigging like modern boats. The holy island had at last an entire fleet at its disposal, manned and navigated by the monks.^^''
In these frail skiffs Columba and his monks Tf,eir boidploughed the dangerous and stormy sea which uessatsea. dashes on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, and penetrated boldly into the numberless gulfs and straits of the sombre Hebridean archipelago. They knew the perils to which their insular existence exposed them; but they braved those dangers without fear, accustomed as they were to live in the midst of storms,^-^ upon an isle which the great waves of ocean threatened continually to swallow up. Not less alarming was their position when the winds carried them towards the terrible whirlpool, named after a prince of the Niall family, who had been drowned there, the Caldron of Brechan, and which there was always a risk of being driven upon while crossing from Ireland to Scotland. The winds, when blowing from certain directions,
'" This passage of Adamnan is very important for the history of the primitive Celtic navigation. " Cum dolatae per terram pineae et roboreae traherentur longae trabes et magna navium paritcr et doraus materia evehereniur.... Ea die qua nostri nautae, omnibus prseparatis, supra memoratarum ligna materiarum proponunt scaphis per mare et curucis trahere.... Per longas et obligas vias tota die properis tiatibus, Deo propitio famulantibus, et plenis sine ulla retardatione velis, ad lonam insuhim omnis ilia navalis emigratio prospere evenit.'" — ii. 45. The words in italics are the text given by the Bollandists {Ada Sanctorum, Junii, vol. ix. p. 275), which seems to us preferable to that of the MS. followed by Dr. Reeves. There is here question of three kinds of boats: naves, scaphee, and curucce; and it is evident that there must have been a workshop on the island for the building of the larger vessels, because great logs of wood were carried there destined to be employed in the building of boats as well as for the monastic buildings. In another passage (Ahamnax, ii. 35), a transport boat, onerai'ia navis, is spoken of, manned by monks, and laden with osiers, which the abbot Columba had sent for to a neighboring property: " Virgarum fasciculos ad hospitium construendum."
\*ii I' ])je fragosaj tempestatis et intolerabilis undarum magnitudinis.... Quis, ait (sanctus), hac die valde ventosa et nimis periculosa, licet breve, fretum prospere transnavigare potest?" — Adamnan, i. 4. This recalls the lines of the poet—
"Quid rigor aeternus coeli, quid frigora possunt,
Ignotumque fretum?"
Claudian, in Consulat. III. Ilonor., v. 54. 7* • hollow out in their whirl such terrible abysses about this spot, that even to our own time it has continued the terror of sailors. The holiest of Columba's guests passed it by with trembling, raising their hands towards heaven to implore the miracle which alone could save them.i^^ But he himself, who one day was almost swallowed up in it, and whose mind was continually preoccupied by the recollection of his kindred, imagined that he saw in this whirlpool a symbol of the torments endured in purgatory by the soul of his relative who had perished at that spot, and of the duty of praying for the repose of that soul at the same time as he prayed for the safety of the companions of his voyage.i^o Columba's Columba's prayers, his special and ardently desired blessing, and his constant and passionate intercession for his brethren and disciples, were the sfa-mon-^^ grand safeguard of the navigators of lona, not only against wind and shipwrecks, but against other dangers which have now disappeared from these coasts. Great fishes of the cetaceous order swarmed at that time in the Hebridean sea. The sharks ascended even into the Highland rivers, and one of the companions of Columba, swimming across the Ness, was saved only by the prayer of the saint, at the moment when he was but an oar's length from the odious monster, which had before swallowed one of the natives.i^i The entire crew of a boat manned by monks took fright and turned back one day on meeting a whale, or per-
189 u j^unc in undosis Charybdis Brecani jEStibus valde periclitatur, ambasque ad coelurn, in prora sedens, palmas elevat." Adamnan, i. 5. "Est vorago periculosissima marina, in qua, si qua navis intrat, non evadit." —Vita Sandi Kiarani, apud Reeves, 263. Compare Giraldus Cambrensis, Topogr. IlibernicB, ii. 41. Walter Scott has not omitted this spot in his poetical itinerary—
" I would
That your eye could see the mood Of Corryvreckan's whirlpool rude,.
When dons the Hag her whitened hood.... And Searba's isle, whose tortured shore
Still rings to Corryvreckan's roar."
It must be remarked that as the name of Scotia has been transferred from Ireland to Scotland, the name of the abyss so feared by the sailors of lona has also been transferred to the whirlpool which tourists see in the distance between the isles of Scarba and lona, in the much-frequented route from Oban to Glasgow.
'^^ " Ilia sunt ossa Brecani cognati nostri, quae voluit Christus ita nobis ostendi, ut pro defuncti refrigerio, ac pro nostro a praesenti periculo liberatione simul apud Dominum intercedamus." — O'Donnell, ii. 21, apud Col- GAN, p. 434.
'" Adamnan, ii. 27. haps only a shark more formidable than its neighbors: but on another occasion, the same Baithen who was the friend and successor of Columba, encouraged by the holy abbot's blessing, had more courage, continued his course, and saw the monster bury itself in the waves. " After all," said the monk, " we are both in the hands of God, both this monster and I." 192 Other monks, sailing in the high northern sea, were panic-struck by the appearance of hosts of unknown shellfish, which, attaching themselves to the oars and sides of the boat, made holes in the hide with which the framework was covered.i^'^
It was neither curiosity nor love of gain, nor,
,., ^ f, 1 • 1 !• The love of even a desire to convert the pagans, which stimulated Columba's disciples to dare all the dangers of f,^t"o\m-''"° navigation in one of the most perilous seas of the world; it was the longing for solitude, the irresistible wish to find a more distant retreat, an asylum still further off than that of lona, upon some unknown rock amid the loneliness of the sea, where no one could join them, and from which they never could be brought back. They returned to lona without having discovered what they were in search of, sad yet not discouraged; and after an interval of rest always took to sea again, to begin once more their ofst.Kncia, anxious search.^^'* It was thus that the steep and almost inaccessible island of St. Kilda,^'^'^ made famous
1'* " Ecce cetus mirae et immensae magnitudinis, se instar montis erigens, ora aperuit patula niinis dentosa.... Remiges, deposito velo, valde perterriti... illam obortam ex belluino motu fluctuationem vix evadere potuerunt.... Cui Baitheneus: Ego et ilia bellua sub Dei potestate sumus.... JEquor etcetum, anibabiis manibuselevatis, benedicitintrepidus.... Bellua magna se sub fluctu immergens... nusquam apparuit." — Adamnan, i. 19. Up to the eighteenth century whales frequented these parte, and they have been seen to capsize fishing-boats. — Martin's Westej-n Islands, p. 5. The whales have disappeared, as have also the seals, which as late as 1703 supplied food to the Hebridean islands. The Monastery of lona kept a flock of them in a neighboring island: " Parvara insulam ubi marini nostri juris vituli gcnerantur et generant." A robber attempted to take them away, but sheep were given up to him in preference." — Adamnan, i. 42.
'"^ " Quaidam, usque in id temporis invisie mare obtcgcntes occurrerant tetraj et infestaj nimis bestiola) quae horribili impetu carinam et latera, puppimque et prorani ita forti ferebant percussura, ut pelliceuni tectum navis penetrale putarentur penetrare posse. Prope ranarum magnitudincm aculeis permolestae, nan volatiles, sed natatiles, sed et remorum palmulas infestabant." Adamxan, ii. 42.
194 " Desertum in pelago intransmeabili invenire optantes." — Adamnan, ii. 42. " Baitheneus... benedici a sancto petivit cum ceteris, in mari cremum qua;.«iturus, post longos per ventosa circuitus aequora, ercrao non reperto, in patriam reversus." — Jbid., i. 20.
"* Several religious buildings of a very early date, and a church dedicated by the daring of its bird-hunters, was first discovered; then far to the north of the Hebrides and even of the Orcades, they reached the Shetland Isles, and even, according to some, Iceland itself, which is only at the distance of a six days' voyage from Ireland, and where the first Christian church bore the name of St. Coluraba. Another of their discoveries Avas the Faroe Islands, where the Norwegians at a later date found traces of the sojourn of the Irish monks, Celtic books, crosses, and bells.^^^ Cormac, the boldest of these bold explorers, made three long, laborious and dangerous voyages with the hope, always disappointed, of finding the wilderness of which he dreamed. The first time on landing at the ork-^ Orkney he escaped death, with which the savage in- "^^*' habitants of that archipelago threatened all strangers, only by means of the recommendations which Columba bad procured from the Pictish king, 'himself converted, to the still pagan king of the northern islanders.^^'^ On another occasion the south wind drove him for fourteen successive
to St. Columba, were to be found in St. Kilda as late as 1758. The inhabitants of the island, though Calvinists, still celebrated the saint's day by carrying all the milk of their dairies to the governor or fiirmer of the isle, which belonged then to a chief of the clan Macleod. This farmer distributed it in equal portions to every man, woman, and child in the island. —See History of St. Kilda, by Kenneth Macaulay. This islet, which is the most western spot in Europe, is celebrated for the exploits of the birdcatchers, who are suspended by long cords over perpendicular cliffs. It has scarcely eighty inhabitants. The site of the chapel called that of Columba is still shown, with a cemetery and some medicinal and consecrated springs. St. Coluniba's day is still observed by the people.
'^^ Landnamabok, ap. Antiq. Celto-Scand,, p. 14. Dicuil, who wrote in 705, states that a hundred years before the Faroe Islands had been inhabited by ''eremites ex nostra Scotia naviganies." — Ed. Letronne, p. 39. Compare Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 101, and Lanigan, Eccles. History of Ireland, c. 8, p. 225, where the question of the first discovery of Iceland is thoroughly investigated.
197 " Brudeo regi, praisenti Orcadum regulo, commen davit dicens: Aliqui ex nostris nuper emigraverunt, dcsertum in pelago intransmeabili invenire optantes, qui si forte post longos circuitus Orcades devenerunt insulas, huic regulo cujus obsides in manu tua sunt, diligenter coninienda... et propter supradictam S. viri commendationem, de morte in Orcadibus liberatus est vicina." — Adamnan, ii. 42. This passage will recall that of Ariosto, where he places in the Hebrides the scene of Olympia's deliverance by Roland, and attributes to the inhabitants of these islands the habit of exposing their women to sea monsters: —
" Per distrugger quell' isola d'Ebuda
Che di quante il mar cinge ^ la piu cruda.
Voi dovete saper ch'oltre I'lrlanda,
Fra molte, die vi son, I'isola giace
Nomata Ebuda, che per legge manda
Rubando intorno il suo popol rapace."
Orlando Furioso, ix. 11-12. days and nights almost into the depths of the icy ocean, far beyond anything that the imagination of man had dreamed of in those days,^^^
Columba, the father and head of those bold and pious mariners, followed and guided them by bis ever vigilant and prevailing prayers. He was in some respects present with them, notwithstanding the distance which separated them from the sanctuary and from the island harbors which they had left. Prayer gave him an intuitive knowledge of the dangers they ran. He saw them, he suffered and trembled for them; and immediately assembling the brethren who remained in the monastery by the sound of the bell, offered for them the pVayers of the community. He implored the Lord with tears to grant the change of wind which was necessary for those at sea, and did not rise from his knees until he had a certainty that his prayers were granted. This happened often, and the saved monks, on returning from their dangerous voyages, hastened to him to thank and bless him for his prophetic and beneficent aid.^^^
Often he himself accompanied them in their voyages of circumnavigation or exploration, and paid many visits to the isles of the Hebridean archipelago dis- agesTmi covered or frequented by the sailors of his commu- other h*-^^ nity, and where cells or little colonies from the great
\>^i^^^^ island monastery seem to have existed. This was specially the case at Eigg, where a colony of fifty-two monks, founded and ruled by a disciple of the abbot of lona, were killed by pirates twenty years after his death.^oo This 19S u Cormacus, qui tribus non minus vicibus eremum in Oceano laboriose quajsivit, nee taraen invenit." — Adamnan, i. 6. " Postquam a terris per infinitum Oceanum plenis enavigavit vclis... usque ad mortem periclitari coepit. Nam cum ejus navis a terris per quatuordecim sestivi temporis dies, totidemque noctes, plenis velis, austro flante vento, ad septentrionalis plagam coeli directo excurreret cursu, ejusmodi navigatio ultra huniani excursus modum et irremeabilis videbatur." — Jbid., ii. 42.
199 u ]^a(]g,^^ hora et sanctus noster, quamlibet longe absens corpore, spiritu tamen praesens in navi cum Cormaco erat. Unde... personante signo fratres ad orationom convocant.... Ecce enim nunc Cormacus cum suis nautis.... Christum intentius precatur: et nos ipsum orando adjuvemus.... Et post orationem cito surgit, et abstergens lacrymas... quia Dominus austrum nunc in aquilonarem convertit fiatum, nostros de periculis commembres retrabentem, quos bic ad nos iterum reducat." — Adamnan, ii. 42.
*"" The tragedy of Eigg, which took place in 617, deserves special mention. According to Irish annals, St. Donnan, the founder of the community, was the friend and disciple of Columba. Desirous of finding a more solitary retreat, he established himself with some companions in the island in Eigg. which was then inhabited only by the sheep of the queen of the country (many of the islets near Staffaare at present used as pasture). The queen, was a favorite spot which he loved to visit, no doubt to enjoy the solitude which was no longer to be found at lona, where the crowds of penitents, pilgrims and petitioners increased from day to day. And he took special pleasure also in Skye, the largest of the Hebridean isles, which, after the lapse of twelve centuries, was recalled to the attention of the world by the dangerous and romantic adventures of Prince Charles-Edward and Flora Macdonald. It was then scarcely inhabited, though very large and covered by forests, in which he could bury himself and pray, leaving even his brethren far behind him. One day he met an immense wild boar pursued by dogs; with a single word he killed the ferocious brute, instead of protecting it as in similar cases the saints of the Merovingian legends were so ready to do.^oi jJq continued during all the middle ages the patron of Skye, where a little lake still bears his name, as well as several spots, and monuments in the neighboring isles.202 While sail- Storms often disturbed these excursions by sea, ^^^ ^^^^'^ Columba showed himself as laborious and bold as the most tried of his monastic mariners. When all wore engaged in rowing, he would not
informed of this invasion of her territory, commanded that all should be killed. When the murderers arrived on the island it was the eve of Easter, and mass was being said. Donnan begged them to wait until mass was over. They consented, and when the service was at an end the monks gave themselves up to the sword. According to another version the queen or lady of the soil sent pirates (latrones) to kill them. They were surprised singing psalms in their oratory, from whence they went into the refectory, in order that they might die where the most carnal moments of their life had been passed. There were fifty-two of them. This is the version given by the Bollandists, vol. ii. April, p. 487. As if by the special blessing of these martyrs, this isle was still Catholic in 1703, and St. Donnan was venerated. Martin's Journey to the Western Islands, p. 279.
*°' " Cum in Scia insula aliquantis demoraretur diebus, paulo longius solus, orationis intuitu, separatus a fratribus, silvam ingressus.... Venatici canes.... Ulterius hue procedere noles: in loco ad quem devenisti morere." — Adamnan, ii. 26.
*°^ This lake has been drained by Lord Macdonald, the present proprietor of the island. The memory and name of Columba are distinctly to be found at Eilea Naombh, where a well which he had hollowed in the rock, and the tomb of his mother JEithne, are still shown; and also at Tiree, so often mentioned by Adamnan under the name of Te^-ra Ethice. In all the bleak islands of the western coast of Scotland, and especially of the district of Lorn (Argyllshire), there are sculptured crosses of curious and varied forms, tombstones, ruined chapels, buildings of coarse construction and singular shape, Druidical stones, and churches more or less ancient, almost always dedicated to Columba. These are carefully described in a small volume with engravings, which has been published anonymously by Thomas Muir, a Leith merchant, entitled The Western Islands; Edinburgh, 1861. remain idle, but rowed with them.-'^s yy-g jjg^^g g^^^ him brave the frequent storms of the narrow and dangerous lakes in the north of Scotland.^'^^ At sea he retained the same courageous composure in the most tempestuous weather, and took piart in all the sailors' toils. During the voyage which he made from lona to Ireland, to attend with King Aldan the parliament of Drumceitt, his vessel was in great danger; the waves dashed into the boat till it was full of water, and Columba took his part with the sailors in baling it out. But his companions stopped him. " What you are doing at present is of little service to us," they said to him " you would do better to pray for those who are about to perish." He did so, and the sea grew calm from the moment when, mounting on the prow, he raised his arms in prayer.
With these examples before them, his companions naturally appealed to his intercession whenever storms arose during any of his voyages. On one occasion he answered them, " It is not my turn; it is the holy abbot Kenneth who must pray for us." Kenneth was the abbot of a monastery in Ireland, and a friend of Columba's who came often to lona to visit him. At the very same hour he heard the voice of his friend echo in his heart, and, warned by an internal voice, left the refectory where he was, and hastened to the church to pray for the shipwrecked, crying, " We have something else to do than to dine when Columba is in danger of perishing at sea." He did not even take the time to put on both his shoes before he went to the church, for which he received the special thanks of his friend at lona j^os an incident which recalls another Celtic legend — that of the bishop St. Paternus, who obeyed the call of his metropolitan with a boot ujDon one foot only.206
*"* Vita S. ComgcUi, ap. Colgak, p. 458.
^"^ See ante, p. 5L ^''^ " In mari periclitari ccepit; totura namque vas navis, valde concussum, magnis undarum cumulis fortiter ferebatur. Nauta; turn forte sancto sentinani cum illis exhaurire conanti aiunt: Quod nunc agis non niagnopere nobis proficit pcriclitantibus, exorare potius debes pro pereuntibus. Et intentans prccetn... aquam cessat aniaram cxinanire... dulcein fundere coepit. Saiva nimis insistente et periculosa tempestato: Hac in die non est nieum pro vobis in pcriculo orare, sed est abbatis Cainnachi sancti viri.... Spiritu revelante sancto, supradictam sancti Columbaj interiore cordis aure voceni audiens.... Non est tcmpus prandcre quando in mari periciitatur navis sancti Columba;.... Nunc valde nobis proficit tuus ad ecclesiam velox cum uno calceamento cursus." — Adamnajt, ii. 12, 13.
*"* Vol. i. p. 472. Cainnach or Kenneth, a saint very popular in Scotland, whose name has been borne by several Scottish kings, was abliot of Aghaboe, in the diocese of Ossory. Born about 517, he died in GOO, and
Under all these legendary digressions it is evident that the' monastic apostle of Caledonia, apart terotthe^' from the prevailing efficacy of his prayers, had made an attentive study of the winds and of all the phenomena of nature which affected the lives of the insular and maritime people whom he sought to lead into Christianity. A hundred different narratives represent him to us as the Eolus of those fabulous times and dangerous seas. He was continually entreated to grant a favorable wind for such or such an expedition; it even happened one day that two of his monks, on the eve of setting out in two different directions, came to him to ask, the one a north wind, and the other a south wind. He granted the prayer of both, but by delaying the departure of the one who was going to Ireland until after the arrival of the other, who went only to the neighboring isle of Tiree.2^''
Thus it happened that from far and near Columba was invoked or feared by the sailors as the master of all the winds that blew. Libran of the Rushes, the generous penitent whose curious history has been already recorded, wishing to return from Ireland to lona, was turned back by the crew of the boat which was leaving the port of Derry for Scotland, because he was not a member of the community of lona. Upon which the disappointed traveller mentally invoked across the sea the help of his absent friend. The wind immediately changed, and the boat was driven back to land. The sailors saw poor Libran still lingering upon the shore, and called to him from the deck, " Perhaps it is because of thee that the wind has changed; if we take thee with us, art thou disposed to make it once more favorable? " " Yes," said the monk; "the holy abbot Columba, who imposed upon me seven years of penitence, whom I have obeyed, and to whom I wish to return, will obtain that grace for you." And the result was that he was taken on board, and the journey was happily accomplished.^o^
left his name to the neighboring islet of Inch-Kenneth, near lona, which was visited by Johnson.
*'^'' " Simul unanimes postulant ut ipse a Domino postulans impetraret •prosperum crastina die ventum sibi dari diversa emigraturis via." — Adamnan, ii. 15.
''"^ " Clamitans de litore rogitat ut ipsum nautae cum eis susciperent navigaturum ad Britanniam. Sed ipsi refutaverunt euni, quia non erat de monachis sancti Columbae.... Videntes virum... secus flumen cursitantem ... ad ipsum de navi clamitantes.... Qui statira, rate ascensa: In nomine Oranipotentis, ait, cui sanctus Columba inculpabiliter servit, tensis rudentibus, levate velum." — Adamnan, ii. 39.
These events took place in his lifetime; but during at least a century after his death he remained the patron, always popular and propitious, of sailors in danger. A tone of familiar confidence, and sometimes of filial objurgation, may be remarked in their prayers, such as may be found among the Celts of Armorica and the Catholic nations of the south of Europe. Adamnan confesses that he himself and some other monks of lona, embarked in a flotilla of a dozen boats charged with oaken beams for the reconstruction of the monastery, were so detained by contrary winds in a neighboring island that they took to accusing their Columba. " Dear saint,"
they said to him, " what dost thou think of this delay? We
thought up to this moment that thou hadst great favor with God." Another time, when they were detained by the same cause in a bay near the district of Lorn, precisely on the vigil of St. Columba's day, they said to him, " How canst thou leave us to pass thy feast to-morrow among laymen, and not in thine own church? It would be so easy for thee to obtain from the Lord that this contrary wind should become favorable, and permit us to sing mass in thy church! " On these two occasions their desires were granted; the wind changed suddenly, and permitted them to get to sea and make their way to lona in those frail boats whose spars, crossing upon the mast, formed the august symbol of redemption. More than a hundred witnesses of these facts were still living when the biographer of our saint wrote his history .209
This tender and vigilant charity, which lent itself to all the incidents of a sailor's and traveller's life, becomes still more strongly apparent during all the phases of his existence, in his relations with the agricultural population, whether of Ireland, which was hia cradle, or of his adopted country Caledonia. Amid the fabulous legends and aprocryphal and childish miracles with which Irish historians have filled out the glorious story of the great missionary ,21*^ it is pleasant to -"'' " Quodam modo quasi accusare nostrum Columbam coepiiuus.... Placetne tibi, sancte, liajc nobis adversa rctardatio? line usqiie a tc, Deo propitio, aliquod nostroruni laborum speravimus consolationum adjumentura, le asstimantes alicujus esse grandis apud Deum bonoris.... Placetne tibi, sancte, crastinam tua; tVstivitatis inter plebeios et non in tua ecclesia transijjere diem?... tui natalis niissarum solernnia celebremus.... Proinde nrantcs nautae vela subrigunt... turn nautic antennas, crucis instar, et vela protensis sublevans rudentibus, prosperis et lenibus ventis eadem die appetentes insulam." — Adamnan, ii. 45.
^'° The pious Franciscan Colgan, who has included in his collection of Acta Sanctorum HihernicB (unhappily incomplete) so many fables, has, notbe able to discover the unmistakable evidence of ^lis intelligence and fruitful solicitude for the necessities, the labors, and the sufferings of the inhabitants of the rural districts, and his active intervention on their behalf. When the legend tells us how, with one stroke of his crosier, he made fountains of sweet waters spring in a hundred different corners of Ireland or Scotland, in arid and rock)'- districts, such as that of the peninsula of Ardnamurchan; ^n when it shows him lowering, by his prayers, the cataracts of a river so that the salmon could ascend in the fishing season, as they have always done since, to the great benefit of the dwellers by the stream.^i^ we recognize in the tale the most touching expression of popular and national gratitude for the services which the great monk rendered to the country, by teaching the peasants to search for the fountains, to regulate the irrigations, and to rectify the course of the rivers, as so many other holy monks have done in all European lands.
It is equally apparent that he had with zeal and success established the system of grafting and the culture of fruit-
withstanding, omitted a crowd of incredible narratives which his predecessors had adopted. " Nonnulla... tanquam ex monumentis vel apocryphis, vel ex rerum forte vere gestorum nimia exaggeratione speeiem fabulffi prseferentibus, consulte omittenda duximus.... Quia nobis apparent vel exegetum vel librariorum (qui miris mirabiliora immiscuerunt) licentiis et commentis ita essa depravata ut solum fiibularum speeiem prseferant." Trias Thaumaturga, p. 441. The Bollandists protested with still greater energy, and repeatedly, against the fables which they, nevertheless, thought themselves obliged to reproduce. " Vitse hujus auctor aliquid habere videtur de genio Hibernico, cui solet esse perquam familiare, ambulare in mirabilibus, in rebus, inquam, supra fidem prodigiosis, ne dicam portentosis." — Vol. iii. August, p. 658. Compare the same volume, p. 742, and vol. ii. July, p. 241, and 299.
211 "Tergemino pedi in terram ictu, tergeminos fontes erumpere fecit."—O'DoNNELL, book i. c. 86; Adamnan, i. 12, ii. 10.
^^' " Columba ratus eam fluminis sterilitatem a prsdicta cataracta derivari, et in commune vergere accolarura dominorumque ejus ditionis damnum, fiuvium benedixit, rupique in Christi nomine jussit tantum subsidere quantum opus esset ut pisces ultro citroque libere commearent. Paruit confestim sancti viri imperio prcefracta rupes et... facta est deraissior, ut exinde et confluentium illuc piscium, prsesertim vero salmonum (quorum et frequentissima et copiosissima ab eo tempore per universum fluvium fit captura) ascensui non obsistat, et nihilominus subjecto vertici adeo promineat, ut videatur a naturalibus contra impetuose ruentis fluvii ictum, magis sancti viri merito, quam innata agilitate conscendi." — O'Donnell, Vita Quinta, book ii. c. 92. The river here spoken of is the Erne, a river of Ulster, which throws itself into the sea after having crossed the two great lakes called Lough Erne. In recollection of this benefit the historian tells us that all the produce of the fisheries on St. Columba's day was left for the coarb— that is to say, for the abbot, who held the first rank among the successors of the saint in the monasteries he had founded. trees, when we read the legend which represents him to us, at the beginning of his raonastic career in Durrow, the most ancient of his foundations, approaching, in autumn, a tree covered with sour and unwholesome fruit, to bless it, and saying, " In the name of Almighty God, let thy bitterness leave thee, bitter tree, and let thy apples be henceforward as sweet as up to this time they have been sour! " ^13 _^t other times he is said to have obtained for his friends quick and abundant harvests, enabling them, for example, to cut barley in August which they had sown in June — a thing which then seemed a miracle, but is not without parallel in Scotland at the present time.^^^ Thus almost invariably the recollection of a service rendered, or of a benefit asked or spontaneously conferred, weds itself in the legend to the story of miracles and outbursts of wonder-working prayer—which, in most cases, were for the benefit of the cultivators of the soil: it is evident that he studied their necessities and followed their vicissitudes with untiring sympathy.
In the same spirit he studied and sought reme- ^.^^ ^^^^ dies for the infectious diseases which threatened at^ainst life, or which made ravages among the cattle of the ^^^' '^™"'^' country. Seated one day upon a hillock in his island, he said to the monk who was with him, and who belonged to the Dalriadian colony, " Look at that thick and rainy cloud which comes from the north; it has within it the germs of a deadly sickness; it is about to fall upon a large district of our Ireland, bringing ulcers and sores upon the body of man and beast. We must have pity on our brethren. Quick, let us go down, and to-morrow thou shalt embark and go to their aid." The monk obeyed, and, furnished with bread which Columba had blessed, he went over all the district smitten by the pestilence, distributing to the first sick persons he met, water, in which the bread blessed by the exiled abbot, who concerned himself so anxiously about the lot of his countrymen, had been steeped. The remedy worked so weU, that *'* " Quaedam arbor valde pomosa... de qua cum incolse loci quoddam haberent pro nimia fructus amaritudine queriiuonium.... Vident lignum incassum abundos habere fructus qui ex eis gustantes plus liederent quam delectarent. ... In nomine omnipotentis Dei, omnis tua amaritudo, o arbor aniara, a te recedat; tua hue usque amarissima nunc in dulcissima vertantur poma.... Dicto citius eodemque momento, omnia poma ... in miram versa sunt dulcedinem." Adamnan, ii. 2. "Arborem plenam fructu qui erat lioniinibus inutllis praj nimia amaritudine," it is said in a similar legend told of another Irish saint, MochoOnoroc. —Ap. Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Jlibernifs, p. 592.
^'* New Statistical Account, quoted by Reeves, p. 459. from all parts both men and beasts crowded round the messenger of lona, and the praises of Christ and his servant Columba resounded far and wide.^is
Thus we see the saint continually on the watch for those evils, losses, and accidents which struck the families or nations specially interesting to him, and which were revealed to him either by a supernatural intuition or by some plaintive appeal. Sometimes we find him sending the blessed bread, which was his favorite remedy, to a holy girl who had broken her leg in returning from mass; sometimes curing others of ophthalmia by means of salt also blessed; everywhere on his evangelical journeys, or other expeditions, we are witnesses of his desire, and the pains he took, to heal all the sick that were brought to him, or who awaited him on the roadside, eager, like the little idiot of Clonmacnoise, to touch the border of his robe — an accompaniment which had folloAved him during the whole course of his journey to the national assembly of Drumceitt.^i^
His entire life bears the mark of his ardent sympathy for the laborers in the fields. From the time of his early travels as a young man in Ireland, when he furnished the ploughmen with ploughshares, and had the young men trained to the trade of blacksmith,^!^ up to the days of his old age, when he could only follow far off the labor of his monks, his paternal tenderness never ceased to exercise on their account its salutary and beneficent influence. Seated in the little wooden hut which answered the purpose of a cell, he interrupted his studies, and put down his pea, to bless the monks as they came back from the fields, the pastures, or the barns.
^'^ " Jlsec nubes valde nocua hominibus ct pecoribus erit... velocius transvolans super Scotiae portum... puruienta humanis in corporibus et in pecorum uberibus nasci faciet ulcera.... Sed nos eorum miserati subvenire languoribus, Domino raiserante, deberaus. Tu ergo, nunc mecum descendens, navigationeui prsepara crastina die.... Cujus rumor per toiam illam morbo pestilentiore vastatam regionem cito divulgatus, omnem morbidum ad sancti Columbis logatum invitavit populum... homines cum pecudibus salvati Cliristum in sancto Columba laudarunt." — Adamnan, ii. 7.
216 " Maugina, sancta virgo... ab oratorio post missam domum reversa titubavit.... Sorori et sueb nutrici profecturam quae ophthalniiaj laborabat valde gravi labore.... Diversorum languores intirmorum invocato Christ! nomine, sanavit ... ad regum pergens condictum in Dorsi Cete. Aut sanctae manus protensione... aut etiam fimbrias ejus taetu amphibali." —Adamnan, ii. 5, 6, 7, 35.
2" " Conquerentibus agricolis deesse ad arandum ferramenta, amissum aratri vomerem (restituit); juvenem quemdara... nunquani alias fabrilibus assuetum solo verbo protinus ferramcntorum fabrum effecit; qui mox ad sancti imperium pro colonis vomerem, cultrumque faberrime cudit." --" O'DoNNELL, Quinta Vita, i. 68.
The younger brethren, after having milked the cows oi the community, knelt down, with their pails fall of new milk, to receive from a distance the abbot's blessing, sometimes accompanied by an exhortation useful to their souls.^^'^ During one ofthe last summers of his life, the monks, of'ion^a'^'^" returning in the evening from reaping the scanty harvest of their island, stopped short as they preached the monastery, suddenly touched with strange emotion. The steward of the monastery, Baithen, the friend and future successor of Coluraba, asked them, " Are you not sensible of something very unusual here? " " Yes," said the oldest of the monks, " every day, at this hour and place, I breathe a delicious odor, as if all the flowers in the world were collected here. I feel also something like the flame of the hearth which does not burn but warms me gently; I experience, in short, in my heart a joy so unusual, so incomparable, that I am no longer sensible of either trouble or fatigue. The sheaves which I carry on my back, though heavy, weigh upon me no longer; and I know not how, from this spot to the monastery, they seem to be lifted from ray shoulders. What, then, is this wonder? " All the others gave the same account of their sensations. '' I will tell you what it is," said the steward; " it is our old master, Columba, always full of anxiety for us, who is disturbed to find us so late, who vexes himself with the thought of our fatigue, and who, not being able to come to meet us with his body, sends us his spirit to refresh, rejoice, and console us." ^^^ It must not be supposed, however, that he served his solicitude for his monastic laborers smtth caralone. Far from that, he knew how to appreciate venbyiiia" the work of laymen when sanctified by Christian ^^'°^^-
^'^ " Sedens in tuguriolo tabulis suffulto.... Juvenis ad januam tugurioli in quo vir beatus scribebat, post vaccarum reversus mulsionem, in dorso portans vasculum novo plenum lacte, dicit ad sanctum ut juxta morera tale benediceret onus." — Adamnan, i. 25, ii. 16, iii. 22.
219 <' Post messionis opera vcspcre ad monasteriurarodeuntes.... Quamdara rain odoris fragrantiam ac si universorura florum in unum scntio collectorum; quanquam quoque quasi ignis ardorcm, non poenalem, sed quodam niodo suavem; sed et quamdam in corde insuetam et incomparabilem infusani laetificationem, quaj nie subito consolatur et laitificat ita ut nullius nioeroris, nullius laboris mominisse possim. Sed et onus quod mco, quanquam grave, porto in dorso, ab hoc loco usque ad nionasterium, in tantum relevatur, ut me oneratum non sentiara.... Sic onines operarii sed singillatim profitentur.... Scitis quod senior noster Columba de nos anxie cogitet et nos ad so tardius pervcnientes ajgre ferat nostri nienior laboris, et idcirco quia corporuliter obviam nobis non venit, spiritus ejus nostris obviat gressibus, qui taliter nou consolans laetificat." — Adajinan, i. 37. virtue. " See," he said one day to the elders of the raonastery, " at this moment while I speak, such a one who was a blacksmith yonder in Ireland — see him, how he goes to heaven! He dies an old man, and he has worked; but he has not worked in vain. He has bought eternal life with the work of his hands; for he dispensed all his gains in alms; and I see the angels who are going for his soul." 220 jt will be admitted that the praise of manual labor, carried to a silly length in our days, had been rarely expressed in a manner so solemn and touching.
It is also recorded that he took pleasure in the uonsUtth society of laymen during his journeys, and lived whoiThos" among them with a free and delightful familiarity, This is ouo of the most attractive and instructive phases of his history. He continually asked and received the hospitality not only of the rich, but also of the poor; and sometimes, indeed, received a more cordial reception from the poor than from the rich. To those who refused him a shelter he predicted prompt punishment. " That miser," he said, " who despises Christ in the person of a traveller, shall see his wealth diminish from day to day and come to nothing; he will come to beggary, and his son shall go from door to door holding out his hand, which shall never be more than half filled." ^-^ When the poor received him under their roof, he inquired with his ordinary thoughtfulness into their resources, their necessities, all their little possessions. At that period a man seems to have been considered very poor in Scotland who had only five cows. This was all the fortune of a Lochaber peasant in whose house Columba, who Continually traversed this district when going to visit the king of the Picts, passed a night and found a very cordial welcome notwithstanding the poverty of the house. Next morning he had the five little cows brought into his presence and blessed them, predicting to his host thathe should soon have five hundred, and that the blessing of the grateful missionary should go down to his children and grandchildren— a prophecy which was faithfully
220 n paber ferrarius non incessum laboravit, qui de propria nianuum laboratione suarum prajmia felix comparuit aeterna. Ecce nunc anima ejus vehitur a Sanctis angelis ad coelestis patriae gaudia." — Adamnan, iii. 9.
*-' " De quodani viro divite tenacissimo... qui sanctum Colunibam despexerat nee eum hospitio receperat... et illius avari divitiaa. qui Christum in peregrinis hospitibus sprevit.,.. Ipse mendicabit, et filius cum semivacua de domo in domura perula discurret." — Jbid., ii. 20.
222 (( jjj(, Nesanus cum esset valde inops... hospitaliter et secundum
In the same district of Lochaber, which is still the scene of those great deer-stalking expeditions spear^tothe in which the British aristocracy delight, our saint was one day accosted by an unfortunate poacher, who had not the means of maintaining his wife and children, and who asked alms from him. '' Poor man," said Columba, " go and cut me a rod in the forest." When the rod was brought to him, the abbot of lona himself sharpened it into the form of a spear. When he had done this he blessed the improvised javelin, and gave it to his suppliant, telling him that if he kept it carefully, and used it only against wild beasts, venison should never be wanting in his poor house. This prophecy also was fulfilled. The poacher planted his blessed spear in a distant corner of the forest, and no day passed that he did not find there a hart or doe, or other game, so that he soon had enough to sell to his neighbors as well as to provide for all the necessities of his own house.^^
Columba thus interested himself in all that he saw, in all that went on around him, and which he could turn to the profit of the poor or of his fellow-creatures; even in hunting or fishing he took pains to point out the happy moment and most favorable spot where the largest salmon or pike might be found.224 Wherever he found himself in contact with the poor or with strangers, he drew them to himself and comforted them even more by the warm sympathy of his generous heart than by material benefits. He identified himself with their fears, their dangers, and their vexations. Always a peacemaker and consoler,
vires unius noctis spatio ministrasset... ab eo inquirit cujus boculas numeri baberet... quinque.... Ab hac die tuai pauca3 vacculfe crescent usque ad centum et quinque vaccarum numeruni. Nesanus homo plebcius erat cum uxore et fibis.... Vir sanctus, quadam nocte quuni apud supraniemoratum... inopem bene liospitarctur, mane primo de quantitate et qualitate substantia? plebeium liospitem interrogat." — Adamnan, ii. 2L The district of Lochaber, celebrated in the modern wars of Scotland, is situated upon the borders of the counties of Argyle and Inverness, on the way from lona to the residence of the Pictish king, and was consequently often crossed by Columba.
2'23 a i^iebeius pauperrimus, mendicus... quo unde maritam et parvulos cibarct non habebat quadam nocte.... Miselle honmncio, tolle de silva contulum vicina et ad me cujus defer.... Quern sanctus excipiens in vera exacuit propria manu, bcnedicens et illi assignans inopi.... Quamdiu talcm habobis sudem, nunquam in domo tua cervinee carnis cibatio abundans deerit. Miser mendiculus... valde gavisus... veru in remotis infexit terrulai locis, qua) silvestrea frcquentabant feraj... nulla transire poterat dies in quo non aut cervum aut cervam reperiret in veru infixo cecidisse." —Adamnan, ii. 37.
22^ Ibid., ii. 19. he took advantage here of the night's shelter given him by a rich mountaineer to end a dispute between two angry neighbors; 2-^ and there made a chance meeting in a Highland gorge with a countryman an occasion for reassuring the peasant as to the consequences of the ravages made in his district by Pictish or Saxon invaders. " My good man," he said, " thy poor cattle and thy little all have fallen into the hands of the robbers; but thy dear little family is safe — go home and be comforted.'' ^^Q
Such was this tender and gentle soul. His charity might sometimes seem to have degenerated into feebleness, so great was the pleasure he took in all the details of benevolence and Christian brotherhood; but let there appear an injustice to repair, an unfortunate individual to defend, an oppressor to punish, an outrage against humanity or misfortune to avenge, and Columba immediately awoke and displayed all the energy of his youth. The former man reappeared in a moment; his passionate temperament recovered the mastery— his distinctive character, vehement in expression and resolute in action, burst forth at every turn; and his natural boldness led him, in the face of all dangers, to lavish remonstrances, invectives, and threats, which the justice of God, too rarely visible in such cases, sometimes deigned to fulfil.
Among the many sufferers whom he found on his way, it is natural to suppose that the exiles, who were so numerous in consequence of the discords which rent the Celtic races, would most of all call forth his sympathy. Himself an exile, he was the natural protector of all who were exiled.227 He took under his special guardianship a banished Pict, of noble family, probably one of those who had received him with kindness, and listened to his teachings at the time of his first missions in Northern Caledonia. Columba confided, or, as
^^^ "In domo cujus plebeii divitis.... Fortgini nomine... ubi cum sanctus hospitaretur, inter rusticanos contendentes duos... recta judicatione judicavit." — Adamnan, ii. 17.
226 u ujjj^ j^jt^ habitas... tuam quam dicis provinciolam nunc barbari populantur vastatores. Quo audito, miser plebeius maritam at filios deplangere coepit. Valde mcerentem consolans inquit: Vade, homuncule, vade, tua familiola tota in montera fugiens evasit: tua vero omnia pecuscula... omnemque supellectilem cum praeda sajvi raptores rapuere." — Ibid., i. 46.
^-' " Alnius pater, exsulum et depressorum pius patronus," says Manus O'Donnell (b. ii. c. 3), who was at once the grandnephew and biographer of the saint, with a sentiment only too natural to a scion of one of those great Irish families which have always preferred exile and destitution to apostasy. the historian says, recommended, assigned in manum, according to the custom which came to be general in feudal times, his banished friend to a chief called Feradagh, who occupied the large island of Islay, south of lona, praying him to conceal his guest for some months among his clan and dependants. A few days after he had solemnly accepted the trust, this villain had the noble exile treacherously murdered, no doubt for the sake of the articles of value he had with him. When he received the news, Columba cried, '-It is not to me, it is to God, that this S'8^"'° wretched man, whose name shall be effaced out of the book of life, has lied. It is summer now, but before autumn comes — before he can eat of the meat which he is fattening for his table — he shall die a sudden death, and be dragged to hell." The indignant old man's prophecy was reported to Feradagh, who pretended to laugh at it, but nevertheless kept it in his mind. Before the beginning of autumn, he ordered a fattened pig to be killed and roasted, and even before the animal was entirel}^ cooked gave orders that part of it should be served to him, in order to prove, at the earliest possible moment, the folsehood of the prophesied vengeance. But scarcely had he taken up the morsel, when, before he had carried it to his mouth, he fell back and died. Those who were present admired and trembled to see how the Lord God honored and justified flis prophet ;228 and those who knew Columba's life as a young man recalled to each other how, at the very beginning of his monastic life, the murderer of the innocent maiden had fallen dead at the sound of his avenging voice.^^^
In his just wrath against the spoilers of the poor and the persecutors of the Church, he drew back before no danger, not even before the assassin's dagger.
^-^ " Quemdara de nobili Pictorum gcncre exsulera, in manum alicujus Feradaclii divitis viri... diligenter assignans oommendavit, ut in ejus comitatu, quasi unus de amicis, aliquos menses conversaretur. Quem cum tali commendatione de sancti manu viri commendatum suscepisset... trucidavit.... Non milii, sed Deo infelix liomunculus mentitus est, cujus nomen de libro vitae dclebitur.... Antequam de suilla degustct came arborco saginata fructu..,. Despiciens irrisit sanctum. Scrofa nucura impinguata nucleis jugulatur... de qua celeriter ex interita partem sibi in veru celerius assari praecipit, ut de ea impatiens preegustans beati viri propheta,tionem destrueret ... ad quam extonsam manum priusquam ad 03 converteret... mortuus retro in dorsum cecidit.... Valde trcmefacti, admirantes, Christum in sancto propheta honorificantes glorificaruut." —Adamnan, ii. 23.
^^* See ayite, page 8.
Among the reivers who infested Scottish Caledonia, making armed incursions into their neighbors' lands, and carrying on that system of pillage which, up to the eighteenth century, continued to characterize the existence of the Scottish clans, he had distinguished the sons of Donnell, who belonged to a branch of the family which ruled the Dalriadian colony. Columba did not hesitate to excommunicate them. Exasperated by this sentence, one of these powerful ill-doers, named or surnamed Lamm-Dess [Rigid-hand) took advantage of a visit which the great abbot paid to a distant island, and undertook to murder him in his sleep. But Finn-Lugh, one of the saint's companions, having had some suspicion or instinctive presentiment of danger, and desiring to save his father's life by the sacrifice of his own, borrowed Columba's cowl, and wrapped himself in it. The assassin struck him whom he found clothed in the well-known costume of the abbot, and then fled. But the sacred vestment proved impenetrable armor to the generous disciple, who was not even wounded. Columba, when informed of the event, said nothing at the moment. But a year after, when he had returned to lona, the abbot said to his community, " A year ago Lamm-Dess did his best to murder my dear Finn-Lugh in my place; now at this moment it is he who is being killed." And, in fact, the news shortly arrived that the assassin had just died under the sword of a warrior, who struck the fatal blow while invoking the name of Columba, in a fight which brought the depredations of these reivers to an end.^^*^
Some time before, another criminal of the same family, called Joan, had chosen for his victim one of the hosts of Columba, one of those poor men whom the abbot had enriched by his blessing in exchange for the hospitality which even in their poverty they had not refused. This poor man lived on the wild and barren peninsula of Ardnamurchan, a sombre mass which rises up out of the waves of the Atlantic, and forms the most western point of the Scottish mainland. The benediction of the missionary had brought him good fortune, as had been the case with the peasant of Lochaber, and his five cows, too, had multiplied, and were then more 2.i0 " In insula Himba commoratus.... Ille vero sceleratus, cujus nomen latine Manus dextera dicitur.... Usque in banc diem integratus est annus ex quo Lamm-Dess in quantum potuit Finn-Lugbum meum meo jugulavit vice; sed et ipse, ut aestimo, bac in bora jugulatur. In aliqua virorum utrinque acta belligeratione, Cronani filii Baitbani jaculo transfixus in nomine, ut fertur, sancti Columbae, emisso, interimit, et post ejus interitum viri belhgerare cessarunt."— Adamnan, ii. 24. than a hundred in number. Columba was not satisfied with merely enriching his humble friend, but gave him also a place in his affections, and had even bestowed upon him his own name: so that all his neighbors called him Cdumhain, the friend of St. Columba. Three times in succession, Joan, the princely spoiler, had pillaged and ravaged the house of the enriched peasant, the friend of the abbot of lona; the third time, as he went back with his bravos, laden with booty, to the boat which awaited him on the beach, he met the great abbot, whom he had supposed far distant. Columba reproved him for his esactious and crimes, and entreated him to give up his prey; but the reiver continued his course, and answered only by an immovable silence, until he had gained the beach and entered his boat. As soon as he was in his vessel he began to answer the abbot's prayers by mockeries and insults. Then the noble old man plunged into the sea, up to his knees, as if to cling to the boat which contained the spoils of his friend; and when it went off he remained for some time with his two hands raised towards heaven, praying with ardor. When his prayer was ended, he came out of the water, and returned to his companions, who were seated on a neighboring mound, to dry himself. After a pause he said to them, " This miserable man, this evil-doer, who despises Christ in his servants, shall never more land upon the shore from which you have seen him depart — he shall never touch land again. To-day a little cloud begins to rise in the north, and from that cloud comes a tempest that shall swallow him up, him and his; not one single soul shall escape to tell the tale." The day was fine, the sea calm, and the sk}' perfectly serene. Notwithstanding, the cloud which Columba had announced soon appeared; and the spectators, turning their eyes to the sea, saw the tempest gather, increase, and pursue the spoilers. The storm reached them between the islands of Mull and Colonsay, from whose shores their boat was seen to sink and perish, with all its crew and all its spoils.^^i
*^' " Columbanum, qnem de pauperc virtus benedictionis ejus ditem fecit, valdo diligebat.... Quidam malefactor homo, bonorum persecutor... prosequebatur sancti amicum Columbaj.... Accidit ut tertia vice... beatum virum, quem quasi longius positum despexerat, ad navem revertcns mccste obviam haberet.... Immitis et insuadibilis permanens... navimque cum praeda asccndens, beatum virum subsannabat et dcridebat. Quem sanctus ad mare usque prosccutus est, vitreasque intrans aquas usque ad genua ajquoreas, levatis ad coelum ambis manibus, Christum intente i)recatur.... Ilic miserabilis homuncio, qui Christum in suis despcxit servis, ad
We have all read in Csesar's Commentaries how, when he landed on the shores of Britain, the standard-bearer of the tenth legion threw himself into the sea, up to the knees in water, to encourage his comrades. Thanks to the perverse complaisance of history for all feats of force, this incident is immortal. Caesar, however, moved by depraved ambition, came but to oppress a free and innocent race, and to bring it under the odious yoke of Roman tyranny, of which, happily, it has retained no trace. How much grander and more worthy of recollection, I do not say to every Christian, but to every upright soul, is the sight offered to us at the other extremity of the great Britannic Isle, by this old monk, who also rushed into the sea up to his knees— but to pursue a savage oppressor, in the interest of an obscure victim, thus claiming for himself, under his legendary aureole, the everlasting greatness of humanity, justice, and pity!