The literature of the Highlanders

by Nigel MacNeill

INTRODUCTION.

“Forchubus caichduini imbia arrath inlebrán colli aratardda bendacht foranmain intruagáin rodscribai.”

Gaelic (Scot.) MS. of 9th Cent.

The Celts and the Teuton started westward from the cradle of the human race, spreading themselves over Europe; while other members of the same stock went eastward, extending themselves over wide tracts of Asia. From the Celts, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Teutons have sprung the chief nations in whose possession Europe still remains. It is interesting to think that the brothers who parted thousands of years ago, somewhere in teeming Asia, the one going east and the other west, are now meeting again on the plains of Hindostan. Their movements during those thousands of years have encircled the whole earth. Fiercely have they fought and disputed over every inch of the ground which one or other of their tribes at one time or other occupied. Theirs has always been the chief ruling power in the world. They begin to know one another again. From the extreme west of Europe, across the New World, the Anglo-Celt arrives in India and recognises the Hindoo as his brother.

The Aryans migrated into Europe in a somewhat advanced state of civilisation. According to Sayce their advent was from the north, a theory which subverts nearly all previously accepted opinions on the subject. Some of them, however, such as the Greeks first and the Romans afterwards, favoured by the maritime countries in which they settled, made more rapid progress than the others. It was largely their self-conceit that led the Greeks and Romans to describe all the nations beyond their bounds as “barbarian.” Our ancestors in these islands, whether Celtic or Teutonic, were never mere savages. They had a religion, if not radically the same, fully as enobling in its tendency as that of Greece and Rome. They evidently made some progress in the useful arts, while in the days of Rome’s greatest splendour they were in possession of military weapons which were not much inferior to her own. The form of government among the Celts was patriarchal, and this continued for a long time among the Gaels of Scotland. There was the king or chief, who was regarded as the father of the clan, tribe, or nation. With him was associated a council of chieftains or elders, and in important matters the mot of the whole people. But with all this political organisation they could not make such progress in civilisation as the Greeks and Romans, who mostly dwelt in cities. The Gaels who along with the Germans acted the part of pioneers on the plains of Europe, and living a rural life, could not compete successfully in the race for higher civilisation with the brother races who inhabited the maritime cities of Greece and Italy, and who, besides, obtained much of an earlier civilisation from Phœnicia and Egypt.

The early migrations of the Gael are involved in much obscurity. By the study of topography, however, we can follow many of his footsteps westward. This study, however, is rendered very difficult, and at times very uncertain, because the discoverable traces of the presence of the Celt lie embedded in the soil of the life of the powerful pre-Celtic races. The Celt and the Teuton have always been close neighbours. The progress of the two westward appears to have been somewhat simultaneous, at least on the Continent. The geographical positions of France and Germany at the present day represent not inaccurately the attitude of the Gaelic and Teutonic races towards one another in their earlier movements from the east. It has been said that the Celts came too soon into Europe, just as the Slaves came too late. It would be difficult to verify this remark in the light of history and in the face of existing facts. While admitting that the remark may have an element of truth in it, we must remember, with regard to the Slaves, that it is premature to anticipate what they may become. We see them a mighty threatening wave on a westward course. The Chinese hordes, who are already a trouble, press behind the Russians; and the growing power of the latter in Europe is a matter of serious concern to our statesmen. The struggle between Celt and Teuton again cannot be said to be at an end as long as France and Germany maintain their present watchful and hostile attitude. As to their racial composition respectively the former may be said to be as much Celtic as the latter is Teutonic. But on the other hand, in the United Kingdom, Celt and Teuton may be said virtually to agree. They have so blended for centuries that, notwithstanding boasts on both sides, which science cannot sustain, it is impossible almost to produce a pure Saxon or a pure Gael. It cannot certainly be done in Scotland. This intermingling of races in the British Islands has produced a national character very unlike our Continental neighbours. The Anglo-Celtic power of the British Empire is not so immobile or sluggish as the German, nor so light and airy as the French; and its rule appears almost to have arrived at the incipient stage of universal dominion.

Great Britain was peopled in the north and in the south simultaneously from the Continent, and Ireland was similarly peopled from the north and south of Britain. The Gaels of Ireland and of Scotland were the same people, having the same language and music; and all the elements of civilisation about them were the common property of both. At the same time there are evidences that the Gaels of the North of Ireland stood in closer relationship to those of Scotland than those in the South of Ireland. And this holds true even to this very day. It should always be borne in mind that there have been different tribes of pre-Celts, Celts and Teutons in Ireland, which has hitherto prevented that national cohesion in the time of danger which alone could secure the independence of the country. Ireland being peopled at a later period, has taken a longer time in developing a full-orbed nationality. On the other hand there has been an earlier homogeneity among the Scottish Celts; whether called Picts, Gaels, Scots, or Albanaich, they were always one against the common foe, whatever might be the feuds among themselves. In more recent days the reformation of religion in the 16th century helped to produce in the Scottish Gael a distinctively different character from that of the Gael of Ireland; it also destroyed in Scotland many of the old Gaelic things which were associated with a religion that was regarded as superstitious. Thus much of the history and the literature of the Scottish Gael was lost. In Ireland, where no violent changes took place in the condition and religious beliefs of the people, we find very extensive manuscript literature—rich with interesting spoils of the past—as well as more relics even of earlier Gaelic life in Scotland.

Chiefly through the great labours of Zeuss, the distinguished Bavarian, the Gael is now, as already remarked, universally admitted to belong to the Aryan family. No student of the science of language will now contend that he has any special affinity to the Semitic race. The Keltae of the Greek, the Galli of the Roman, and the Gàidheil of Scotland and Ireland, are the same people. In the east and in the west Galatia, or in Gaelic [Gaidhealtachd, contracted] and pronounced Gaeltachd, is the Celtica, or land of the Celts or Gaels. Gaeltachd or Galatia is literally Gaeldom, or the country of the Gaels. The term “Gael” is the same as “Celt,” the only difference being that the original Gaidel comes to us through Latin in the former and through Greek in the latter. So the two may be used indiscriminately, although some writers have endeavoured to preserve a distinction, using “Gaelic” for the language spoken in Scotland and Ireland, and “Celtic” as a more generic term, embracing all the Gaelic Brythonic dialects. “Gael”—the Roman “Gaul”—and the original “Gaidel,” aspirated into “Gaidhel,” which in its aspirated form at last drops the dh, and becomes “Gael” or Gaul, is just the same word. The Gael stands in the same relation to the Welsh, the Cornishman, and the Armorican, that the Englishman and German, the Roman and Greek, stand to one another. The Gael, the Manx, and the Irish constitute one branch of the stock, while the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Breton constitute the other.

The Celtic element enters largely into the population of the United Kingdom. Just as Celtic dialects were spoken at one time throughout the whole of the British Islands, so to the present day a powerful Celtic element pervades the people of Great Britain and Ireland from the lowest to the highest classes. John Knox and Robert Burns, two representative Scotchmen, were more Celtic than Teutonic. The national perfervid spirit and genius are so still. The name of the great Reformer is from the Gaelic Cnoc. Ireland can produce many Anglo-Celtic names, among which we find that of the Duke of Wellington. The mothers of the greatest epic poet and the greatest general that England ever produced were Celts. Sarah Caston, the mother of Milton, was the daughter of a Welsh gentleman; and Elizabeth Steward, the mother of Cromwell, was the daughter of William Steward, in Ely, a descendant of the Celtic Stewards of Scotland. Professor H. Morley says:—“The main current of English literature cannot be disconnected from the lively Celtic wit in which it has one of its sources. The Celts do not form an utterly distinct part of our mixed population. But for early, frequent, and various contact with the race that, in its half-barbarous days, invented Ossian’s dialogues with St. Patrick, and that quickened afterwards the Northerner’s blood in France. Germanic England would not have produced a Shakespeare.” It is only the other year that a Cambrian Celt disappeared from our midst—one of the greatest names in English literature—Mary A. Evans, better known by her assumed name of George Eliot. This other quotation from Professor Morley’s “Library of English Literature” is as true as it is suggestive:—“The Celts are by nature artists. Mr Ferguson has felt this in his own art, and said in his ‘History of Architecture:’—‘The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence. It is, perhaps, not too much to assert that without his intervention we should not have possessed in modern times a Church worthy of admiration or a picture or a statue we could look at without shame.’ It would be far too much to assert this of books; but certainly Teutonic England could not have risen to the full grandeur and beauty of that expression of all her life in all her literature ... without a wholesome blending of Teutonic with Celtic blood. The Celts are a vital part of our country, and theirs were the first songs in the land.”

Before parting with this subject let me note three remarkable facts which the history of Gaelic Scotland presents. They have not always been fully recognised. The first is that the Caledonians were never fully conquered by the Roman Power which brought almost all other nations of the world into subjection. The second is that a Gaelic people gave its present name to the country. The third is that a Gaelic King has given us the line of monarchs which we have still represented in the present sovereign of the British Empire. To these another fact might be added—that the earliest modern literature is to be found among the Scoto-Irish Gael. After the decadence of Greece and Rome the Celts were the first of the European tribes to cultivate letters. While the Germans and the Northmen were yet roving heathen tribes the Gael in Ireland and in Scotland had their seminaries of learning, where literature was loved and cherished. And from the Colleges of Durrow and Iona missionaries, whose well-trained minds and zealous hearts fitted them for their great undertaking, went forth to Christianise the people of England and the Teutonic tribes on the Continent. The extant manuscripts in Gaelic and Latin which came from their pens are monuments of their learning and piety, as well as of the reverence in which they were held by the people to whom they brought the light of the Christian truth. Some of these manuscripts, now studied with such rich results by Continental Celtic scholars, are to be found in some of the great libraries on the Continent; in St. Gall, Milan, Wurtzburg, and Carlsruhe, Zeuss found those Gaelic ones on which he based his great work the “Grammatica Celtica,” published in 1853. These facts ought to make the study of Gaelic interesting—the oldest living language in Europe that can boast of such early relics of culture.

It is now necessary that some remarks should be made on the language in which the literature we are to examine is to be found. The Celtic forms a branch of the Indo-European group of languages. It is divided into two nearly distinct languages, which are thus classified:—

	{		{	Gaelic.
	{	The Gaidelic,	{	Irish.
	{		{	Manx.
CELTIC	{		{	Welsh.
	{		{	Cornish (extinct).
	{	The Brythonic,	{	Breton.
	{		{	Gaulish (extinct).

The differences between Gaelic, Irish, and Manx are merely dialectic. The Cornish became extinct last century. The Gaulish is also extinct; and what remains of it is found only in the names of places.

To Zeuss is due the credit of having assigned its proper place to Celtic in the family of languages. The problem before his great publication in 1853 was the relationship in which the Gaels, the Welsh, and the old Gaulish people stood to one another and to the other nations of the world. Numerous publications on this question appeared during the last two centuries. But from a scientific point of view they are of very little value. Errors and unscientific theories abound in every work. At that time the scholars of France and Germany never mastered the Celtic languages; indeed, there were few reliable grammars by which they could be acquired. The native scholars were deficient in linguistic training, in common sense, and frequently in common honesty. No Gaelic scholar was conscientious enough to learn Welsh, no Welsh scholar to learn Gaelic; but each and all were ready enough to compare their languages with Phœnician, Persian, Etruscan, Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic, &c., of which, again, they knew in reality next to nothing; though a few of them might know a little Hebrew. There was one remarkable exception, however, to this—the great Welsh scholar Edward Llhuyd, of whom it may be said that he lived a century and a half before his time; but, incapable of following him, the native school of philologists sank into chaotic and puerile etymological dreams. The Celtic problem became more hopeless than ever, and Gaelic philology became distasteful to sober minds.

At the same time many Celts insisted “on the lofty claim they used to advance of speaking the primeval language.” It is only recently that they have learned “to submit to the logic of facts and listen to the voice of science.” A Gaelic poet, in an elaborate poem on his native language, thus declares his conviction on the much-debated subject, what language was spoken in Paradise—

“By Adam it was spoken

In Eden, I believe,

And sweetly flowed the Gaelic

From the lovely lips of Eve.”

Some fifty years ago the science of comparative philology began to make itself felt, and Celtic scholars tried to apply its principles to Celtic. Pritchard, Bopp, Diefenbach, Pictet, and others worked in the right direction, but they failed fully to solve the Celtic problem. J. Caspar Zeuss, a Bavarian Highlander, at last succeeded, by combining with a mind of unusual power a devotion to the subject which amounted well-nigh to a sacrifice of his life. This devotion might not even have been sufficient if he had not possessed what no one before him possessed—the really oldest manuscripts of both the Irish and Welsh dialects. The labours of Zeuss have shown:—That the Gaelic and Welsh languages were originally one; that dialectic differences in Cæsar’s time were so small that an old Gael would be at once understood in Wales; and that the Gaels and Cambrians were identical with the Celts of the Continent—with those of Spain, Gaul, Lombardy, and the Alpine countries; that this Celtic tongue is one of the branches of the Aryan stock of languages.

The consequence of these established facts is to put an end to all attempts at connecting the Celtic with the Semitic class of tongues.

We know the Gaelic language now in three stages:—

1. Old Gaelic up to 1000 A.D. The most ancient relics of this period are the glosses of St. Gall in Switzerland, the Ambrosian [Library of Milan], &c., discovered by Zeuss.

2. Middle Gaelic, from 1000-1500 A.D., is represented by an extensive mass of manuscript literature.

3. Modern Gaelic from the sixteenth century, when books began to be printed, to the present day.

The softening caused by excessive aspiration is the greatest change which the language has undergone.

As spoken in Scotland at the present day the chief dialectic differences are:—

1. The ia of the North for the eu of the South and West Highlands, illustrated by Bial, Beul, mouth; Fiar, Feur, grass.

2. The vowel-tone difference, illustrated in such words as Oran, song. The o is pronounced in three different ways; in Islay and other parts of Argyll like o in old; in Mull and other place like ou in foul; in the North generally like aw in law.

3. The consonantal difference illustrated [in the pronunciation] of c and chd.

4. The accentual or rhythmic tone difference, observed in the conversation of natives of different places.

In Arran and Perthshire, and to some extent in Caithness and Sutherland, the people in speaking cut off the terminal syllables of many words. In the North Highlands they speak with a slow, sometimes swinging emphasis; in the South Highlands they are more hurried in their utterance. Any Highlander, speaking distinctly, will be readily understood, North and South.

Gaelic appears to possess wonderful vitality. While English has stamped out Gaelic among the Celts of Galloway and Ayrshire, Gaelic has stamped out the Norse language in the Western Isles, where the people are largely of pre-Celtic and Norse origin. It is remarkable that although of the same family of languages, Gaelic and English, like oil and water, cannot readily commingle.

Other subjects associated with early Gaelic literature are the Druids and the Féinne. That dim, indefinite, prehistoric period of our annals which terminated in the contact of heathenism with the living forces of Christianity may be termed pre-Celtic. In the dawn of the historical period a mysterious class of men called Druids, and a mysterious body of heroes called the Féinne or Fianna, emerge into view, just as we mark the vanishing or absorption of the pre-Celtic peoples. Whatever they were, a certain class of Magi existed once in these islands. But their sudden disappearance in history, like that of the Féinne, has induced many to question whether such an order of men ever lived. But it is historically certain that a class of men, answering to the description, met and tried to oppose Columba from Iona when he visited King Brudeus at Inverness. They have been called Druids, but that term should be regarded in a general or conventional sense. They were without doubt the priests of learning and religion among the ancient Scots. In possession of some knowledge, meagre as it probably was, they were invested with mystic importance by the ignorant and superstitious. With the introduction and enlightenment of Christianity it would be seen that this exclusive order and priestly caste found their supremacy undermined. Their teaching, whatever it was, appears to have had a beneficial influence on the formation of the national character. They do not seem to have indulged in any enervating services or gross idolatry in the kind of worship which was maintained among the people. We see the moral significance of their influence more fully when we contrast the ancient Gaels with the ancient Greeks. With all their fine ethical and æsthetic perceptions, we find that the latter throughout their whole history were never a very moral people. Just as their bodily senses were enslaved by their keen sense of the beautiful in form, colour, &c., so were their moral energies by many vices. The sensual and luxurious life of the Romans also soon sapped the foundations of the empire, and made it a prey to the less civilised nations around. But from the earliest times down to the present we find among the people once influenced by the Druids a very high moral tone. Guilty as they might be of plundering other races with whom they openly waged warfare, strict honesty among themselves as neighbours was inculcated and observed. The internecine quarrels and the mutual plundering of the later periods arose from the dissensions purposely sown by the Scottish kings. To weaken the clans and the bond of union existing between them unrighteous charters were granted to certain lands in favour of pretenders that could present no valid claim. Hence the majority of the clan feuds which frequently drenched the Highland hills and glens with blood.

One particular result of the early teaching has been the national respect for woman. It is one of the finest moral traits in the character of the Gael. At this day it is among the Gael of the Outer Hebrides and of the more recognised Celtic districts of Ireland, such as Munster and Connaught, that the Registrar General finds the smallest percentage of illegitimacy. The high-toned morality which the poems of Ossian exhibit in this respect has been used as an argument against their authenticity. And yet it should be no argument at all for one who can trace out and analyse the early sources whence developed the moral elements of the national character.

The Celt has been generally very religious. The religion of the Gael of Scotland, like that of the Kymry of Wales, whether in ancient or in modern Christian times, has always flourished in an atmosphere of deep severity. The rigid ethics of the early religion, combined with a hard life at a distance from enervating centres of civilisation, help to explain this. This sternness of doctrine also, no doubt, prepared the modern Gael to accept with such absolute entirety, and with such earnest heartiness, the Calvinistic system of Christian truth which many regard as severe and harsh. The higher results of the literary and moral culture of the Druidic religion we have embodied in the relics of Ossianic poetry. The order of Druids, with their ideals of philosophy and religion, have vanished; but their power for good remains embedded in the foundation of the national name, with its educating influences and its inspiring associations. In this power lay the moral strength of our early ancestors. Christianity, in its early Celtic and Reformed stages, developed into higher and purer issues this national virtue; and the character of the people is exponent of the results of the process. Other tribes and communities have had Christianity among them too, but with different results. This line of thought suggests an explanation of why, as has been already remarked, the Irish Gael appears to be somewhat unlike the Scottish Gael.

A glance may now be appropriately bestowed upon that other somewhat mysterious body—those heroes called the Féinne.

Chief among the early Gaelic inhabitants was the renowned order of heroes known as the Féinne, the Fianna, or the followers of Fingal, or Finn, the leader. They are supposed to have lived in the second and third centuries of our era, and to have been the Caledonians who checked the progress of the legions of Rome. Very little reliable help can be found regarding this question in the extant annals of the Gael. In general it may be held that this race of Finn came from the shores of the Baltic to North Britain, and that they were not unrelated to the ancient Norse. Recently a new theory has been adopted by some, like Mr Campbell of Islay, whose views are entitled to much respect. They argue that the existence of the Féinne is only a myth—part and parcel of an old world system, not unconnected with the classical and oriental—a system of which we have the same with variations in the Militia of Ireland, and in the Knights of the Round Table of the ancient British. It is held that Fingal and King Arthur are the same personages; that Graine, the faithless wife of Fingal is the same as the faithless Guinevere, the spouse of Arthur; and that the unhallowed love of Diarmad and Graine has a suggestive similitude in that of Sir Launcelot and Guinevere. On the other hand, it is argued that the similarity of these relations, however systematic in appearance, may still be adequately explained by the fact that human nature is much the same in all lands and amongst all races; that this symbolic theory does not seem to be supported by the well-grounded conviction of the people in whose traditions the memory of the heroes of the Féinne has been handed down to us; that it is not at all probable that the names of merely fictitious heroes would live in the topography of a hundred hills, like the name of Finn; that it does not find support in the more philosophic theory regarding the heroes of ancient peoples—that all the mythological characters are only exaggerations of real ones; that human nature is never satisfied with the barely mythic and unreal, and that the patriotic and other affections never derive sustenance from false and unbelievable characters.

Can a vague statement of this character not satisfy the inquiring student? To the patriotic Celtic inquirer, next in importance to the evangelisation of the Highlands by Columba, stands the great question of the Féinne, who have so indelibly impressed their individualities on the Gaelic imagination of Scotland. To the more inquiring spirits of recent times these brilliant heroes have appeared very strange and mysterious indeed. They have had a Melchisedec kind of existence in our traditional history; no one has been able to suggest whence they came, or whither they have gone. The names of their leaders have become woven with fable, song, and story; with the hills and glens of Albin and Erin; with the warlike struggles which the various conflicting races have fought on our Ero-Albinic shores. So vague and romantic however, has their history been, that a few clear-sighted writers, conversant with comparative mythology, have come almost to the conclusion that the Féinne were, as we have already seen, a mere Gaelic expression of a world-wide mythus, whose various component elements can be found from Japan to the Hebrides. The popular tales and the bardic ballads have been regarded as the debris that may be still collected on the shores of the ages.

The plain Highlander living in the mere tents of history and literature, has been reluctant to accept so vague an account of a very heroic ancestry. Has not he the poems of Ossian still in his hands? Are not the names of Finn and fellow-heroes stamped on a thousand hills in Albin and Erin? So the invariable conclusion has been that in some mysterious way and during some mysterious period “Fingal lived and Ossian sang.” The disappointing question all along has been, however, where can any account be found of these people in our accredited national histories? The inquiring spirits among our patriotic youth examine recent histories in vain. Our antiquaries write of names and places, but they have failed to assign a local habitation and a name to the Finian people. The only approach to a definite representation of the race we have in the famous mystifications of James Macpherson in his dissertations, notes, and poems. But the geography of Macpherson appears to have been as mistily convenient for himself as it has been perplexing to his commentators. Not even the genius of Dr Waddell in his goodly volume has been able to identify the localities of Macpherson, or remove the veil of ghost-like existence in which the Ossianic heroes are enshrouded.

Our ordinary historians appear to have avoided treating of so perplexing a period or class of men. Browne is satisfied with a statement on the Ossianic question. He does not touch on the history of the Finnic period. Keltie ignores the whole question. MacLauchlan in his “Early History of the Scottish Church,” which embraces the Ossianic age, has nothing to say of the Finnic environment. In his introduction to his edition of Ossian, Clerk is equally silent as to the accurate identification of the people of whom Ossian became the laureate bard. Nor is anything very definite to be found even in the learned works of Skene. When such admirable authorities are almost universally silent, it becomes a very hazardous matter to attempt any statement on the question.

It must be admitted that hitherto the sources of much of our definite accounts have been Irish compilations. Notwithstanding Macpherson’s comparative contempt for the character of the Irish Finian heroes, and for the Irish Ossianic compositions, yet much of the ground work of his own historic ideals was furnished by Irish productions. But any historic truth the Irish compositions may have had perished in the using in the hands of Macpherson. The result has been a system of chronology that neither he nor his friends have ever been able to explain.

The question still remains, Who were the Féinne? The answer in general has been that they were Gaelic heroes of the second and third centuries of the Christian era; who fought with Romans, with Danes, and with one another; and finally struggled with the converting powers of Christianity. In Ireland they have appeared under the guise of a Milesian militia, a conception which is thoroughly in harmony with the chivalrous ideals of that interesting island. The following sentences contain the gist of all the information that is now available:—“It is quite a mistake to suppose Finn Mac Cumhaill to have been merely imaginary or mythical character. Much that has been narrated of his exploits is, no doubt, apocryphal enough; but Finn himself is an undoubtedly historical personage; and that he existed about the time at which his appearance is recorded in the annals, is as certain as that Julius Cæsar lived and ruled at the time stated on the authority of the Roman historians. I may add here that the pedigree of Finn is fully recorded on the unquestionable authority of the Book of Leinster, in which he is set down as the son of Cumhall, who was the son of Trenmor, son of Snaelt, son of Eltan, son of Baiscni, son of Nuada Necht, who was of the Heremonian race, and monarch of Erinn about A.M. 5090, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, that is, 110 years before Christ. Finn himself was slain, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, in Anno Domini 283, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachair.” Little can be added to this statement by O’Curry. The great battle of Gabhra—Garristown in Meath—took place in 284; and the ballads represent the brave Oscar, and Cairbre Lifeachair as falling by each others’ hands in the deadly struggle. Oscar was the beloved son of Ossian, and his grandfather Finn, who died a year before the battle of Gabhra, is brought back to life by the Romancists to pronounce a eulogy on the fallen Oscar.

Irish annalists are satisfied that the fatherland of Finn and his heroes was Ireland; but no one appears to be able to point out the territories over which Finn reigned. It is an undoubted fact that Cairbre Lifeachair was the monarch of Erin when Finn died, and when the battle of Gabhra was fought. What can be more natural then than to suppose with Macpherson that Finn was monarch of Albin? In Macpherson’s works Finn is represented always as going from Albin to Erin, a rendering of history which the Irish authorities refuse to accept. When we look for the Kingdom of Finn in Scotland where Macpherson has located it, we certainly fail to ascertain its boundaries by means [of his mystifying] phrases. That his Morven is not the Morvern of Argyllshire has been pointed out long ago; nor is much satisfaction to be found in Dr Clerk’s interpretation of Mor Bheanna, the Great Hills, as a general characteristic of Scotland. It is another illustration of Macpherson’s prudent indefiniteness behind which the secret of his works has been preserved.

Now it appears to me that I am led aright in my studies of this period of Albin’s history, when I regard the Féinne as the last leaders of the great race in Albin and Erin who disappeared in history before the extension of the Gaelic conquest and supremacy. The spirit of their struggle is truly recorded in the ballads when it is repeatedly declared that they went forth to the battle, but that they always fell. This is the melancholy key-note of the Ossianic poetry. This is the passionate patriotism—a brave, resolute and chivalrous race, ever ready for the fight, ever ready to go forth to battle—and has always appealed to the popular heart. The brave Finians, however, seemed to go forth to die. The fate of possible extinction appears to have pressed heavily on the heart of the people. And when the leaders were all dead and gone, Ossian the immortal singer of their exploits and enterprises mourned in his blindness and solitude the departure of his brother heroes and hunters,—dwelling with pathetic tenderness on the oft-recurring refrain: “The last of my race!”

The Albinian monarchy, whose head-quarters were situated near Loch Ness, exercised rule over various tribes. Early in our era its sway appears to have extended, to use the proverbial sayings, from the Ord of Caithness to the Rhinns of Islay, from the Hen of Lewis to the Cock of Arran: O’n Ord Ghallach gus an Roinn Ilich, ’s o’n Chirc Leoghaisich gus a’ Choileach Arranach. This Albinian kingdom was, no doubt, the scene of the Finian exploits which have formed the subjects of poetic romance. It was frequently assailed by the Norse on the north-west and east; and by Celts on the south-east. The latter finally prevailed, bestowing their Celtic tongue on the conquered Albinians. The Féinne appear to have been the last leaders of the national cause. They were probably bilingual, as the more educated classes were in the days of Columba. Many of them may have been fully Gaelicised, while resisting the encroachments of an alien civilisation. Ossian and his fellow-leaders would be of this class. And just as many patriot bards in our own time in Ireland and Britain, lament the decay of Celtic nationalities in the language of the Teutonic conqueror, so the laureate bard of the Albinian people has sung of “the last of his race” in the tongue of the conquering Gael.

The kindred of these remarkable heroes appeared in those early ages in various lands. They were the immediate predecessors, not only of the Celtic, but in some cases also of other races. They were the most ancient Lochlins that ploughed the German Ocean with their trembling barks. They were the earliest Vikings that sailed round the Orkneyan skerries; that visited their kindred and fought with them on the shores of Albin, of Erin, and of Breatun. And clearly it is their connections we have in the north-east of Europe, where they survive in a trying climate with shrunk proportions and exhausted national energies. The famous ballad on the Battle of Gabhra represents four companies of Finians as engaged in the terrible fight—the Féinne of Albin, the Féinne of Erin, the Féinne of Breatun, and the Féinne of Lochlin.

The names of these heroes are still to be found in Lochlin, Erin, and Albin, the lands in which their celebrated deeds were chiefly performed. We find them in the pages of Adamnan like the shadows of a departing people. Finn or Fionn, appears in various forms, as in Findchanus, Fintenus, &c. Here we have also the first, or most ancient, written form of the name of the great bard himself, in Latin disguise, “Oisseneo nomine.”

The territory of the Caledonians lay from Loch Long eastward to the Firth of Tay and the German Ocean, and northward in later times to the Moray Firth. The Caledonian Forest is represented as extending in a north-eastern direction from Loch Lomond to the river Isla. The Caledonian territories, however, were always shifting. Like the Celtica of the Continent of Europe, the Gaeltachd of the British Islands [was always under] a process of change, but at the same time it was ever the region or the land of the Gael. Lands were won from the tribes whom the Gaels conquered, while territories were surrendered to those who pressed on behind them. At first the Gaeltachd was in South Britain; but as the Gaels moved northward, Albin contracted, and the land of the Gael extended. Finally, the Caledonians became the general term for all the Gaelic clans who opposed the legions of Rome.

The etymology of Caledonia has not been satisfactorily explained. The celebrated James Macpherson explains it as follows:—“When South Britain yielded to the power of the Romans, the unconquered nations to the north of the province were distinguished by the name of Caledonians. From their very name, it appears that they were of those Gauls, who possessed themselves originally of Britain. It is compounded of two Celtic words, Gael, signifying Celts or Gauls, and Dun or Don, a hill; so that Gael don, or Caledonians, is as much as to say Celts of the hill country.” In the very next sentence Macpherson unconsciously suggests quite a different and better etymology: “The Highlanders to this day call themselves Gael, their language Gaelic or Galic, and their country Gaeldoch, which the Romans softened into Caledonia.” Consideration for Latin Inflections would readily transform Caeldachd into Caledonia. A rival explanation has found place in many school books—Coille-daoine, rendered Men of the Wood. This, however, is not the accurate translation. The compound is absurd and unnatural. It reads to a Gael like Men-Wood in English. Another explanation has been Gaedhil dhonna, brown-haired Gaels; but physiological facts and the laws of phonology do not support this derivation. The Welsh have given us its meaning from a Cymric standpoint; and as the word is unknown in Gaelic in its historic form the Welsh suggestions appear very reasonable. The Caledonian Forest in Welsh has always been Calydin or Celydin, a term which means Wood. Its Gaelic cognate would be Coilltean, which also supplies the representative consonants of Caledonia. The great forest of the Central Highlands would be very naturally spoken of as the Woods, Coiltean; Caledonii being only a Latin derivative.

With the spread of Christianity the Caledonians became the great people in Albin. In the later ages they consisted of Gaelicised Albinians, Gaels, and Brythonised Gaels. Among them appeared those who stand first on the roll of literary Scots: the poetry and tales of the Féinne developed into their present shape in the hands of the ancient Christian Gaels of our land. The poetic compositions which relate to this period furnish us with gleams of life from the borderland of decadent heathenism and Christianity.

From the first proclamation of the latter onwards the outlines of Scottish story become continually clearer, shining more and more until the day of national freedom and independence shone on a brave and struggling people. In glancing very briefly at the history of the Gael of Albin we find that it naturally suggests the following periods, described by terms which indicate the fresh elements introduced on fresh changes taking place:—

I. The Pre-Celtic Period embraces the unrecorded ages which partially terminated in the third century, when the influence of Christianity began to be felt. The Roman province in Scotland became nominally Christian by the Imperial adoption of Christianity by Constantine in the year 313.

II. The Celtic Period extends from the third century to the year 1068. During these dark and unsettled times there was much intercourse carried on between the old inhabitants of Albin and the people of Lochlin; generally the intercourse took the form of a fierce struggle for supremacy. In 1068 Malcolm III. married an English princess, known afterwards as the saintly Queen Margaret; Gaelic afterwards ceased to be the language of the Scottish Court. At that time Picts and Scots being united under one monarchy the sway of the Northmen in the north-west became much enfeebled. The power of the latter was completely broken by the disastrous defeat of Haco, at Large, in 1263.

III. The Norman or Feudal Period extends from 1068 to 1567. Few of the Gaelic preachers, or representatives of the early Scottish Church, survived the repressing influence of Queen Margaret, who was a zealous Roman Catholic. The Norman conquest of England caused many Saxons to seek refuge in Scotland, where they were welcomed by the Queen and her royal husband, Ceann-Mor. Norman influences also began to be felt in Scotland. The lands of Celtic chiefs were chartered away by the King to Norman barons, of whom many became as Celtic and as identified with the Gaelic inhabitants as the Celtic mormaers whom they supplanted. The patriarchal system began to decay, and feudalism was gradually introduced.

IV. The Protestant and Jacobite Period extends from the middle of the sixteenth century to the year 1745, when Jacobitism on Culloden Moor received its death-blow. The nominal first, afterwards the actual, acceptance of the Reformation doctrines by the Scottish Celts in the sixteenth century has very vitally affected their literature, as well as completely changed their relations with the Irish Celts.

V. The Anglo-Gaelic Period begins in 1745. The influence of the English language and English thought has been extending in the Highlands since then; while through the general intermingling of races, and a better mutual understanding, the prejudices of Celt and Saxon respectively have been everywhere dying away, especially among the classes by whom the force of the democratic tendencies of our age has been felt and acknowledged.

The dates assigned to the above periods are only approximately accurate, but they may serve to shadow forth some of the chief influences which have been at work in the history of Celtic Scotland, and of which we have traces in the literary annals of the Gael. Perhaps the surprising thing in connection with these meagre annals is the fact that there are any literary remains at all, when it is remembered how frequent and how violent have been the changes which have occurred in the course of the history of Albin.

The Anglo-Gaelic era of Highland history commences, as has been pointed out, with the decay of the Jacobite cause. The changes that have taken place since 1745 have deeply affected the destiny and character of the people. In some respects the contact with the fresh forces brought into play was beneficial, in other respects it was a moral loss; but it is to be hoped that on the whole there has been considerable gain, and that not altogether material.

Under the social and educational changes that have been taking place during the last century the Highlanders have shown wonderful adaptableness in the course of the process they have been undergoing. The revival of a more earnest spirit of Christianity in many districts has completely altered the social habits of the people, while the influence of educational agencies has reached the most secluded glen and remote headland.

The English language is everywhere taught, the people, knowing its use in the sphere of secular success, preferring to have their children educated in a purely English rather than in a Gaelic school. The present rising generation all understand and talk a little Saxon of some sort, but Gaelic will be the language of the mass of the population for some generations yet. English thought and culture also reach the people through the hundreds of University-bred ministers who preach Gaelic in Highland pulpits.

These important changes in the Celtic world are not effected without many venerable regrets being uttered by sentimentalists both in Ireland and Scotland. If we look across the channel we find that the Irish Gael indulges in the same unpractical wail over an irrevocable past, that we find so prevalent with his brother of Albin. The cry of the sentimentalist there is even more intense, more persistent. The unpromising present of the Gael there appears to attract like a magnet all the revolutionary sympathies of the usually stolid Teutonic heart, after a little contact of the races. Just as in their political difficulties the Irish have always looked for help from Spain, France, or America, so unless the gods somehow interfere to preserve their native tongue, all they can or will do, waiting for external or divine deliverance, is to take up the refrain—“It is dying.” This is how an Irish poet, the Rev. M. Mullin, Clonfert, sings with incomparable sadness:—

“It is fading! it is fading! like the leaves upon the trees;

It is dying! it is dying! like the Western Ocean breeze!

It is fastly disappearing, as footsteps on the shore,

Where the Barrow, and the Erne, and Lough Swilly’s waters roar;

Where the parting sunbeam kisses the Corrib in the West,

And the ocean, like a mother, clasps the Shannon to its breast;

The language of old Erin, of her history and name—

Of her monarchs and her heroes, of her glory and her fame—

The sacred shrine where rested, through her sunshine and her gloom,

The Spirit of her martyrs, as their bodies in the tomb!

The time-wrought shell where murmured, through centuries of wrong,

The secret voice of Freedom in annal and in song

Is surely, fastly sinking into silent death at last,

To live but in the memories and relics of the Past!”

It must be very consoling to give one’s grief utterance in this highly poetical fashion; it is a question whether the poetry loses or gains in force, when it is remembered that the singer perhaps never put forth any effort to preserve the life of that ancient tongue which he is harping into her grave. Perhaps he does not know the language at all. He may be among those who first spurned and then starved her scholars; of the sentimentalists who, after learned devotees gave to the world in books the results of a life’s labour, on the publication of which they had expended more than all their own means, might borrow but would not buy a copy. The accomplished Archbishop MacHale of Tuam, found out to his cost the full meaning of this remark. Few were the copies of his excellent Græco Irish Homer that were sold; and here we have an illustration of the extent of the encouragement that real Irish scholarship receives. At the same time it must be admitted that the writers of Celtic books are frequently much to blame. They bury their productions in expensive volumes which can never obtain general circulation, or they do not furnish the precise thing required; or if they do, it is not always in a saleable popular fashion. Thus we have to regret the evil results of contemptuous neglect on the one hand, and extravagant claims and impracticable theories on the other, as well as an imaginary sense of loss and wrong, on the part of those who ought to give a more practical direction to the people’s sentiments.

But the Celt is neither dead nor dying. He is still an important factor in the making of the world’s history. Apart from the very large Celtic element that has been absorbed in the Anglo-Celtic intermingling of races under the supremacy of Teutonic rule in these islands we find some four or five millions of people talking one or other of the Celtic dialects. The number of Gaelic speaking Highlanders is not much under half a million. There will be about 300,000 of a Gaelic-speaking population within the geographical limits of the Highlands, the area of which is upwards of three-fifths of Scotland. There is a larger Gaelic population in Glasgow than the whole population of Greenock. The Gaelic bard of to-day has thus as large an audience to sing his lays to as the great Ossian himself had in ancient Albin.

Still it is constantly asserted that whether or not the Gaelic language is dead and ready for burial it has no literature; and the assertion has been repeated for several generations with emphatic persistence. The following chapters are intended to show that there is a literature; and that it does not altogether deserve the contempt with which it has been hitherto regarded. And the English-reading public have a right to know from the pens of Gaelic scholars what is the value of the literature still extant in the ancient language of a people with whom they are so closely united, and who form an important integral portion of their common empire. All have an interest in bringing the reign of ignorance, apathy, and prejudice to an end.

At last in the midst of neglect and apathy, of petty rivalries and discords which so readily breed within circumscribed spheres, when our Gaelic scholars, MacLauchlan and Clerk, Skene and J. F. Campbell, and others, were giving to the world the results of their laborious efforts to uphold the character and literary prestige of their countrymen, and were thus paving the way, one voice began to be heard on behalf of a despised language and literature. That voice crying in the Highland wilderness was that of Professor Blackie! By inimitable eloquence and unwearied energies he interested high and low at once and for years in the establishment of a Celtic Chair in the University of Edinburgh. From the Queen, from lord and laird, and from peasant, he charmed, by his sweet and natural manner, the gold on which that Chair is now so successfully founded. Not only that, but he has also given us the fullest account hitherto published of the language and literature of the Scottish Highlands. It is needless to speak of the affection and gratitude which Highlanders cherish towards the learned and venerable Professor, who has been a most potent Celtic force in this generation. “Saoghal fada ’n deagh bheatha dhuit!”

Irish scholars have recently laboured hard and successfully in furthering the interests of their native literature. It is enough here to mention the names of O’Donovan, O’Currie, Whitley Stokes, Joyce, Standish O’Grady, and Bourke—men whose learning and talents would adorn the literary annals of any nation. While the Irish have accomplished more than the Scottish Gael, the Welsh have done more than either to preserve their language and cultivate their literature. Under systematic efforts to suppress it entirely the Kymry have adhered to their ancient tongue with unwearying pertinacity. While the Gael of Ireland and Scotland have not yet been successful in supporting one purely Gaelic newspaper, the Celt of Wales has his Welsh newspaper in every town of importance in the Principality. It is to the Kymry that we owe the best work yet published on Celtic philology—the “Welsh Philology” of Professor Rhys of the Celtic Chair at Oxford. So now it may fairly be said that we are in the midst of a Celtic Renaissance. Books of a certain useful character do sell, notwithstanding the well founded complaint referred to above. The first edition of Canon Bourke’s “Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race” was exhausted in a very short time. Campbell’s “Tales” are out of print. These are signs of the times which, along with the establishment of Celtic Chairs at the central seats of learning, decisively indicate a reviving interest in Celtic studies. In talking once of the emotional element of the Celtic nature, an enthusiastic Irish scholar jocularly remarked to the writer that the Gael was dying away in song. If this turns out to be true, it is evident that his remains will be examined with pious and scientific care.

It is interesting to find that, meagre as Gaelic literature is—and the great wonder is that what we have should have been produced in so unpromising a field—it extends over sixteen centuries. Its stream issued from that fount of Gaelic heroism which began to burst forth in the first centuries of our era, when the ground of the old European world was on every side shaken by the heavy tramp of the Roman legions and by the consequent disturbance of equilibrium among the clans and races everywhere. Epic products of genius, of course, there are not in Gaelic literature. Perhaps the pure Celtic genius, as Mathew Arnold held, is incapable of producing epic works—is too emotional, and is only rich in lyrical and ballad power. Great works requiring leisure, quietness, and perseverance there are not; the life of our ancestors, active, earnest, and practical—its energies ceaselessly being called forth to combat the ruthless forces of nature—did not admit of the necessary cultivation and ease for such productions. Extensive fruits of Gaelic thought and letters we do still possess, however, although much has been lost, especially of what was produced in earlier days. But these should not for a moment be spoken of in comparison with the magnificent monuments of intellectual endeavour which Greece and Rome and Anglo-Celtic Britain have reared. But Gaelic literature will compare favourably with that of many other countries, especially when united with its sister product, Irish literature. And Welsh literature, no doubt, should also be added. English literature, because of the basis it has in the soil of Christianity, is the grandest product of the human intellect, the master works of Greece and Rome not excepted. It is great; it is partly Celtic; and we, as Anglo-Celts, admire it. But we may with advantage look beyond the bounds of our English studies, and then see more clearly the foundation of our Anglo-Celtic empire when we have examined with tender and sympathetic care the interesting relics of Celtic thought enshrined in the ancient language of the British Islands.

It ought perhaps to be acknowledged that the English-speaking peoples of these islands are, at present peculiarly ready to accept any authentic information respecting Celtic history and literature. The same remark replies to Continental scholars. In our own islands the stirring of nationalities in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that simultaneously with the movements of the practical politics of the parties of the day and the advocacy of the reform of our land laws, has deepened the interest in all questions relating to Celtic life and thought.

It is a mere truism to remark that the language and literature of the Gael have been much neglected. All attempts to bring their claims before the English-speaking world were, till recently, treated with systematic indifference if not with contempt. The national, historical, and scientific value of the study of both does not appear to have occurred even to many who ought to know better. Interesting and inviting as the field was, it lay long unoccupied. Highlanders conscious of some talent were attracted by the rich prizes and honour obtainable within the sphere of English letters. A few who dipped into Celtic studies found them either unprofitable or turned away with disgust from a path in which they were met on all sides with petty jealousies and ignorant pretence. The Rev. Dr John Smith, of Campbeltown, distinguished alike for his learning and general culture, sacrificed much of his time and means to Gaelic studies; and, finding them unprofitable, turned in his leisure hours to farming on his glebe. He was also annoyed by a truthless, pedant schoolmaster, Duncan Kennedy, of Lochgilphead, who laid claim to the authorship of some ballads which Dr Smith had published. The English Republic of letters could not be blamed for disregarding the intellectual history of a people who ignored their own productions and all that they inherited from their ancestors. Yet is it a reproach to Irish and British scholars that Continental students should be the first to create interest in Celtic studies and place them on a scientific basis. The real parties, however, who ought to bear the blame are the Celts themselves—the Kymry of Wales, and the Gael of Ireland and Scotland. It is with much propriety that Professor Geddes of Aberdeen, thus addresses British Celts with regard to their languages:—“Your advantages are great. To you it is a mother-speech, whereas to others like myself it has to be laboriously learned, and after all imperfectly, so that it can hardly be said to be a speech at all in such mouths as mine. It is otherwise with you; you are within the shrine, such as I are without, and just as the radiance of a cathedral window, rich with the spoils of time, looks blurred and poor to the eye that seeks to comprehend it from without, but streams in full glory on the eye that gazes from within, so your native speech rightly studied ought to be to you resplendent with linguistic treasures, such as no stranger can be expected to unveil.” The Highlander alone can fully know and appreciate the language and literature of his race. But if he takes up the obsolete harp of his fathers, and rehearses in melancholy strains that his people are perishing and that his language is dying, it is quite natural, that his Teutonic neighbour should chime in with an emphatic and not always a sympathetic amen.

This sort of harping is the species of music with which many Highlanders, and Irish Gaels also, have been pleased to humour and feed their patriotic feelings over the general neglect of Celtic interests. Well may the disinterested spectator declare that they are not much in earnest—that the wail is partly hypocritical; for they have done so little to preserve their language and nationality. And no doubt the cry is to a certain extent hypocritical with not a few self-constituted patriots, and the bulk of the people disregard it. The latter do not take up the wail, and they are mainly in the right. The enthusiast and the sentimentalist, who indulge in the dirge, run away with one small truth, or the phase of a truth—with a pathetic misconception of the true state of things. Sometimes they hire themselves to do the coronach, like the Irish professional mourners who do the wailing over the departed. But the people in general are not drawn by the charming of the sentimentalist; they are more practical. They know and feel the power of circumstances and destiny which they have to overcome and bear, and act accordingly. While they find their native hills barren, and their native glens inhospitable, they betake themselves to the rich woods of Canada and the prairies of the United States. Witness what a large body of the Glengarry Highlanders once did. Again, when they find the want of the English language a bar to their secular success in life, they protest, while cherishing dearly their native tongue, against pure Gaelic schools being thrust upon them, and demand English teaching first. This has been the case not so long ago in the Long Island. And the reason is quite patent. Before arriving at school age the children are in possession of their mother-tongue; and the parents consider, and very rightly, that the sooner their sons and daughters acquire good English the better for their own comfort, interest, and success in the great English-speaking world in which they have necessarily to perform a part. English ought to be taught from the first through, and simultaneously with, the Gaelic. In all this the people show that their utilitarianism is sensible, intelligent. They recognise the facts of their surroundings. They listen to the charming of the sentimentalist, but they go on their own practical way rejoicing. Hundreds of Highlanders in our large towns never enter a Gaelic church. English-speaking mothers and children do not find the arrangement of services convenient and, consulting the general good of all the members of the family, they take their seats elsewhere. In this they cannot be deeply blamed. In Scotland we are quite familiar with the stereotyped arguments and phraseology which are applied to depopulation and other matters. But many of those who rehearse the one on public platforms and weave the other into elegiac verse do not always give us a practical illustration of their theories and teaching by living in the Highlands and by having Gaelic taught in their own families.

This conviction and cry of the imaginative Celt that the world is slipping from his grasp—that his affairs are in a hopeless condition—has done much injury to his own interests. And it is not at all surprising although his neighbours and the rising generation of his own people have regarded his language and literature with persistent indifference. Ossian himself is proverbially known to us—“Oisein an déigh na Féinne”—as the “last of the race.” It would almost seem that every generation of Gaels during the last millennium regarded itself as the last of the “race.” Yet, strange to say, the Gaelic language is spoken to-day within pretty nearly the same limits as it was a thousand years ago, a fact encouraging to the sanguine and poetic natures of men like William Livingston, that very original Islay bard, who once sang as follows:—

“Cànain àigh nam buadhan òirdhearc,

A b’ fharsuing cliù air feadh na h-Eòrpa;

Bithidh i fathast mar a thòisich,

Os ceann gach cainnt ’na h-iuchair eòlais.”

English:—

Strange mystic pow’rs lie in that tongue,

Whose praise through Europe wide has rung;

As ’twas of yore in school and college,

It shall be first—the key of knowledge.

CHAPTER I.
[EARLY GAELIC] LITERATURE—PATRICK.

“Si labhair Padric ’nnínse Fail na Riogh,

’S an faighe caomh sin Colum náomtha ’n I.”—

Maclean in Lhuyd’s Ar. Brit. (1707.)

English: ’Twas it that Patrick spoke in Inis-Fayle,

And saintly Calum in Iona’s Isle.

The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to assign an exact date to the first beginnings of Gaelic literature. The most ancient ballads have certainly come down to us through the hands of Gaelic Churchmen; and it may be taken as absolutely certain that writing was unknown until it was introduced by Christian missionaries. The monuments of Runes and Oghams, the study of which may be pursued in the works of Stephens, Anderson, and Ferguson, can scarcely be regarded as literature in the proper sense of the term. At the threshold of the temple of Gaelic letters we are confronted with one name which can not be ignored—that of Ossian which we see inscribed on the portals.

In his days and those of his peculiar people, the Féinne, the Pagan and pre-Celtic Period was coming to a close. Let us look a little at the picture that has been handed down to us of this great bard with whom the heathen dispensation ended.

That a Fingal lived and an Ossian sang is a proposition that cannot be successfully disputed. It was in the eighteenth century, when James Macpherson published his fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry, that the controversy which rages yet around the name of Ossian arose. This controversy, as well as the poems, English and Gaelic, published by Macpherson, will be afterwards considered. In the meantime, the name of Ossian is used in a conventional sense, just as the name Homer is frequently used. He lived, let us say, in the third or fourth century, when the heathen dispensation of the pre-Celts and of the Gaels was drawing to a close, when the Druidic period, with its mysteries, was coming to an end. It is neither affirmed nor denied here at this stage that Ossian was the author of the Gaelic poems at present in circulation, and from which Macpherson ostensibly translated. But what may be safely affirmed is, that there was in the days of Gaelic heathenism an eminent bard of the name of Ossian, who started the key-note of some poetry, which may be styled Ossianic. That fragments of his compositions have been handed down to us may with equal safety be affirmed. But of the early poems and ballads contained in Campbell’s “Leabhar na Féinne” we are absolutely unable to say which was composed by Ossian or which by his imitators and others. In that vast and valuable collection there may be pieces of Ossian’s; and certainly the authorship of many poems is directly attributed to him, though evidently in many cases by loose tradition. His name is also attached to several productions which can easily be proved to belong to some unknown authors. “A hoodir Oisein” would be readily prefixed by reciters and scribes to any anonymous piece of merit to gain currency for it.

But granting that Ossian is not a myth, but a veritable man who was a great bard among his people, a further question arises, Was the poet Irish or Scottish? The Irish have all along declared that the true and original Ossian belonged to them, and lived in their country. Their indignation over Macpherson’s productions knew no bounds. All Macpherson’s heroes are represented as going from Alba to Erin, which harmonizes well with the recent deliverances of Sayce and Rhys. He described all the Irish Ossians as fictions and fables manufactured by monks in the Middle Ages, and as so far inferior to the genuine remains of Ossian as the most insipid heroics of the present day are to the immortal productions of Homer. He showed that their system of chronology could not be harmonised—that it was, in fact, absurd. As represented in the everlasting dialogues between the poet and the saint, he asked how could Ossian, who was supposed to live in the third century, hold converse with St. Patrick, who did not arrive in Ireland till the fifth century? No such objections could be brought against Macpherson’s Ossian, whose chronology was, perhaps conveniently vague, fairly consistent with itself. The Irish literati then betook themselves to the manufacture of poems a la Macpherson, whom they denounced first as a thief and afterwards as a forger. When they failed to produce any poems of such superior merit as those of Macpherson, the theory of theft from the Irish was given up, and that of forgery substituted. It was quite evident that the Scottish “Ossian” published by Macpherson was very different from the composer of Irish ballads and Finian tales. It was admitted by the Scottish patriots that there was a Scottish Ossian very like the Irish one—that of the later or heroic ballads and of the popular tales. But they held that this was a spurious, inferior, and more recent bard or bards, who attached the name of the great father of Gaelic poetry to their own productions; and that the genuine, true, and original poems of Ossian, the immortal poet of the ancient Caledonians, were translated and published by Macpherson. The claims of the two countries cannot be satisfactorily adjusted or reconciled. History, however, conclusively shows that the Gaels of the North of Ireland and those of Scotland were at this period very closely related—were, indeed, but one people. Just as Shakespeare is claimed by all sections of the English-speaking world as their common heritage, so Ossian would be regarded by all the Gaelic-speaking tribes or clans as their common property.

Ossian occupies the same place in both the Irish and Scottish genealogies of the great Finian family. He is the son of Finn or Fingal, the father of the brave and peerless Oscar, the chief bard of his people.

Fionn, whose name means fair, the leader, and king of the Féinne, is the most remarkable figure in the annals of the Gael. The popular conception of his prowess may be gathered from the following grand passage of Highland poetry:—

“With loud-sounding strides he rush’d westward

In the clank of his armour bright;

And he looked like the Spirit of Loda, that scatters

Dismay o’er the war-way and fight!

“Like a thousand waves on a crag that roll, yelling,

When the ugly storm is at its height,

So awful the clash of mail and his weapons,

While his face wore the winter of fight!

“His smooth claymore glittered aloft,

In his champion hand it was light;

And the snoring winds kept moving his locks

Like spray in the whirlpool’s might!

“The hills on each side they were shaken,

And the path seemed to tremble with fright!

Gleamed his eyes, and his great heart kept swelling—

Oh! cheerless the terrible sight!”

This is a picture of Fingal going to battle, and a “terrible sight,” indeed it must have been, especially to his foes. The leader of the Féinne was surrounded by a worthy band of followers. The bards and senachies, or oralists, agree in the character, outlines, and abilities of these heroes. Ossian, the son of Fingal, was himself a hero; but, being generally a supposed narrator, gives us little insight into his own distinctive character. He was a great bard, a brave warrior, but an unobtrusive man. His son Oscar was the pride and hope of Selma, peerless as to strength and skill in arms, generous to a fallen foe, and ever ready to meet the fiercest champion that ever came from Lochlin. Gaul or Goll is stout and valiant, and next to Oscar in prowess, but is at times morose. He is never worsted, but he never courts danger for its own sake. The beautiful and brown-haired Diarmad cannot be seen by any woman without being loved. He is devoted to his brothers in arms, and when necessary he can combine sleight of hand with heroic daring. Cailte is a poet, and celebrated for his swiftness of foot. Then there is the hardy Rayne, the majestic Cochulin, and the faithful though rash Conan. Fingal himself has been limned from more than one point of view by the oralists. His greatness and courage in battle are indisputably pre-eminent. He is a prudent, cautious general, and disapproves of unnecessary bloodshed. In affairs of the heart he is relentless towards a rival, generous though he is in other respects. The worst thing that can be recorded of him is his unfeeling and revengeful conduct towards his nephew, the gallant Diarmid, when the latter eloped with Queen Gràine. These were the principal warriors of that gallant band of Finian heroes whose names are indelibly engraven on the hills and straths of their native land, while their deeds are recorded in a thousand songs. They lived at a time when the world was undergoing . Tribes were beginning to assume a national cast, and as organised nations [to develop an] individuality. They were preparing to run the race sketched out to them by destiny, the path of each bounded by a particular line or limit of sea, stream, mountain, or valley, and were throwing aside all the encumbrances of superseded customs and laws that might clog their progress. Fingal and his followers appeared in immortal brilliance, crowned with the laurels of deathless heroism on the stage of the world, and soon they disappeared from the scene. They were seen but for a short time like the sun in a wintry day. And the picture is beautifully brought before us in the following verses translated by Pattison:—

“Like a sun-gleam in wild wintry weather

That hastens o’er Lena’s wide heath,

So the Féinne have faded together,

They were the beam the showery clouds sheathe,

When down stoops the dark rain-frown of heaven,

To snatch from the hunter the ray,

And wildly the moaning bare branches are driven,

While the weak herbs all wither away.

“But the sun, in his strength yet returning,

The fair-freshened woods will espy,

In the springtime that laugh for their mourning,

As they look on the Son of the sky,

Kindly unveilling his lustre,

Through the soft and the drizzling shower,

All their wan heads again will he muster,

From their drear and their wintry bower.

“Then with joy will their small buds keep swelling;

Not so they who sleep in the tomb—

No sunbeam that darkness dispelling,

Shall waken them up from their gloom.”

Ossian, the blind warrior-poet, survives them all. And now, as he muses on the departure of his kindred heroes and hunters, and on the loneliness of his own state, led by the white-armed Malvina, the betrothed of his fallen son Oscar, he seeks their former haunts, and breathes as he rests in the well-known shades the pathetic lamentation, “the last of my race!”

“Chula tu bàrda nam fonn:

’S taitneach, ach trom do ghuth;

’S taitneach a Mhalmhìne nan sonn;

Leaghaidh bròn am bochd an am tha dubh.”

Croma.

From the picture of Ossian in his shadowy Pagan domain it is refreshing to turn to those names which have played a great part in connection with our earliest Christian civilization and literature. They are the names of Patrick of Strathclyde, Bridget of the South Gaels of Albin, and Columba of Donegal, subsequently of Iona.

The first glimpse we have of Albin on the canvas of written record is a very confusing one. The one outstanding fact is the Roman occupation. The next fact that strikes and enchains the eye is the presence of Christianity in the land. Among the Gaels of the south-west of Scotland we mark the person of Ninian, around whom we see across the ages the light of the gospel shining. This preacher of the cross, of whose labours in Galloway very interesting traces were discovered quite recently, appears to have carried the gospel not only to the Gaels of the south-west, but also to the southern Picts north of the Forth and Clyde. His labours began as early as the year 397, and resulted in the first church organization known in Scotland. The evengelisation of Ninian extended over probably the whole of Romanised Scotland towards the end of the fourth century. The races embraced in his sphere of operations were Latin-speaking peoples of various nations, Brythons, and Gaels.

Among the last-mentioned, the Gaels of the Strathclyde kingdom, whose chief seat was Alcluaidh, now Dumbarton, there appeared the family of Patrick, whose name has shed holy lustre on the early annals of that period. This family had been Christians for two generations. The father of Patrick was a decurio, one of the council or magistracy of a Roman provincial town. His name was Calphurnius, which some have rendered by the familiar form of MacAlpine. Being recognised as a Roman magistrate he thus took his place among the local aristocracy of Banavem in Taberniæ, where villas of the Roman style could be seen, and the sonorous Latin could be heard mingling with the kindred accents of the ancient Gaelic. This place was probably not far from that attractive spot on the banks of the Clyde where a topographical monument has been reared to the celebrated Irish apostle in Kilpatrick. Calphurnius was not only a magistrate; he was also a deacon in the Christian church. His own father, the grandfather of Patrick, was called Potitus, and filled the office of Presbyter in the Strathclyde church. It is also stated that this family cultivated a small farm.

As there is a great deal of literature extant on the nativity of Patrick which conflicts with the results of recent discussion, it may be satisfactory to many to have the [latest authoritative] declarations on the subject before them. No one has ever attempted to deprive the north of Ireland of the honour of having supplied the Highlands with the great gospel preacher who evengelised the north-west; who revived the Christianity of the Lowlands; whose earnest disciples supplied the north of England with the teachers who converted its people to the power of Christ. But while Protestant Scotland has made no attempts to deprive Ireland of its Columban honours Catholic Ireland has persistently endeavoured to denude Scotland of its legitimate claims to the honour of being the fatherland of Patrick. Ireland’s misrepresentations have been acquiesced in by Scotsmen, especially by timid historical writers, of a certain ecclesiastical type, who have made needless concessions to Romanist claims in connection with a question which is purely historical. It is with peculiar pleasure that we are now able to assign Patrick, the son of the Gaelic Church of Strathclyde, his true place on the roll of Gaelic Scots; and to regard him as a link in the Gospel succession which Columba brought with him to the West Highlands.

In the Catholic Dictionary, issued a few years ago, and compiled by Addis and Arnold of the Royal University of Ireland, with the approving seal of his Eminence Cardinal Manning on its publication, the following satisfactory sentence occurs: “The general conversion of the Irish nation was reserved for St. Patrick, who was probably born at the place now called Kilpatrick on the Clyde whence he was carried as a slave into the north of Ireland while still a youth.” To this there is appended a foot-note referring to the excellent article of an Irish bishop on St. Patrick in one of the Irish periodicals: “Dr Moran, Bishop of Ossory, who formerly leant to the opinion that the place was near Boulogne in France, has lately written convincingly in favour of the Scottish site.” The Bishop’s article has finally decided the question; and has enabled the Gaels of Scotland, with the tacit consent of their Irish brethren, to add to the list of their heroic Christian missionaries, a name whose brilliant halo of holy effort is unsurpassed in the ancient annals of the Christian Church of these islands.

We are thus enabled to point out the first home of Christianity among the Gaels of Scotland. We find it on the banks of the Clyde, where many Christians of the same people, still talking the same tongue, may still be found, rejoicing in the same Gospel. The picture of this early Gaelic Church of Strathclyde from whose bosom the devoted Patrick came forth, is in itself a sufficient reason why the Early History of the Gaels should be re-written. It is a chapter added to the Celtic civilisation of the Highland people, which has been hitherto ignored or hidden through Roman, Teutonic, or Norman influences.

A good deal has been written about Patrick’s visit to Rome, where it was necessary to take him by the Romanist writers of later times in order that he might receive consecration from an order of Ecclesiastical Fathers which had scarcely yet developed. The Catholic Dictionary, already quoted, is forced to confess, after reference to Patrick’s autobiography in his Confession as follows:—“He does not mention the Pope or the Holy See.” We thus find that in his own authentic writings Patrick makes no reference to, or acknowledgment of, the Roman Bishop of his day. The reason for this is not far to seek.

Patrick does not appear to have come in contact with any Christianity except that which he was taught on the banks of the Clyde in the Gaelic Church of his fathers. He had neither been to Rome nor known the Roman Bishop (Celestine) of his time, so he makes no reference to either in his genuine writings. On this question his own words in his Epistle to Coroticus deserve quotation—Ego, Patricus, indoctus, scilicet, Hibernione, constitutum episcopum me esse reor: a Deo accepi, id quod sum. “I, Patrick, an unlearned man, to wit, a bishop constituted to Ireland: what I am I have received from God.” Thus in the establishment of his Church Patrick in no instance appeals to any foreign Church, Pope, or Bishop. On authority received from God he superintended the Irish Church for 34 years. These clear statements of his are utterly at variance with the fabricated ones which adorn the lives of him which appeared centuries afterwards, and which are now regarded as authorities by the fabulously inclined.

In his own writings Patrick gives us in a somewhat unconscious manner a beautiful picture of his devoted character:—“I was born free. I was the son of a father who was a decurio. I sold my nobility for the advantage of this nation. But I am not ashamed, neither do I repent; I became a servant for Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I am not recognised in my former position.” Elsewhere he says—“I was about 16 years old; but I knew not the true God, and was led away into captivity to Hibernia, with a great many men, according to our deservings.” His occupation for six years in Antrim was keeping cattle. But the spirit of the Eternal took possession of him. “My constant business was to keep the flocks; I was frequent in prayers, and the love and fear of God more and more inflamed my heart. My faith and spirit were enlarged, so that I said a hundred prayers in a day and nearly as many at night, and in the woods and on the mountain I remained, and before the light I arose to my prayers, in the snow, in the frost, and in the rain; and I experienced no evil at all. Nor was I affected with sloth, for the spirit of God was warm in me.” This was the man that the Gaels of Strathclyde gave for the conversion of Ireland to Christianity.

There are several interesting questions suggested by the nativity and life of Patrick. The land of his birth is now clearly ascertained; but there are subsidiary questions in connection with that fact which require further consideration. Was Patrick a Gael, a Brython or one of non-Aryan races which as recently as the fifth century were a powerful people? What language did he speak, or what language did he acquire in his Christian conquest of Ireland? Who were the Irish as a race, and how far they had been Christianised before his arrival? As to the question of race, the evidence appears to lean distinctly in favour of the conclusion that he was a Gaidel and not a Brython, notwithstanding the Brythonic suggestiveness of the letter P in his name. It ought not to be forgotten also in connection with this question that the radical differences between the Brythonic and Gaidelic dialects at this time were far less important than they are now; and that the capital of the district of Patrick’s birth-place had its earlier Gaidelic designation of Alcluaidh before it received its Brythonic name of Dunbretton. Philologists tell us of the loss of the letter P in the Gaidelic dialects; but the phonologists on this question have not fully cleared up the difficulties which are suggested by the fact that in some of the most north-westerly districts of the Highlands at the present time many of the non-Anglicised natives are incapable of making a clear distinction between the letters P and B, and hard C and G. If we take the evidence afforded by literature, we can come to no other conclusion than that Patrick was of the Gaidelic or Gaelic race; for if we have not actual compositions in the Gaelic language by him we have productions in that language ascribed to him by ancient countrymen who must have known what his native tongue had been.

The language which Patrick appears to have acquired in course of his missionary labours for Ireland’s conversion could have been no other than that of the non-Aryan races, or Cruthnic—the prevailing Erinic—probably related closely to the Albinic, which at that time was spoken all over the north-west of Scotland. In the north-east of Ireland he no doubt found considerable numbers of the Gaidelic race, his kinsmen who had preceded him. But the language of those who had been already partly converted by Palladius, a semi-mythic saint, who is at least as much connected with Albin as with Erin, was certainly different from that of the large mass of the Irish people. To extend the conquests of Christianity over the fair fields of Erin south as well as north, it was necessary that Patrick should master the tongue of the non-Aryan races. There can be no doubt that his labours in this direction helped also to extend the area of the Gaelic-speaking regions,—the more literary language of the incoming saint and his race making natural acquisitions in every direction. Similar results followed the Gospelising efforts of Columba in the Highlands in a subsequent age.

The conclusions fairly deducible from a consideration of Patrick’s life point to many interesting matters in connection with the History of the Highland People. We obtain first a clear conception of a living Christian church existing among the Romanised Gaels of Strathclyde. We also learn that from the bosom of the Gaelic Church of Ninian, decayed as it possibly may have been, there came forth the great messenger of the Cross, who recalled to life if he did not originate the forces of Christianity in Ireland. Again we find the gospel succession of the spirit of truth, coming back in a generation or two into the Highlands of Scotland in the person of Columba. The lamp of heavenly wisdom, lighted on the banks of the Clyde, which Patrick flashed over the fields of Erin, became the holy beacon which the fervid fingers of Columba planted on the shores of Iona.

The Scottish missionary that went to Ireland and became its patron saint is often referred to in the early ballads, Irish and Scottish. His Creed-Prayer is given here. It is a curious mixture of dogma and poetry; but undevotional as it may seem to us had the “green” and other coloured Finians of the day appropriated its earnest petitions and aspirations they would be saved the troubles of many “Pursuits.” It begins thus in prose: “Patraicc dorone innimmunsa.” Patrick made this hymn. It then states that it was made in the time of Leogaire, son of Neill. The cause assigned to its composition was the need of “protection with his monks against the mortal enemies who were in league against the clerics.” It was to be a corslet of faith for soul and body against demons, men, and vices. Demons could not stand before the face of him who sang it; envy and poison could do no harm; in this life it would be a safeguard against sudden death; and it would be a covering of defence (lurech in Gaelic, from the Latin lorica) after death. When Patrick sang it as he went forth to sow the faith the opposition of Leogaire gave way.

Then the hymn properly begins: The singer declares his belief in the Trinity—in Threeness—confession of Oneness in the Creator of the world.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the Trinity;

To belief in the all-gracious Three;

To confession that the Three are one

In the Maker of the world and sun.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the birth of Christ;

To the truth that Jesus was baptised,

To the fact that path of death He trod,

That three days He lay beneath the sod;

To the pow’r of Resurrection morn,

That from the earth to heaven he was borne;

To the power of His Judgment call,

When final state shall be assigned to all.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the Cherubs high;

In obedience of the angels nigh;

In attendance of archangels’ might;

In the hope of resurrection’s light;

In the prayers of the sires of eld;

In the visions that the seers beheld;

In the precepts the apostles taught;

In the faith by which confessors wrought;

In the innocence of virgins pure;

In the deeds of just men that endure.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of Heaven,

To the lustre, sun-given;

To the pureness, snow-driven;

To fiery flames brightening;

To the swiftness of lightning;

To the speed of the breeze;

To the depth of the seas;

To the firmness of land,

And the rocks that there stand.

I bind myself to-day—

To God’s pow’r to be controlled;

To His might me to uphold;

To His wisdom me to bow;

To His eye the path to show;

To His ear to hear my cry;

To His word to speak my sigh;

To His hand me to protect;

To His way me to direct;

To His shield as my defence;

To His host till I go hence.

Against demons’ dire devices;

Against allurements of all vices;

Against strong solicitations

Of our nature’s inclinations;

Against all the bad desires

With which sin men’s hearts inspires,

Afar or near where’er I be

In solitude or company.

Thus I have sought protection from on high

Against the powers of ill and cruelty;

Against deceitful prophets’ incantations;

Against the black laws of the gentile nations;

Against the false laws of all heretics;

Against the craft of the idolator’s tricks;

Against the spells of druids, smiths, and women;

Against all lore that taints the spirit human.

Let Christ protect me to-day against poison—

Against burning, drowning, against wound,

Until abundance of reward comes round.

Christ be with me, Christ before, behind,

Christ without me, Christ within my mind,

Christ above me, and in breadth, length, height,

Christ below me, at my left and right.

Let Christ in all who think of me reside,

And on all lips that speak to me abide;

Christ be in every eye that sees my walk,

Christ be in every ear that hears my talk.

I bind myself to-day—

To the power of the Trinity,

To belief in the all-gracious Three,

To confession that the Three are One,

In the Maker of the earth and sun.

Dr Cameron, who has a learned article on “St. Patrick’s Hymn” in The Scottish Celtic Review, and to whose accurate prose translation as well as to Dr Stokes’s in his Goidelica. I am so much indebted in the above rendering, makes the following remark:—“This hymn forms one of the Irish hymns in the ‘Liber Hymnorum,’ a MS. belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, and written, as Dr Stokes conjectures, about the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. The hymn itself, however, belongs to a much earlier date.”

The chief dates in the life of Patrick, who was probably born about 387, are his landing in Ireland in 432 when he is represented as attending the assembly of the Irish Kings and Chieftains which was held on the hill of Tara that year; his celebrated letter against Coroticus in 453 to regulate church discipline; and his death which occurred in 493.

A very remarkable incident, related in the “Book of Armagh” and quoted in Todd’s “Life of Patrick,” which bears internal evidence of high antiquity, and now evidently written at a time when paganism was not yet extinct in the country, illustrates the way in which Patrick set before the Celtic mind the faith which he proclaimed. One morning he and his attendants repaired to a fountain called Clebach at Cruachan, now Rath-croghan, an ancient residence of the kings of Connaught. Thither came the two daughters of King Laogharie, and on seeing the strangers supposed them to be Duine Sidhe fairies, “men of the hills,” and said to them, “Who are ye?” And Patrick said unto them, “It were better for you to confess to our true God, than to inquire concerning our race.”

‘The first Virgin said,—

“Who is God?

“And where is God?

“And of what nature is God?

“And where is his dwelling place?

“Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver?

“Is He everliving?

“Is He beautiful?

“Is He in Heaven or in earth?

“In the sea?

“In rivers?

“In mountainous places?

“In valleys?

“Declare unto us the knowledge of Him?

“How shall He be seen?

“How is He to be loved?

“How is He to be found?

“Is it in youth?

“Is it in old age that He is to be found?”

‘But St. Patrick, full of the Holy Ghost, answered and said,—

“Our God is the God of all men.

“The God of heaven and earth, of the sea and rivers.

“The God of the sun, the moon, and all stars.

“The God of the high mountains and of the lowly valleys.

“The God who is above heaven, and in heaven, and under heaven.

“He hath an habitation in the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all that are therein.

“He inspireth all things.

“He quickeneth all things.

“He is over all things.

“He sustaineth all things.

“He giveth light to the light of the sun.

“And he hath made springs in a dry ground.

“And dry islands in the sea.

“And hath appointed the stars to serve the greater lights.

“He hath a Son co-eternal and co-equal with Himself.

“The Son is not younger than the Father.

“Nor is the Father older than the Son.

“And the Holy Ghost breatheth in them.

“The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not divided.

“But I desire to unite you to the Heavenly King, inasmuch as you are the daughters of an earthly king—to believe.”

‘And the Virgins said, as with one mouth and one heart,—

“Teach us most diligently how we may see Him face to face, and whatever thou shalt say unto us we will do.”

‘And Patrick said,—

“Believe ye that by baptism ye put off the sin of your father and your mother?”

‘They answered, “We believe.”

“Believe ye in repentance after sin?” “We believe.”

“Believe ye in life after death? Believe ye in the resurrection at the Day of Judgment?” “We believe.”

“Believe ye the unity of the Church?” “We believe.”

‘And they were baptized, and a white garment put upon their heads. And they asked to see the face of Christ, and the Saint said unto them, “Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye receive the sacrifice.” And they answered, “Give us the sacrifice, that we may behold the Son, our Spouse.” And they received the Eucharist of God, and they slept in death.

“The articles of the Creed recited in this extract are those alone, it has been observed, which are to be found in symbols of the very highest antiquity, and the dialogue illustrates, what has been already noticed, the Celtic belief in genii or aerial beings, inhabiting mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, and fountains, and the existence of nature-worship in its simplest form.”—See the works of Skene, Todd, Cusack, Hennesy, Foster, Sherman, and for special purposes Whitley Stokes, Miss Stokes, G. T. Stokes, along with Maclear’s “Celts.”

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.

CHAPTER III.
NORTH ALBIN GAELS—COLUMBA.

The presence of the Romans in Scotland produced very little effect in the Highlands. Fringes of the eastern counties had been occupied for brief periods of time; but the influence of Latin civilisation was slight and transient. The Christian churches that had begun to flourish in the Gaelic lowlands under Roman rule showed signs of decay upon the withdrawal of the Imperial legions which at first were a sort of protection to the somewhat feeble Christianity of the earlier ages. The chief source of weakness to this Christianity was the fact that it had not yet struck its roots deeply into the independent soil of the native races. A more virile gospel of natural native growth was needed. And this was now about to be proclaimed by a man whose name is associated with the most brilliant period and best aspirations of the history of the Highland people.

This man was Calum, the son of Feidlimidh, son of Fergus, son of Niall, of the “Nine Hostages,” monarch of Erin, who was slain in the year 405. He was thus of blood-royal on the father’s side; while his mother Ethne was also of a princely house. He was born about the year [521] at Gartan, in the county of Donegal. His people in these northern Highlands of Ireland, belonged to the same race that prevailed at this period in the southern Highlands of Scotland; so in crossing the sea to the islands of Argyllshire Columba merely sailed from one Gaelic country to another. He was a man highly regarded in both countries on account of his family connections among the powerful ruling races on both sides of the sea. Before proceeding to detail the better authenticated and the more suggestive events of his life, it may help to remove some historical misconceptions and show more vividly the field of Columba’s operations, if we glance at the condition of the various races with whom he came in contact, and at their relations to one another.

When the Highland people first emerge on the canvas of written records within their present limits, it is in connection with the proclamation of Christianity among them. We previously get a glance of their valiant clans in the great national struggle with the aggressive legions of Rome. The brave soldiers of these legions with which the Caledonians strove, were in the main of the same race as those to whom they were opposed. They belonged to the powerful clan Chatti of ancient Batavia, the modern Netherlands, where the Romans fixed their base for operations in Britain. It was these Batavian Celts with their better weapons, and not Latin soldiers, that fought the ancient Highlanders of the eastern counties. Centuries passed after this great battle between the Celts of Albin and those of Batavia who were in Roman pay. Then again the clans of the north came distinctly into view when the star of Christianity arose in the west. The sources of our information at this point, are the uncertain references of classical writers on the one hand—references which require careful sifting—and the vague glimpses of native Christian writers on the other.

It is not to be expected that these sources would supply us with anything like a correct ethnological account. We may feel certain that race theories in the sixth century were at least as confusing and mistaken as they are in the present day even among fairly educated people. So it is only by a careful induction and much critical attention, that an approximation to the truth can be arrived at out of those classical passages and sentences which have been so severely tortured and twisted by Gaels and Goths, Brythons, and Teutons. Much choleric temper has extended itself over those ancient fields. In recent times sorely debated questions, however, have changed faces, and historians have become more humane. The Christ breath of the sentiment of human brotherhood has very largely soothed the racial asperities with which the wars of the Picts and the Scots have been fought again and again.

There is one phase of the history of those early centuries, which he who runs may read now, and in which the Highland people are naturally very much interested. It has come distinctly into view as the result of able discussions during the last ten years. The Celtic period of our national history used to receive very scant attention indeed at the hands of the recognised writers on such subjects. Our latest historians have shown a spirit of greater fairness. The first volume of Burton’s “History of Scotland” may be said to be devoted to the Celtic period; and, with the exception of the writer’s evident anxiety to find the paternity of the higher influences of civilisation in Teutonic fields, may be regarded as a fair representation of the events of the centuries described. Even the publication of such a work as Skene’s “Celtic Scotland,” bearing so suggestive a title, is a fact of much significance. A learned if not always discriminating volume, “Celtic Ireland,” by Dr Sophie Bryant, has also just been published.

In the fifth and sixth centuries we are confronted with a group of races in north Britain which have formed the subject of bitter and exhaustive controversies. The terms “Pict” and “Scot” are the chief monuments of this fierce warfare. No one can pretend to say now who the races are of whom these terms are the exponents. They were bestowed on the people by outsiders, and are quite unknown in the native literature of the country. It is highly probable that they indicate personal characteristics such as dress rather than race. The clans or tribes to whom they were applied have been found all over north Britain and the north of Ireland at different times. To translate them into native terms will only make the confusion already existing more hopeless. To render Pict by “Cruthnec” would be as inaccurate as to render Scot by “Gàidheal.” The most helpful way in which we can arrive at a fairly satisfactory conclusion at present is to take a brief survey of the various races from a Gaelic standpoint; keeping the main results of ethnological inquiry before our minds. From this position the use of the terms “Pict” and “Scot” must be altogether discarded. Let us examine the terms which the Gaelic language supplies:—

1. Albannaich.—Who were or are the Albannaich? The word has come from Albainn or Albin, and is now generally used to distinguish a Scotsman, whether Highland or Lowland, from the Eirionnach of Ireland and the Sasunnach of England. The application of Albion to the largest of these islands retreated in the course of centuries to the north-west, where it still indicated the presence of the pre-Celtic settlers who gave the name to the island. The occasional application of it by Celtic writers to southern districts, even as far south-west as the Isle of Wight, or the sea of Ictis, prevailed as late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Albannaich, or people of a distinctively pre-Celtic character still survived in the west, particularly in south Wales and Cornwall. In the time of Columba the Albannaich proper possessed and ruled the country from Drum-Albin northwards. The language they spoke is unknown.

2. Gaidheil.—“Gaidheil Alba” is an expression which indicates, what we otherwise know, that the Gaidheil were immigrants to the country of the Albinians. The precise term for the land inhabited by themselves is “Gàidhealtachd,” the application of which suggests that it is a part or district of Albin. A similar expression is “Gàidheil Eirin,” which shows that Ireland is not more peculiarly the land of the Gael than Scotland; indeed like “Scots” it is only in the latter that the “Gaels,” emphatically “na Gàidheil,” can be found. When we first know them in north Britain we see them in possession of the south-west Highlands and the Strathclyde valleys. Their Gaelic tongue prevailed south of Drum-Albin, and particularly in the fourth and fifth centuries, in that district or county to which they have given its name, Argyll. They were driven to Ireland in earlier times as well as into the Argyllshire Highlands under the pressure of the Brythons on the south-east, mixed up with, and supported by, the Romans and Roman rule.

3. Bretunnaich.—At the time of Columba men of this race pushed as far west as the Clyde. They have left a memorial of their presence in that ancient capital of their rule, Dunbreton, or Dumbarton. There were, no doubt, many Gaels still in the district, although the Brythons asserted for some time a supremacy; and the former reasserted their presence before the valleys of the Clyde became finally Saxon in language.

4. Sasunnaich.—In the land of the Gael very little was known of the Sasunnaich when Columba landed in Argyllshire. They were well known to the Bretunnaich on the eastern shores, where they had for some time established themselves. But to the Gaels in the west they were as yet a mere shadowy name.

Columba’s missionary enterprises were carried on among the Gaels of the southern Highlands and the Albinians of the north-west. The two languages in which he could freely and eloquently preach were Gaelic and Latin, so among the Gaels he found himself at once at home among a kindred people, many of whom had already heard of Christianity. Among the Albinians of the north-west neither his Gaelic nor his Latin could serve him; and he had to engage an interpreter, who must have been familiar with Gaelic and Albinic. With the Christianising of the north-west the area of Gaelic speech extended, and Albinic gradually became extinct.

The advent of Columba on the shores of the Highlands constitutes a new era in the national history. In the centuries which elapsed from his time 553-97 to that of Queen Margaret 1057-93, some 500 years, we have the truly Celtic period of Scottish national life. In the course of the preceding 500 years the Romans occupied large tracts of Scottish territory; and after the withdrawal of their legions the Albinians maintained a powerful rule in the north-west; so the Gaels had not as yet played so visible a part on the national canvas. Now, however, with the evangelisation of the country by Columba the Gaels, whose language became the organ of sacred eloquence, appeared as the prevailing people.

The conclusions established by the following facts deserve distinct attention in our conceptions of our national history:—

1. That the Gaels were the prevailing race in north Britain for 500 years previous to the reign of Malcolm Canmore.

2. That during these centuries the Gaelic language was used in Court and church, and was the national speech of the people, even when an English dialect began to develop on the east coast and a Norse one temporarily prevailed in the western islands.

3. That a native Gaelic church flourished during this half millennium.

4. That it was during these centuries that the permanent foundations of our Scottish independence and nationality were laid, in the midst of many fierce struggles and bitter sorrows, and by means of many battles and much bloodshed. It was the Gaelic conquests of this period that paved the way for the national throne which Kenneth MacAlpine ascended, and which exercised sway in the north until its power merged in that of the British Empire upwards of a thousand years after the gospel was proclaimed by Columba in the Hebrides.

The missionary advent of Columba, or in his own native language, Calum, on the south-western shores of the Highlands constitutes one of the earliest and chief dates of our national history. The evangelical succession of his Christianity has been traced in two directions. One source has been already touched upon, the Church of Ninian from which Patrick went forth to evangelize the north of Ireland. The mother home of this branch of Celtic Christianity was undoubtedly Ninian’s celebrated monastery of Rosnat, which is mentioned under several designations, of which “Candida Casa” is the best known. Other names are the “Magnum Monasterium,” “Alba” and “Futerna,” the latter being the Gaelic equivalent for the Anglic “Whithern.” Abbots and bishops trained in this renowned monastery laboured in Ulster; and founded monasteries there. The last of this family of ecclesiastics was Finian of the race of Dal Fiatach. This is acknowledged to be the first channel through which Monachism was introduced into Ireland, the personal links in the communication being Martin of Tours and Ninian. The second channel, as well shown by Dr Skene, was through Bretagne and Wales, the personal links in this case being “David, Gillas, and Docus, the Britons,” otherwise David, the patron saint of the Welsh, Gildas, the historian, and Cadoc, the founder of Llancarvan in South Wales. Finian, an Irish Pict, repaired to the monastery of Kilmuine, or Manavia, in Wales, and became the pupil of these three distinguished men; and on his return to Ireland founded in course of time the well-known monastery of Clonard in Meath, the Gaelic Cluainerard, where no less than three thousand monks are supposed to have been at one time under training. This became the source of living Christianity in the south-west of Ireland after the time of Patrick. Finian had twelve followers of celebrated name, who have been designated the twelve Apostles of Ireland. Their names run as follow:—

1. Ciaran, the founder of the Saighir monastery in Munster.

2. Ciaran, called “Mac-an-t-Saoir,” the “Artificer’s son,” founder of Clonmacnois, in King’s County, in 548.

3. Columba, son of Crimthan of Leinster, founder of Tirrdaglas in 548.

4. Mobhi Clairenach, founder of Glasnevin, in Fingall.

5. Ninnidh, of Loch Erne.

6. Brendan, of Birr.

7. Brendan, of the seven years’ voyage, founder of Clonfert.

8. Laisren or Molaisse, of Devenish.

9. Ruadhan, of Lothra.

10. Senell, of Cluain-innis.

11. Cainnech, of Achabo.

12. Columba, of Iona.

With the exception of Brendan of Birr, Cainnech of Achabo, and the great Finian himself, who were of the Erinic race, all these were of the Gaelic race.

Highlanders cannot help feeling much interested in the main facts of Columba’s life. The exact date of his birth, ascertained is fixed on the 7th of December, 521. He was baptised by the Presbyter Cruithnechan, and the church of his youth was Tulach-dubh-glaise, now Temple Douglas, where his frequent attendance procured him the title “Calum-cille” or “Calum of the Church.” In due time he became the pupil of Finnbarr, or Finian of Maghbile, where he was ordained a deacon. He acquired taste for general literature under the instruction of the bard Gemman. He completed his academic training under Finian of Clonard, when he became one of the twelve apostles of Ireland. In his religious course of instruction the influences of the two British monasteries of Candida Casa and Menavia met in the persons of the two Finians, respectfully of Maghbile and Clonard. About the year 545 he founded the monastery of Derry, or of Daire, and afterwards that of Raphoe in Donegal. Ten years after the date of the foundation of the church of Derry he started the celebrated religious centre of Durrow or Daire-Mag, distinguished by the profusion of oaks with which it was surrounded. Cennanus, or Kells, in Meath, is also associated with his name, as well as a large number of less famous churches scattered over many other counties.

This is the man who was about to Christianise the north-west of Scotland, as well as give a fresh impulse to the great missionary enterprises of the Celtic Church. Christianity was not altogether unknown in the Western Isles before his arrival. The saintly voyager, Brendan, one of his contemporaries, had been heard of in these regions upwards of twenty years before the arrival of Columba; and left traces of his presence in Bute and the Garvelloch Isles, where his name has come down to us in that designation of Rothesay folks, Brandanes, as well as in Kilbrandan Sound. He is also reported to have visited the island of Heth or Tyree.

The departure of Columba from Ireland for the Scottish coast was probably the result of mixed motives. He appears to have been implicated in some sanguinary struggle, particularly the battle of Culdremhne; how far it is impossible now satisfactorily to ascertain. We are informed by Adamnan that the excommunication pronounced by the Synod of Taillte in Meath was for pardonable and trifling reasons. The silly story about the transcription of the Psalter, and the judgment about the cow and its calf are unworthy of the persons concerned and of the Christianity of the period. The so-called sentence of exile does not bear the criticism of common sense; and is the product of very credulous times. That the heart of Columba yearned for the conversion of his kindred across the sea is highly credible and natural. Political motives may have entered into his thought; but we may generally accept the impression of one of his biographers,—“his native country was left by the illustrious saint and illustrious sage, and son chosen of God for the love and favour of Christ.”

In the year 563 Columba, in the forty-second year of his age, left Ireland for Scotland. The island of Colonsay was the first soil on which he landed; but finding that he was still within eight miles of Ireland he sailed further north to Ia or the Iouan island, where he fixed his abode. He was accompanied by “twelve disciples, his fellow soldiers,” in the fashion of the missionaries of the Celtic Church who went forth in their twelves, sometimes in their twenty-fours. At first on arrival at Colonsay these devoted brethren thought they had sailed far enough from Ireland and raised Carn cul ri Eirin; but a clearer horizon soon revealed to them their mistake. On the nearest elevation in Iona they raised a similar Carn bearing the same title, and they were now satisfied that they had sailed far enough north from their native place, the vision of which could not tempt them to return. Had they been able to anticipate the power of modern glasses they would find that Ireland was still within their sight. The date of their arrival in Iona was Whitsuneve, which that year fell on the 12th of May.

The name of Iona is a source of everlasting charm all over the Christian world. Let us form to ourselves some conception of its position, size, and character. In his voyage to this islet Columba sailed by the fertile and low-lying shores of Islay, whence the high lands of the north of Ireland can be easily seen in the hazy distance. He landed on the lonely Colonsay, but stayed not there. Further north he found his future home. This was that isle of fame and beauty, situated at the south-west corner of the island of Mull.

Iona is separated from the Ross of Mull by a channel about a mile wide, in which the heavy swell of the ocean sometimes rolls unkindly for tiny barks. This channel is deep enough for the passage of the largest ships, but is not free from danger on account of sunken rocks. The island itself lies north-east and south-west; and is about three and one-half miles in length, and a mile and a half in breadth. Its area is about two thousand acres, of which some six hundred are generally under cultivation, the rest being either pasture or barren. To see its northern end, as the writer first saw it, gleaming under the morning sun,—its brows of sand flashing their radiance afar,—produces an impression that does not readily vanish. The diapason of the Atlantic and the responsive chorus of the seashores help to charm and soothe while they solemnize the human spirit. There truly you can find the spirit of nature’s religion chanting lightly her morning hymns and rehearsing sweetly her evening psalms. A plain extends from side to side, at the narrowest part, in the centre of the island, with a small green hillock in its centre. In this part of it the soil is fairly fertile; but towards the north the ground becomes rougher with grassy hollows and rocky rising-knolls which end in the highest point in the island, Dun-I, 327 feet in height. From that eminence north a strip of low land extends to the shore, terminating in a stretch of white sand, which is composed chiefly of broken shells which the swell of the ocean has rolled and wasted and worn together until it heaped them there. Along the east side of the island the ground is low-lying and fertile. South of the central plain the surface of the soil is irregular, showing stony heights and grassy dells, which afford good pasture. The shore abounds with little bays and headlands. The underlying rocks are Laurentian, with an almost vertical dip, and a strike from north-east to south-west. There are beds of slate, quartz, marble, with serpentine, and a mixture of felspar, quartz, and hornblende passing sometimes into a sort of granite. This is the island of which the proverbial saying has made Columba so tenderly sing:

“I mo chridhe, I mo ghràidh.”

(Isle of my heart, Isle of my love.)

The name of Iona has appeared under a large variety of forms. The single capital letter I has stood for it, which pronounced like double ee as Gaelic requires, represents the universal Gaelic pronunciation for the island. Here are some of the other forms: Ia, Ie, Ii, Ieoa; Hi, Hii; Y, Hy; Iona, Yona, Hyona, and Yensis; I-Chalumchille and Icolmkill. In Adamnan it appears as the Iouan island. This is an adjectival form in which the radix is Iou, equivalent to the Gaelic I. Adamnan’s Iouan was corrupted by the mistake of transcribers into the more euphonious Iona, an explanation which shows, the untenableness of such fanciful etymologies as I-thonna, “the island of waves,” and I-shona, “the island of the blest.”

These were some of the peculiar developments of the Brito-Irish Church from whose bosom Columba came. The monasteries were usually located on grants of land, often very extensively made by the provincial kings or other chiefs who had been converted to Christianity, and desired to have the worship of God set up among their people, and thus became identified with the clan or tribe in which they were settled. It is in connection with these temporalities that the remarkable functionary called Co-arb comes into view. He appears to have been a person of greater consequence than the bishop, and to have exercised ecclesiastical as well as temporal power. Dr Todd defines his position and functions thus:—“On the whole it appears that the endowment in land, which were granted to the ancient church by the chieftains who were first converted into Christianity, carried with them the temporal rights and principalities originally belonging to the owners of the soil, and that these rights and principalities were vested, not in bishops as such, but in the co-arbs or ecclesiastical successors of those saints to whom the grants of land were originally made. In other words, the Co-arbs became the trustees of the temporalities of the monasteries and of the missionary enterprises of the church. They were the predecessors of those who in our own times hold property in trust for our training schools, colleges, churches, and missionary societies. There were no mines, docks, or railways in which shares could be held; but the chieftain and his clan had real property at their disposal which in their piety and generosity they set apart, as occasion required, for the support of the gospel. The property the earnest-souled monks soon transformed into a centre of holy activity and Christian civilization.”

Columba with his family of Christian brethren in Iona, labouring with hand and head; studying, writing, and praying; and sending forth to neighbouring lands and islands Christian workers whose hearts God had touched, formed a beautiful picture of pious effort which deeply impressed the imagination of succeeding ages. This band of ancient Gaelic Christians became known in course of time under the endearing designation of “The Family of Iona.” The goodly number of twelve disciples accompanied Columba to Iona, the number being that usually sent forth together to labour in a district in imitation of the accidental features of the apostolic system. The names of the twelve brethren were Baithen, and Cobthach, brothers; Ernaan, the uncle, and Diarmit the attendant of Columba; Rus and Fechno, brothers; Scandal, Luguid, Eachaid, Tochann, Cairnaan, and Grillaan.

Iona as a religious centre for the evangelising efforts of these brethren was admirably situated. It was on the confines of the Albinic and Gaelic jurisdiction. It was granted to Columba first by Conall, King of the Gaels, who were largely Christians. The great missionary also secured the grant by getting the approval of King Brude of the Albinians, whom he visited soon after his settlement at Iona. This visit to the king was paid at his fortress at the mouth of the Ness, and was afterwards repeated several times, which evinces the unchanging character of the friendship which existed between the king and the saint.

The interesting story of Columba’s missionary labours in converting the Albinians and in reviving the drooping Christianity of the Gaels belongs to the province of Church history and can only be glanced at here as a fresh transforming factor which entered deeply into the civil life of the people. It was no doubt the determining influence in the historic process which ended in Kenneth’s accession to the united throne in 843. Combined with the superior knowledge of letters, this factor of Christianity facilitated the Gaelic conquest of Albin. The struggle described in the popular ballads of the Finians was a real one—in which the heathen and decadent Féinne, the brave and chivalrous people of Ossian went forth against the psalm-singing forces of Christian clerics, but they always went forth to fall and die. The Gaelic and Christian conquest of the Albinians or Féinne was complete with the union of the two races in the ninth century. All through the struggle the members of “The Family of Iona” played a prominent part.

They had travelled north and east, earnestly labouring among the various clans and tribes, and founding churches and colleges which became not only Christianising but nationalising centres, and so preparing the way for the extension of Gaelic rule. When the proper opportunity came the nations were evidently well prepared for a fusion which appears to have been very thorough.

Judging by the number of churches which they founded, and the wide tracts of country over which their labours extended, the Family of Iona must have had a very earnest and successful brotherhood. The northern half of England was Christianised by men who went forth from Iona, a fact which, it is pleasant to notice, is specially acknowledged in the Dictionary of English History recently published.

It is to the Family of Iona we are also indebted for the first literary products to which we can refer. They were the first to love and cultivate the literature which we now so highly prize. If there were any such pre-Christian bards as Ossian, it is to the ancient clerics that we are indebted for the preservation of their compositions. Indeed it is a question whether the knowledge of the forms of poetry existed at all in pre-Christian times. There is no evidence [that we possess] a scrap of ancient poetry which belongs to ages before Christian pens began to cultivate letters. The brethren in Iona were much engaged in writing, which as an accomplishment was considered as an adornment even for the highest Church dignitaries. And great value was attached evidently to the products of their pens. The transcription of sacred literature, particularly of the Psalter, occupied much of their time. Columba himself was engaged in this work when death took him. To be a ready scribhnidh, or scribe, was an object of worthy ambition. The position of ferleighin, or praelector, was one of honour in the sacred brotherhood. Many of the terms used by them in connection with letters have come down to us; others have been lost, or have since their time received different meanings and applications. Columba’s Stylus, or pen, was called in Gaelic graib, from the Greek graphium; but the graib of modern times is an agricultural implement. A very poetic legend tells how this stylus of Columba became the property of Gregory of Rome. The leather cases in which the service books were kept for travelling were called polire and tiagha. The alphabet they styled abgiter a form which has considerable philologic value; according to one authority Columba’s abgiter was written on a cake. These waxed tablets for writing introduced ceir from the Latin cera. The library was teach screaptra; and its keeper leabhor coimhedach. These and many other terms once current in Gaelic literature, introduced by the Gaelic clerics in the British Isles and on the Continent, ceased to be used in the centuries of greater ignorance which succeeded their times.

In their ancient writings and lives occur many other terms which have their value in shedding light on the social habits and condition of the people. The family of Iona had their kitchen, cuicin, or coitchenn; in which the coquina, coic, or cook prepared the meals of the brethren. Their chief season in the day time was nona, or noin, still occasionally heard in tra-noin. Their cows were sheltered in an outhouse, the Bocetum, or bathaich; and in the neighbourhood was the pasture-ground, or buaile. The grain was stored in the barn, or, sabhall, the Gaelic term still in use. They had also their Molendinum or Muileann, in which the grain was ground by the bra, or quern. A caballus, a capull, or gerran, was kept on the faithche, or green enclosure near at hand to be in readiness for general purposes. When they wanted to move along the shores they had their curucae, or curraich, whose light frames covered with skins could so easily glide through the water. For distant voyages and other purposes they had the scaphae, or scadhan, still applied to a certain class of boats. Visitors and guests from far-off lands arrived in their barcae, or, barcan, a term still current in Gaelic. The Scologs, or lower order of the clergy did not refuse to help the Economus, or fertighis, the butler, or pincerna, or the baker, or pistor. It is curious to find that on one occasion the baker was a stray Saxon. There were also among the brethren in Iona a smith, or gobha, and a brazier, or cerd, which in recent Gaelic has become a term of reproach. The term for one article of their dress at least, cochall, the Latin cuculla, had survived in familiar Gaelic. It is represented that the hardy brethren slept on the bare stones, and in their ordinary day clothes. They were truly a Milesian or soldier race, who by their persistent labours and self-sacrifices thoroughly deserved the name and fame which after ages accorded them.

While the name of Columba is that which shines above all the rest there were other labourers in the Highlands before, and contemporaneously with him who have left behind them illustrious memories, fragrant names which have entered very largely into the nomenclature of the soil. Brendan has been already referred to. Others like him made missionary journeys through the country, such as the two Fillans, Flannan and Ronan, whose names are commemorated in the Highlands and Isles. Moluoc became the founder and celebrated patron of Lismore; and Kilmaluac in Tiree has preserved his memory. His death took place in 592. Maelrubha’s labours are chiefly associated with Wester Ross, but he was honoured all over the Highlands. In 673 he founded a church and college at Applecross where he laboured zealously till he “rested,” as the chronicles say, in 722 in the eightieth year of his age. He and Columba were the chief patron saints of Skye. The north-eastern part of the island was peculiar to Columba, the south-eastern to Maelrubha whose name survives in Kilmaree in Strath, and in Kilmolruy in Bracadale. As far south as Islay we find him venerated in the central parish of that Island, in Killarrow, where he may have laboured on his way from Ireland before he settled at Applecross. Another heroic character in the same age was Donnan whose brave spirit and individuality have evoked admiration throughout the whole of Scotland. He was younger than Columba whom he regarded with ardent feelings of friendship, and among whose Christian family at Iona he desired to be enrolled. “This Donnan went to Columcille to make him his soul’s friend; upon which Columcille said to him, I shall not be soul’s friend to a company (heirs) of red martyrdom, and thy people with thee. And it was so fulfilled.” In the far north his figure emerges in cric Chat, or “regions of Catt,” which included Sutherland and Caithness. The parish bearing his name, Kildonan, was the chief scene of his enterprise in the north. He closed his life truly in “red martyrdom” in the island of Eigg.

“To glorious martyrdom ascended,

With his clerics of pure lives,

Donnan of cold Eig.”

An account already quoted says—“Donnan then went with his people to the Hebrides; and they took up their abode there, in a place where the sheep of the queen of the country were kept. This was told to the queen. Let them all be killed said she. That would not be a religious act, said her people. But they were murderously assailed. At this time the cleric was at mass. Let us have respite till mass is ended, said Donnan. Thou shalt have it, said they. And when it was over, they were slain every one of them.” Another version runs thus: “Donnan the great with his monks. Fifty-two were his congregation. There came pirates of the sea to the island in which they were, and slew them all. Eig is the name of that island.” In these west Highlands his memory was preserved in Little Bernera, off Lewis, in South Uist, Loch Broom, and Snizort, Skye, in each of which Kildonnans are found. In the southern Highlands in Arran and Kintyre as well as in Wigtonshire and Ayrshire we come across Kildonnans, or churches dedicated to his memory. At Auchterloss in Aberdeenshire his pastoral staff was preserved until it was broken by the Reformers. His martyrdom took place on Sunday the 17th of April, 617; and must have, along with that of the fifty-two brethren who were with him, cast deep gloom on the prospects of Christian enterprise in the West Highlands.

The journeys, the holy labours with their great results, of Columba himself, and of his brethren from Iona, have been minutely and eloquently described by various writers. The name of the founder of Iona is associated with upwards of 60 religious establishments or places in Scotland, and with as many in Ireland. He died on the 9th of June, 597, seventy-six years of age. And as we think of the memory which he left behind him for the veneration of his countrymen we are reminded of the bright pillar that was seen to glow upon his head on one occasion after reading the Gospel in common with brethren from a distance, who visited him in Eilein-na-Naoimh: “Brenden Mocu Alti saw, as he told Congell and Cainnech afterwards, a ball of fire like a comet burning very brightly on the head of Columba, while he was standing before the altar, and consecrating the holy oblation, and thus it continued burning and rising upwards like a column, so long as he continued to be engaged in the same most sacred mysteries.” So has the name of the saint burned and risen upwards like a monumental column upon the brow of Scotland. He has had a devoted, [if an incredulous] biographer in Adamnan, his eighth successor in the abbacy of Iona. To this writer we are indebted for the most ancient piece of writing produced in the Highlands that has been preserved. His name, which has undergone several curious transformations, has been embalmed in the designations of eight or ten places under the modifications of Teunan, Eunan, Arnold, Avonia, and many. It has passed into personal names of modern times in Gill-Adhamnain, or Gilleonan, borne by a MacNeill of Barra in 1495. Adamnan was born in 624; succeeded Columba in Iona in 679; and died on the 23d of Sept., 704. His veneration and estimate of his great predecessor may be gathered from the following eloquent sentences taken from the preface of his interesting work: “From his boyhood he (Columba) had been brought up in Christian training in the study of wisdom, and by the grace of God had so preserved the integrity of his body, and the purity of his soul, that though dwelling on earth he appeared to live like the saints in heaven. For he was angelic in appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work, with talents of the highest order, and consummate prudence; he lived a soldier of Christ during thirty-four years in an island. He never could spend the space of even one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other holy occupation. So incessantly was he engaged night and day in the unwearied exercise of fasting and watching, that the burden of each of these austerities would seem beyond the power of human endurance. And still in all these he was beloved by all, for a holy joy ever beaming on his face revealed the joy and gladness with which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul.” Columba, notwithstanding the strong martial element of his nature, was evidently capable of attaching disciples very powerfully to his person. We find this illustrated also in the legend preserved in the Book of Deer about his founding the mission-station of Aberdour in Aberdeenshire: “Drostan’s tears came on parting from Columcille. Said Columcille ‘Let Deur (Deer) be its name henceforward.’”

Among the relics associated with the person of Columba is the Cath-bhuaidh, or Battle-Victory, a celebrated crosier. The following passage from a legend of the ninth century reminds us of the great veneration with which the relic was regarded, as well as of the spirit in which his followers, three or four centuries after his death, went forth to meet the enemies of their country. “About the same time the Fortreens and Lochlanns fought a battle. Bravely indeed the men of Alba fought this battle, for Columkille was aiding them; for they had prayed to him most fervently, because he was their apostle, and it was through him that they received the faith. One time when Imhar Conung was a young man, he came to Alba, with three great battalions to plunder it. The men of Alba, both lay and clerics, fasted and prayed to morning to God and Columkille; they made earnest entreaty to the Lord; they gave great alms of food and raiment to the churches and the poor, received the body of the Lord at the hands of the priests, and promised to do all kinds of good works, as their clergy would order them, and that their standard in going forth to any battle should be the crosier of Columkille. Wherefore it is called the Cath-bhuaidh from that day to this. And this is a befitting name for it; for they have often gained victory in battle by it, as they did at that time, when they placed their hope in Columkille. They did the same on this occasion. The battle was bravely fought at once. The Albinians gained victory and triumph, killed many of the Lochlanns after their defeat; and their king was slain on the occasion, namely, Ottir, son of Iargna. It was long after until either the Danes or Lochlanns attacked them; but they were at peace and harmony with them.”

Writers in after ages have attributed poems and prophecies to Columba which such a good authority as O’Curry declares not to be the productions of the Saint, whose chief literary functions are associated with the transcription of the sacred writings.

In his Life of the Apostle of the Highlands, Dr John Smith of Campbeltown, has given translations of some of the Latin poems attributed to Columba; the following abstract exhibits their manner:—

“The God omnipotent, who made the world,

Is subject to no change. He was, He is,

And He shall be: th’ Eternal is his name.

Equal in Godhead and eternal power,

Is Christ the Son; so is the Holy Ghost.

These sacred glories three are but the same,

In persons different, but one God and Lord.

This God created all the heavenly hosts:

Archangels, angels, potentates, and powers;

That so the emanations of His love

Might flow to myriads diffusing good.

But from this eminence of glory fell

Th’ apostate Lucifer, elate with pride,

Of his high station and his glorious form.

Fill’d with like pride, and envying God himself,

His glory, other angels shared his fate,

While the remainder kept their happy state.

Thus fell a third of the bright heavenly stars,

Involv’d in the old serpent’s guilt and fate;

And with him suffer, in th’ infernal gulf,

The loss of heaven, in chains of darkness bound.”

Further remarks on the poetry attributed to Columba will be found in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.
LATIN HYMNS OF THE CELTIC CHURCH.

The following entry among the Irish Charters in the famous Book of Kells illustrates the fate of much of our ancient Celtic literature, especially in Scotland: “Anno Domini m^o ui^o (alias 1007). Soiscela mor coluim cille do dubguit is ind aidci as ind iardom iartarach in daimliacc moir cenannsa,” &c. A.D. 1006 (alias 1007)—The great Gospel of Calum-cille was sacrilegiously stolen at night out of the western portions of the great church of Kells. This was the chief relic of the west of the world on account of the singular cover. This Gospel was found in twenty nights and two months, with its gold stolen off, and a sod over it. Thus the “great gospel” of Columba was preserved from destruction by the merest accident. But cupidity has not been the only foe that the Celt’s ancient manuscript literature has had to contend with. The ignorance and indifference of many into whose hands it fell have also played their part;—a tailor was seen last century in the Hebrides cutting down Gaelic manuscripts for patterns. More fatal than ignorance has been the active depreciation of a hostile church operating on the animosity of a rival race. It is only now—a thousand years after the era of the ancient Celtic Church—that scholars and unprejudiced historians have succeeded in showing us a little of it. The “sod over it” has been partly removed; and the “find” has not been altogether uninteresting, although the “gold” has been “stolen off.” Zeuss has furnished us with materials for the reconstruction of the ancient Celtic language; Skene and others have given us some account of the early Iro-British Church; but Church history has not fully examined the available existing material that would show us the character of the Christian life and devotion of our early Christian ancestors in these islands. It is proposed in the following chapter to glance at the Latin Hymns of the ancient Celtic Church in order to realise to ourselves a little of the inner life of those early evangelists to whose extraordinary labours and unwearied zeal we are indebted for the conversion of our forefathers from heathenism. In these hymns we have relics of that early religious literature which helped to give Christian comfort to generations of lonely labourers on isle and mainland. Here we have transmitted to us something of the loving heavenly motives, the Gospel inspiration, by whose persuasive force the strongholds of pagan darkness were pulled down throughout the British islands, as well as in many districts on the Continent.

These devotional compositions were the common property of the whole Celtic Church at home and abroad. It is intended to look at them here as remains of the use and wont which prevailed during the “golden age” of this early Free Church, as it existed in Scotland. In doing so, it may deepen our interest in them if we briefly recall the historical setting and political surroundings in which the great work of this Church was accomplished.

In order to reach the heart of this Church, we must pierce through that belt of ecclesiastical and religious darkness which Papal Rome wove round the body of our national life during the four centuries [which preceded the] Reformation. Beyond these centuries we are enabled at once to grasp that one outstanding fact in our early annals, that from the days of Ninyas, in the beginning of the fifth century, to the accession of the “Sair Saint,” King David, in 1124 a Free Church, comparatively evangelical and aggressive, existed in Scotland for a period of 700 years. No definite attempt has been made to show the full national significance of this fact. If we contrast that period of 700 years with the following period of similar length, we find that during the first half of the latter, decay and death prevailed; and that even during the second half, with all the advantages attendant on post-Reformation times, large tracts of our country, once aglow with gospel life, remained practically heathen until the lost ground began to be reconquered and reclaimed by the modern Free Church of Scotland. In all this there is much to humble, instruct and encourage us. We learn that the essential power of the gospel is the same in all ages, and that similar results follow the earnest proclamation of truth in ancient and modern times. The Christian men that in early days made the gospel a living converting power throughout our whole land, even in every village of the Highlands, and every islet of the Hebrides, could not have been very unlike their countrymen of the present day, among whom evangelical truth is preserved and preached.

A glance at the early history of Ireland reveals the fact that a similar course of things took place there. Pope Adrian IV., known to England as Nicolas Breakspere, the only Englishman who ever sat in the chair of St. Peter, issued a bill in 1155, giving the kingdom of Ireland to Henry II. of England. This is a remarkable fact, and deeply suggestive in connection with the reasons assigned for its accomplishment. The Irish had all along been Protestants against Rome and her rule. The Pope, who like all the bishops of that holy ilk, claimed the right to dispose of all Christian lands, finding that the Irish, according to Roman estimate, were “Schismatics” and “bad Christians,” like their brethren of the same period in Scotland, made a present of the island to Henry, in order to make good Catholics of the inhabitants. Here were two Englishmen engaged in perverting, or rather completing the perversion of the Free Independent Church of Ireland to Rome. Hence all the tears of Ireland, England’s great responsibility, much bloodguiltiness on all sides, the almost utter futility of all attempts to restore to that much-enduring isle, the comparatively pure faith of its ancient days. O’Driscol, an honest Roman Catholic writer, describes the change as follows:—“There is something very singular in the ecclesiastical history of Ireland. The Christian Church of that country, as founded by St. Patrick and his predecessors, existed for many ages free and unshackled. ‘For above 700 years this Church maintained its independence.’ It had no connection with England, and differed upon points of importance with Rome. The work of Henry II. was to reduce the Church of Ireland into obedience to the Roman Pontiff. Accordingly, he procured a Council of the Irish clergy, to be held at Cashel in 1172, and the combined influence and intrigues of Henry and the Pope prevailed. This Council put an end to the ancient Church of Ireland, and submitted it to the yoke of Rome. ‘That apostacy has been followed by a series of calamities, hardly to be equalled in the world.’ From the days of St. Patrick to the Council of Cashel was a bright and glorious era for Ireland. From the sitting of this Council to our time, the lot of Ireland has been unmixed evil, and all her history a tale of woe.”

The influence of Rome on the heart of the Scottish nation, began with the marriage of Malcolm with the English Roman Catholic Princess Margaret. This Saxon queen completed the outward perversion of Scotland to Rome. She pretended to reform, but only managed to enthral the native Church, whose clergy she summoned to a Council in 1074. The Gaelic language was the only language the clergy could speak—they had a professional knowledge of Latin—so King Malcolm, her husband, acted as her interpreter. They refused to recognise the absolute supremacy of the great Roman father; they were unable to speak English; and the queen set herself piously to rectify these abuses and shortcomings. The Roman Catholic influence of the Norman went on increasing until the Court, as the Celtic Professor at Oxford says, “in the time of David, who began to reign in 1124, after being educated in England in all the ways of the Normans, was filled with his Anglican and Norman vassals. He is accordingly, regarded as the first wholly feudal King of Scotland, and the growth of feudalism went on at the expense of the power and influence of the Celtic princes, who saw themselves snubbed and crowded out to make room for the king’s barons, who had grants made to them of land here and there, wherever it was worth having. The outcome was a deep seated discontent, which every now and then burst into a flame of open revolt on the part of the rightful owners of the soil.” The Celtic Church died away with the decay of the power of the Celtic princes. At the same time the Roman religion was warmly supported in the persons of Englishmen, Flemings and Normans, who received every encouragement to settle in Scotland. The predominance of the Celtic element seems to have passed away in the eleventh century. “At the time, however, of the War of Independence, Gaelic appears to have still reached down to Stirling and Perth, to the Ochil and Sidlaw Hill, while north of the Tay it had as yet yielded to English or Broad Scotch, only a very narrow strip along the coast.” The bulk of Bruce’s army at Bannockburn was composed of the Ivernian and Celtic descendants of the ancient Free Church of Scotland. The true Christian devotion of the Fathers had not altogether disappeared: like the Puritan soldiers of Cromwell these grand old Scots began the grim work of battle for national freedom, with a fervent prayer to the God of battles,—a species of homage which surprised the more Catholic English.

The Latin hymns of this [ancient Church] will be found in the “Leabhar imuin” (Book of Hymns) and the Bangor Antiphonary, both miscellanies of odes, canticles, blessings, prayers, &c. Altogether the number is upwards of thirty. The “Leabhar imuin” is a MS. of the ninth or tenth century in Trinity College Library, Dublin, of which two thirds have been printed. The first part, edited by the late Dr Todd, appeared in 1855, and contained the following four hymns, with extensive annotations from the “Leabhar Breac,” &c.:—1, The Hymn of St. Sechnall in praise of St. Patrick; 2, The Hymn of St. Ultán in praise of St. Brigit; 3, The Hymn of Cummain Fota in praise of the Apostles; 4, The Hymn of St. Mugint. These are specimens of the terminology of the hymn titles.

The Bangor Antiphonary is a MS. in the Ambrosian Library, Milan. It was written between 680 and 691; and was printed by Muratori in 1713. Some of the pieces in this MS. have a historical, as well as a devotional value, such as “The Versicles of the Family of Benchor,” and “The Commemoration of our Abbots,” in which the names of fifteen abbots of the Bangor (County Down) monastery are given in the same order in which their obits occur in the annals. Dr Reeves speaks well of its accuracy, considering that the MS. has been some 1200 years absent from Ireland. These are the sources in which this Latin hymnology of the ancient Gaels will be found. They are not very accessible. As already remarked, versions of them will be also found in the “Leabhar Breac;” some of them were printed by Sir James Ware, in the appendix to his “Opuscula S. Patricii;” while the Isidore Codex of the “Leabhar imuin” recently brought from Rome to Dublin, has never yet been printed. These MSS., written in a peculiar ornate style, have become known to archæologists under the description “libri Scottice Scripti,” (books written in Scotch).

Some of these devotional compositions are as old as the fourth century, such as the “Hymnum dicat” ascribed to Hilary, and the “Mediæ noctis,” ascribed to the famous Ambrose of Milan. The “[Audite Omnes]” was composed by Sechnall, the nephew of Patrick, towards the close of the fifth century, in praise of the Irish apostle. This piece, rather a poem than a hymn, bears to have been written “in Domhnach Sechnaill,” (now Dunshaughlin in Meath), by the St. Sechnall, or Secundinus, who was a son of Patrick’s sister, “by her husband Restitutus” of the “Longobards of Leatha.” The superscription reminds us of the fact that the Scots and the Gaidels were the same people, whether found in Ireland or parts of Britain. It runs thus: “Incipit Ymnus sancti Patricii episcopi Scotorum.” (“The hymn beginning, St. Patrick, Bishop of the Scots.”) The following note on it occurs in the “Leabhar Breac”: “Tempus autem.” (“But the time”);—viz: “when Leogaire, son of Niall, was King of Eirinn came to praise Patrick. Sechnall said to Patrick, ‘When shall I make a hymn of praise for thee?’ Patrick said, ‘I desire not to be so praised during my life.’ Sechnall answered, ‘Non interrogavi utrum faciam, sed quando faciam.’ (‘I did not ask whether I should do it, but when’). Patrick said, ‘Si facias venit tempus.’ (‘If you do it, the time has come’)—i.e. because Patrick knew that the time of his (Sechnall’s) death was at hand.” In the third verse we have the old Scottic interpretation of the famous passage in Matthew on which St. Peter’s chair is founded:—

“Constans in Dei timore

Et fide immobilis

Super quem aedificatur

Ut Petrum Ecclesia.”

“Constant in the fear of God, [and immovable in] faith, upon him as upon a Peter is built a Church.”

The student of these ancient writings is surprised to find the modern Irish persist in making Patrick a Frenchman. In the “Leabhar Breac” the following note, as decisive of his nationality, occurs in connection with this hymn. “Patraic umorro do bretnaibh h ercluaide a bunadus.” “Now Patrick in his origin was of the Britons of Er-Cluaide”—i.e. of the Strathclyde Britons, among whom his name has found its topographical monument in Kilpatrick, as already pointed out.

The ancient Christian Scots had their own saints, to whom they were naturally attached as the fathers of their Church. The names of Patrick, Columba, and others, as well as of Brigit constantly occur in these Latin Hymns. Brigit comes next in importance to Patrick in Hibernian hagiology. Ultán’s hymn in praise of her begins with these words, “Christus in nostra insola que uscatur hibernia;” and towards the end, the “angelic and most holy Brigit” in all her wondrous works of power, is spoken of as “like unto the holy Mary.” We have only fragments of this poem. It appears to have been originally composed, like Sechnall’s and several others in these MSS., in the A B C style, with a stanza for each letter of the alphabet. There is another found in the beginning of an old Celtic copy of the Greek Psalter, in praise of Brigit, whose feast day is also celebrated in another, “Phœbi diem.” The feast day of Patrick has also its celebration hymn, beginning thus: “Lo, the solemn feast day of Patrick is shining most brightly.”

The hymn “In Te Christe” is one of the three attributed to Columba, and bears in some places the stamp of his majestic spirit. The “Ignis Creator igneus” starts with the conception of the Paschal candle, and proceeds to describe the columns of smoke and flame which guided Israel out of Egypt. A few of the metrical compositions in the Bangor Antiphonary have a more local and historical than a devotional interest, such as the “Good Rule of Bangor,” and the commemoration of the abbots of that place, already referred to. The name of Comgall, the head of the monastery, who died in 602, occurs, as also Molaisran, or Molio of the Holy Isle, Arran, who died in 639. There is an evening hymn beginning with “Christe qui Lux es” and a Pentecostal one about the Apostles, with the initial words “Christi, Patris in dextera.” There is one hymn, and only one, in the group in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Cantemus in omni die.”

Metrical translations of seven, in whole or in part, of these hymns are given here, to indicate the general character of the devotional portions of the group. The one beginning with the words: “Precamur Patrem” has not had any date assigned it, but judging by internal evidence, it appears to belong to the era of Patrick. It contains one hundred and sixty-eight lines; starting with an address to the Lord’s Day, it proceeds to give an abstract of the life of Christ. A comparison made between the beginning of the physical and that of the spiritual creation, is worked out in somewhat original fashion. In the following verses the Lord and His Own Day are contrasted as the first-born children of light:

Precamur Patrem.

We worship Thee, Almighty King:

To God the Father praise we bring;

To Jesus, Saviour of the lost;

And to the Blessed Holy Ghost.

Thou art, O God, our life and might;

The source of all the worlds of light,

Which on the brows of heaven lie,

And make resplendent earth and sky.

Of old this day was earth’s first-born;

It shone from heaven a holy morn:

Even so the Word, Eternal Light,

The Father gave this world of night.

That day the chaos dark destroyed;

Dispelling night into the void:

So Victor o’er the foe did He

This world from death’s fierce fetters free.

Upon the deep thick darkness lay

Before the dawning of that day;

So ignorance the heart enwound

Till Jesus shed His light around.

A remarkable composition, probably belonging to the same period, and intended to be used on the birthdays of the martyrs has, like a few others, the refrain “Alleluia” introduced after every verse. The term “birthday” does not bear here its ordinary meaning, but birth by temporal death into a higher life. This hymn is regarded as one of the [best productions] of the Latino-Celtic muse:

Sacratissimi Martyres.

Martyrs of the God Most High,

Who for Christ did bravely die;

Leaders on the heavenly road;

Victors, sing with saints to God,—

Alleluia!

Christ exalted! Cherubim

Render homage unto Him,

On the Father’s throne on high,

While the saints with martyrs cry,—

Alleluia!

Glorious One! The first to bear

Shame upon the Cross, our share;

In thy triumph blessings came;

Now the martyr saints proclaim,—

Alleluia!

The Apostles, strong in faith,

Suffered on the Cross to death;

Shielded now, and saved by grace,

Chant within Thy holy place,—

Alleluia!

Christ! the Helper of the saints,

Heard their weary hearts’ complaints;

Now these martyrs praises bring

And rehearse before their King,—

Alleluia!

Praised, O Lord, Thy power be,

Which obtains the victory;

Crushes Satan by the way

While the saints with martyrs say,—

Alleluia!

God’s strong hand will be their shield;

With His grace their hearts are steeled

To resist the enemy’s ways,

While with saints they ever raise,—

Alleluia!

Heirs with Christ! Their crowns behold!

Filled with fruit a hundred-fold;

Pains are past; they now rejoice,

Uttering in thankful voice,—

Alleluia!

Let us humbly pray for grace,

Till we see the Father’s face

In Jerusalem on high

Where we raise with saints the cry,—

Alleluia!

Another very ancient hymn is the “Spiritus Divinae,” which is one of the matins used for the Lord’s Day:

Spiritus Divinae.

O glorious Spirit of the Light Divine;

Come, favour me;

Thou, God of Truth, in Israel once didst shine;

Lord, look on me;

Thou, Saviour, Son, and Light of Light, I know:

Shed forth Thy living lustre on my woe.

Thy Spirit is one substance with the Son,

Lord, look on me;

Thou, Christ, the only first-begotten One,

Wilt look on me;

I have redemption from my sin in Thee:

I seek Thy pardoning aid—Lord, look on me.

Born of the Virgin that poor men might live;

Lord, look on me;

The rights of sonship, Thou alone canst give;

Lord, look on me;

Joint-heir with Thee, Creator of all things:

God-Jesus, everlasting King of Kings.

King of the everlasting ages, Light of God,

Illumine me;

Out of thy boundless fitness shed abroad

Thy love in me;

Father, and Son, and Spirit, One in Three,

In power and substance One, Lord look on me.

The hymn “Sancti Venite” was intended for communion service. Dr Neale has rendered it into English. A legend relates how Patrick and his nephew Sechnall heard a company of angels once rehearsing it; and declares, “So that from that time to the present, that hymn is chanted in Eirinn when the body of Christ is received”:—

Sancti Venite.

Take the blessed Bread and Wine,

Emblems of that Life Divine,

That for sin has been out-poured,

By our sacrificing Lord:

Blessed Jesus crucified,

Life flows from Thy bleeding side.

He renews us by his grace:

Let us give to God the praise:

He has died the lost to save,

Risen Victor o’er the grave:

Giver of salvation He;

Let His Cross our burden be.

He, the Father’s suffering Son,

Priest and Victim all in one,

Has become the Lamb of God

To remove our guilty load:

Saviour, Giver of all light;

He will lead by day and night.

With pure minds let us draw near,

And discern the Shepherd here;

For the hungry, bread He brings,

Water from the living springs;

In our hearts He lives enshrined

Lord and Judge of all mankind.

The Spirit of Gildas, the Welsh monk, who was born in 520, and who pronounced bitter jeremiads on the princes of his own race and time, is clearly traceable in the next hymn, of whose prologue a translation is given. He is one of the Romish corrupters of the native Church. His “Suffragare” is one of the “Loricae” breast-plates, used to protect those who rehearsed them against evil:—

Suffragare.

O Unity in Trinity!

Help, for in Thee I live,

O Trinity in Unity!

My sins forgive:

Exposed, I need Thy help and sympathy,

Like one in peril of the mighty sea!

Thou wilt preserve me by Thy power

From all my raging foes;

Thy heavenly host in danger’s hour,

Before me goes;

Cherubic and seraphic ranks in might,

Far scattering the forces of my night.

I see the Patriarchs of eld,

The Prophets bold and strong;

Apostles who the Lord beheld,

The Martyrs’ throng;

All faithful witnesses, who hence have gone;

I gaze, and pause afresh to reach the throne.

O Unity in Trinity!

In mercy grant Thine aid;

O Trinity in Unity!

I seek thy shade,

Where Christ has made a covenant sure with me;

Oh, fearless, there let me abide with Thee!

There is a hymn by another author of Welsh extraction, St. Mugint, in the “Leabhar imuin,” beginning with the words “Parce dne.” The “Altus” of Columba, who arrived in Scotland from Ireland in 563, is a production of considerable length and much merit, in the A B C Darian style. It takes cognisance of the whole sphere of sacred and Scriptural truths, somewhat in the fashion of the compositions of the Brytho-Saxon Caedmon, and has been regarded as a highly effective “Lorica”:—

Altus Prosator.

Great Father of all, the Almighty, we praise,

The One-unbegotten, the Ancient of Days,

Eternally first, and eternally last!

With Thee there remains neither future nor past.

With Thee co-eternal in glory and might,

Reigns Christ on the throne in the regions of light,

Thine Only-begotten, the Son of Thy love,

And there, too, the Spirit, the heavenly Dove.

Bright myriads of angels a ministrant throng,

Ring praises unceasing, rejoicing in song,

Where crowns are cast down at Immanuel’s feet,

And anthems eternal the elders repeat.

The judgements of heaven shall be scattered abroad

On all who deny that our Saviour is God;

But we shall be raised up with Jesus on high,

To where the new mansions all glorious lie.

There is a Gaelic hymn attributed to Columba, which illustrates the manner and occasions of using these “Loricae”—in Gaelic lurech. Its superscription runs thus: “Colum cilli cecinit, while passing alone; and it will be a protection to the person who will repeat it going on a journey.” The author in the first verse represents himself as lonely on the hillside, and addressing the royal “Sun.” M’oenuran dam is in sliabh, &c.:—

“Alone am I in the mountain,

O Royal Sun of prosperous path;

Nothing is to be feared by me,

Not if I were attended by sixty-hundred.”

The rig-grian—Sun-king, is applied to the Creator.

The third Latin hymn ascribed to Columba, and beginning with the words “Noli Pater” is also a “Lorica.” It is connected with the lighting of fires on St. John’s Eve. In some prefatory remarks, its virtues are thus described:—“It is sung against every fire and every thunderstorm, and whosoever sings it at bedtime and at rising, it protects him against lightning.”

Noli Pater.

Father, restrain Thy thunder,

Thy lightning from our frame,

Lest in our trembling wonder

They smite us with their flame!

Thou Awful One! we fear Thee,

For there is none like Thee;

In thy dread steps we hear Thee;

And to Thy shelter flee.

To Thee awake loud praises,

One universal song

The great creation raises,

Sung by the angel throng:

Our Jesus, King most loving!

The lofty heavens extol:

We see Thee grandly moving

Where flashing lightnings roll.

O King of kings! Thou reignest

In righteousness and love;

And righteous rule maintainest

From Thy pure throne above.

God’s love—a blessed fuel—

Burns in my heart a flame;

Like to a golden jewel

Preserved in silver flame.

Much is made of the elements in this composition. In the Gaelic one already referred to, Columba guards in the last verses against any tendency to Pantheism that might be connected with his expressions. He declares:—

“I adore not the voice of birds,

Nor the sreod, nor a destiny, or the earthly world,

Nor a son, nor chance, nor woman;

My Druid is Christ, the Son of God,—

Christ, the Son of Mary, the Great Abbot,

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

My estates are with the King of kings;

My order is at Cenannus and Moen.”

Cenannus is now Headfort in Meath, where Columba erected a monastery. Moen is now Moon, in Kildare.

The renderings of hymns given in the preceding paragraphs will convey some idea of the hymnology of the Gaelic Church. The singing of these Latin compositions awoke echoes for ages along the glens of Gaelic Scotland as well as in the forests of Germany; among the Swiss and Italian Alps, as well as along the sweet hills of Devon and Cornwall. They indicate a practical literary activity which served well its generation; and frequently helped to soothe the relentless spirit of revenge of the Pagan nations of the period.

The primitive Free Church of the Gaels of Britain was an important branch of this powerful missionary Church of the Celts. Its operations and results were largely obscured by successors on the same fields who departed from its methods of work; but recent efforts of impartial investigators, have helped to assign it its proper place in the ancient Christianization of Western Europe. It does not lie within the scope of this work to discuss the character of the organization of this Church of the Gaels. Indeed the question has been already so thoroughly investigated by competent pens that it would be perfectly superfluous to attempt it. To the literary student this period of church history is chiefly interesting on account of the fact that it is through the hands of these devoted workers of those ages that the first fruits of written literature have been handed down to us. These men being our earliest literary artists, we naturally turn with perennial interest to the Christian organizations which some had founded, and in which others were bred.

A small production, some three quarto pages in prose, gives us a picture of a holy brother who might be expected to cultivate the virtues of the Gospel in solitude rather than in the circle of the active community. It is called the “Rule of Calumcille;” and has been found in the Burgundian Library of Brussells. The Rule recommends residence close to a church; a fast place with one door; the company of one attendant only, whose duties must be light; and access to be granted only to those whose converse will be of God and His Testament. The time is to be spent in prayers for those taught and for those dying in the faith. The day is to be divided into three parts, one for prayers, for good works, and for reading respectfully. The work is to be divided into three parts; the first for his own benefit in doing what is needed for his own habitation; the second for the good of the brethren; and the third for that of the neighbours. The work of benefiting his neighbours to consist in giving precepts, writing manuscripts, sewing clothes, or any other profitable industry. The great end to be obtained is that there “be no idleness;” “ut Deus ait: non apparebis ante me vacuus.”

This sentiment of “no idleness” is highly creditable to the ancient Gaelic Christian communities; and if we combine with it another found in one of the lives of Columba,—

“He drank not ale; he loved not satiety:

He avoided flesh;”

we make a clean discovery which absolutely refutes the unneighbourly charges of more southern brethren in our own time which associate Celts, whisky, and idleness too closely and unfairly together. Our early Highland teachers inculcated industry and sobriety; the dangerous powers of whisky were unknown to them; and even the lighter inspirations of ale they eschewed until their own primitive virtues were undermined by contact with the beer-drinking Pagan Norse on the one hand, and in later times with the fiercer spirits which were imported from Teutonic fens on the other. Such are the strange reversals of popular opinions which accurate study of the facts of history unfolds. The alleged idleness of the Gael of the present day, does not appear thus to have any essential connection with the original sin of the race; the development of the quality appears to have taken place in contact with a more sluggish and a less lively people.

In his great work on “English Writers,” Professor Henry Morley writes:—“When darkness gathered over all the rest of western Europe, the churches and monasteries of the British island, first among the Celts and afterwards among the English, supplied, says the Danish scholar [Professor Sophus Bugge], in and after the seventh century, the only shelter and home to the higher studies. The British clergy travelled far in search of books, until in the time of Charlemagne it was from the Church in Britain that the clearest light shone through the western world.” The devotional spirit by which these men were animated, will be fairly illustrated by the renderings of their Latin Hymns contained in this chapter.

It is freely acknowledged that the ancient Free Church of the Scots, even in its golden age, held and practised peculiar tenets which in course of time developed undesirable and even unscriptural fruit. On the other hand, it must be allowed that it adhered for a long period to the main doctrines of evangelical Christianity. From the hymns which we have been considering, and from Patrick’s “Epistle of Coroticus,” and his “Confession,” in which we have something of the nature of a creed or a confession of faith, as well as from other sources, we gather a fair representation of the chief dogmas of its faith. It held and taught the chief doctrines of the Trinity, of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and of His coming again at the last day to judge all men; and likewise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to make us sons of God, and heirs of immortality. It held, moreover, the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, and used them freely and exclusively as the authority by which all statements of doctrine are to be proved and confirmed. At the same time the doctrine of human merit, purgatory, saint-worship, transubstantiation, papal infallibility, and other distinctive tenets of modern Romanism, find no recognition. While, as we are told by St. Bernard, its followers “rejected auricular confession as well as authoritative absolution, and confessed to God alone, believing God alone could forgive sins,” they would neither give to the Church of Rome the tenths, nor the first-fruits, which of course rendered them “schismatics and heretics” at Rome. Marriage was regarded as a civil rite, and was performed by the magistracy.

The purity of doctrine and generally healthy influence cultivated and exercised by the ancient Celtic Church, are shown in a remarkable manner in the products of Celtic art, which attained to its highest development in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. The remains of this school of ancient sculpture, if collected into one national museum, would form an exhibition of native art such as, according to Mr Joseph Anderson, the Rhind lecturer, no northern nation can boast of. Respecting these sculptured stones, memorials that are not unworthy of our valiant Christian ancestors, Burton, in an interesting chapter, remarks: “It deserves to be commemorated that in the hundreds of specimens of native sculpture of this class recently brought to light there is no single instance of indecency, while in the scanty remains of Roman art within the same area it would be easy to point out several.”

The character of the two races that blended into one through the agency of this Church and outward political pressure is not unfairly represented by Professor Rhys, when he says, touching first on the Gael or ancient Scot: “One of the lessons of this chapter is that the Goidel, where he owned a fairly fertile country, as in the neighbourhood of the Tay, showed that he was not wanting in genius for political organisation; and the history of the kingdom of Scotland, as modelled by Kenneth mac Alpin and his descendants, warns one not to give ear to the spirit of race-weighing and race-damning criticism that jauntily discovers, in what it fancies the character of a nation, the reasons why it has not achieved results not fairly placed within its reach by the accidents either of geography or history.” The other ancient race of Albin was neither Celtic nor Aryan in its origin. It has been generally known as Pictish, and constitutes the backbone of the Scottish nation. Mr Rhys calls it Ivernian. The following sentences state a fact and describe a process: “The trouble the non-Celtic Picts were able to give the Romans and the Romanising Brythons has often been dilated upon by historians, who have seldom dwelt on the much more remarkable fact, that a power, with its head-quarters in the neighbourhood of the Ness, had been so organised as to make itself obeyed from the Orkneys to the Mull of Cantyre, and from Skye to the mouth of the Tay, so early as the middle of the sixth century. It is important to bear this in mind in connection with the question as to how far the earlier Celtic invaders of this country may have mixed with the ancient inhabitants; since it clearly shows that there was no such a gulf between them as would make it impossible or even difficult for them to amalgamate; and it may readily be supposed that the Goidelic race has been greatly modified in its character by its absorption of this ancient people of the Atlantic seaboard.” The Latin hymns considered here are the remains of the devotional literature of these two races, and bind the history and memories of modern Scotsmen to the history and memories of a people among whom the fervid national genius of Scotland was first fashioned.

CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT BALLADS.

“Thoir an eachdraidh Mhaighstir Dòmhnull

A tha chòmhnaidh ’n cois na tuinne;

An ùrnuigh bha aig Oisein liath-ghlas

Nach robh riamh ach ’na dhroch dhuine.”

English:

To Master Donald take the story;

There he dwells beside the billow;

The prayer said by Ossian hoary,

Who was aye a worthless fellow.

It has been well remarked that each of the literatures of the two branches of our Celtic population was chiefly the utterance of feeling stirred by a great struggle for independence, and that each has at the heart of it “a battle disastrous to the men whose wrestle with an overmastering power is the chief theme of their bards.” The Gaelic struggle and literature began earlier, and its great battle is that of Gabhra, said to have been fought in 284 A.D. In the later Celtic literature of the Cymri the memorable battle described is that of Cattraeth, said to have been fought in 570 A.D.

While Cath Gabhra is the chief theme of the Gaelic bards, individual combats, adventures, and other battles are also rehearsed in the early ballads.

Macpherson’s “Ossian” and Smith’s “Old Lays,” whose authenticity has been so fiercely disputed, are excluded from consideration at present. They will be afterwards examined under the dates of their production. The number of lines in these works and other two poems respectively is:—

Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian	10,232	lines.
Smith’s Old Lays	5,335	”
Clark’s Mordubh	758	”
MacCallum’s Collath	504	”
Total	16,829	”

Laying aside these 16,829 lines of suspected poetry, there is still the 54,000 lines of ancient poems of unquestioned genuineness in Campbell’s “Leabhar na Féinne,” enough surely to sustain the literary character and genius of our early ancestors.

The ballads which we are now to consider are all genuine and old, and may be found in manuscripts written ages before Macpherson was born.

The Ossianic or Heroic Ballads will be found in the following publications:—The Dean of Lismore’s Book (1512, published 1862); Hill’s (1780); MacArthur’s (1784); Young’s (1784); Gillies’s (1786); Stewart’s (1804); Highland Society’s Report (1805); Turner’s (1813); Grant’s (1814); MacCallum’s (1816); Campbell’s great work (1872). Some of the ballads contained in these books were printed from old manuscripts; others were taken down during the last two or three centuries from the oral recitation of old men, living in all parts of the Highlands.

These collections represent a good deal of industry and literary activity, which reflect very creditably on men who had not the stimulus of a vast reading public to work upon their minds.