COLUMCILLE AND HIS BROTHER DOBHRAN.
PREFACE.
This very interesting story of Columcille's brother, Dobhran, is common amongst Highlanders, but I have found no trace of it in Ireland, nor any mention of a Dobhran. This particular version was written down by the late Rev. Father Allan MacDonald, of Eriskay, who collected a great deal of the folk-lore of that island. The same story was told to me, but somewhat differently, by a Canadian priest from Sydney, Nova Scotia, one of the Clan MacAdam (really Mac Eudhmoinn) and the sixth in descent from the first refugee of his name who fled to Canada after Culloden. He said he had often heard the story, and that Dobhran when he climbed to the edge of the grave uttered three sentences, but two of them he had forgotten, the third was "cha n'eil an iorron chomh dona agus a tháthar ag rádh," (sic.) i.e., "Hell is not as bad as people say." It was then Columcille cried out, "úir, úir air Dobhran." "Clay, clay on Dobhran's mouth before he says any more!"[68]
Here follow some stories from Irish sources about Columcille himself. His life was written at considerable length by Adamnan, one of his successors in the Abbacy of Iona, who was born only twenty-seven years after Columcille's death, and has come down to us in the actual manuscript written by a man who died in 713; to that we know a good deal about the saint. There exist five other lives of him. According to the Leabhar Breac he died of self-imposed abstinence.
Columcille's Fasting.
Colum's angel, whose name was Axal (a name derived from "Auxilium") requested him to "take virginity around him," but he refused "unless a reward therefor" be given to him. "What reward seekest thou," said the angel. "I declare," said Columcille, "it is not one reward but four." "Mention them," said the angel. "I will," said Columcille, "namely, A death in Repentance, A death from Hunger, and death in Youth[69]—for hideous are bodies through old age." "Even more shall be given thee," said the angel, "for thou shalt be chief prophet of heaven and earth."
And that was fulfilled. He went into pilgrimage, and he was young when he died, and of hunger he perished, but it was wilful hunger.
And this is the cause of that hunger of his. Once it came to pass as he was going round the graveyard in Iona that he saw an old woman cutting nettles to make pottage thereof. "Why art thou doing that, poor woman?" said Columcille. "O dear father," quoth she, "I have one cow and she has not calved yet, and I am expecting it, and this is what has served me for a long time back."
Columcille then determines that pottage of nettles should be the thing that should most serve him thenceforth for ever, and said, "Since it is because of her expecting the one uncertain cow that she is in this great hunger, meet were [the same] for us though great be the hunger wherein we shall abide expecting God. For better and certain is what we expect, the eternal kingdom." And he said to his servant, "Pottage of nettles give thou to me every night without butter, without a sip therewith."
"It shall be done," said the cook. And he bores the mixing stick of the pottage so that it became a pipe, and he used to pour the milk into that pipe and mix it all through the pottage. Then the church folk notice this, namely, the cleric's goodly shape, and they talk of it among themselves. This is made known to Columcille, and then he said, "May they who take your place be always murmuring!"
"Well!" quoth he to the servant, "what do you put for me into the pottage every day?" "Thou thyself are witness" said the man, "but unless it comes out of the stick with which the pottage is mixed, I know of nothing else therein save pottage only."
Then the secret is revealed to the cleric and he said, "Prosperity and good-deed for ever to thy successor," said he. And this is fulfilled.
It was then, too, that Boethine told him the remarkable vision he had, namely, three chairs seen by him in heaven; to wit, a chair of gold, and a chair of silver, and a chair of glass. "[The meaning of] that is manifest," said Columcille, "the chair of gold is Ciaran[70] son of the carpenter, for his generosity and hospitality; the chair of silver is thou thyself, O Boethine, because of the purity and lustre of thy devotion; the chair of glass is I myself, for, though my devotion is delightful, I am fleshly and I am often frail!" As a certain poet said—
Colum, fair formed, powerful,
Face red, broad, radiant,
Body white, fame without deceit,
Hair curling, eye grey, luminous.
St. Patrick prophesied the coming of Columcille, according to the great Life of Columcille, written by Manus O'Donnell, at Lifford, in the year 1532, of which more than one contemporary vellum copy exists.[71]
St. Patrick Prophesies Concerning Columcille.[72]
Once upon a time, as Patrick was finding labour and great inconvenience in converting the men of Ireland and their women to the faith, he was sorry that he did not know how they would be off for faith and for piety after his own time, or how would God prosper them, seeing all the labour he was getting from them. And he used to pray to God earnestly to give him knowledge of that.
Then an angel came to him and addressed him, saying that it was according to the vision to be revealed to him in his sleep the coming night, that Ireland would be, as regards the faith during his own life, and after him for evermore. And this is the vision that was given him [the next night].
He saw all Ireland red on fire, and the flame which rose from it went up into the further aerial spaces, and afterwards he saw that fire being quenched, only big hills remained on fire, far apart from one another; and then again he saw how even the hills went out, except something like lamps or candles which remained alight in the place of each hill. He saw again even those go out, and only embers or sparks with a gloom upon them remaining; however, these smouldered in a few places far scattered throughout Ireland.
The same angel came to him and told him that those were the conditions through which Ireland should pass after him. Upon hearing that, Patrick wept bitterly, and spoke with a great voice and said: "O God of all power, dost Thou desire to damn and to withdraw Thy mercy from the people to whom Thou didst send me to bring a knowledge of Thyself. Though I am unworthy that Thou shouldst hear me, O Lord, calm Thy anger in their regard, and receive the people of this island of Ireland into Thy own mercy."
And on his finishing these words, the angel spoke in a pacifying tone, and said, "Look to the north of thee," said he, "and thou shalt behold the change of God's right hand." Patrick did as the angel bade him, for he looked to the north, and he beheld a light arising there, not great at first, then waxing and tearing the darkness asunder, so that all Ireland was lighted by it as by the first flame, and he saw it go through the same stages afterwards.
And the angel explained the meaning of that vision to Patrick, saying that Ireland would be alight with faith and piety during his own time, but that darkness would come over that light at his death. However, there would be good people here and there in Ireland after him, as were the far-sundered hills on fire; but when those good people died there would come people not so good in their stead, like the lamps and candles of which we have spoken already, and that the faith would be sustained by them only as the embers that were in gloom and mist, until the son of eternal light should come, namely Columcille. And although little at first, in coming into the world, nevertheless he would sow and preach the word of God and increase the faith, so that Ireland should blaze up in his time as it did in the time of Patrick; and that it would never blaze in the same way again, although there would be good pious people after him. And that the Church of Ireland would go into decay at the end of time after that, so that there would be, there, of faith and piety, only a semblance of the embers, or little sparks covered with gloom and darkness of which we have spoken already.
THE STORY.
Columcille began to build on Iona. He gathered together a great host of people. But all that he used to build in the day, it used to be thrown down at night. That drove him to set people to keep a watch on Iona. Every morning those men [whom he had set to watch] used to be dead at the foot of Iona. He did not continue long to set people to watch there, but since he himself was a holy man he went and remained watching Iona to try if he could see or find out what was going wrong with it. He was keeping to it and from it, and they were saying that it was on the scaur of the crag near the sea that she was, I did not see her.
He saw a Biast coming off the shore and one half of it was a fish and the other half in the likeness of a woman. She was old, with scales. When she shook herself she set Iona and the land a-quaking. There went from her a tinkling sound as it were earthenware pigs (jars) a-shaking. Columcille went down to meet her and spoke to her, and asked her did she know what was killing the people whom he was setting to watch Iona in the night. She said she did. "What was happening to them?" said he. She said, "Nothing but the fear that seized them at her appearance; that when she was a-coming to land the heart was leaping out of its cockles[73] with them."
"Do you know," said he, "what is throwing down Iona that I am building?"
"I do," said she, "Iona will be for ever falling so, O holy Columcille. It is not I who am throwing it down, but still it is being thrown down."[73a]
"Do you know now any means by which I can make Iona go forward?"
"I do," said she. "O holy Columcille, to-morrow you shall question all the people that you have at work to find out what man will consent to offer himself alive [to be buried] under the ground, and his soul shall be saved if he consents to do that, and people shall never see me here afterwards. Iona shall go forward without any doubt."
On the morrow he put the question to the great host of people, "Was there any one of them at all who would consent to offer himself alive on condition that his soul should be saved in heaven?"
There was not one man of them willing to go into the grave although he was told that his soul would be saved by the decree of God. She [the Biast] had told him too that the grave had to be seven times as deep as the man's length.
Poor Dobhran, his brother, was on the outskirts of the crowd. He came over and stood behind his brother, Columcille, and said that he was quite willing to be offered up alive under the ground on condition that Iona might be built up by his holy brother Columcille, and he gave credence to Columcille that his soul would be saved by the decree of God.
Said Columcille, "Although I have no other brother but poor Dobhran, I am pleased that he has offered himself to go to the grave, and that the Biast shall not be seen coming any more to the shore for ever."
The grave was made seven times the height of the man in depth. When Dobhran saw the grave he turned to Columcille and asked him as a favour to put a roof over the grave and to leave him there standing so long as it might please God to leave him alive.
He got his request—to be put down alive into the grave. He was left there.
Columcille came and began to work at Iona [again], and he was twenty days working, and Iona was going forward wondrously. He was pleased that his work was succeeding.
At the end of twenty days when everything was conjectured to be going on well, he said it were right to look what end had come to poor Dobhran, and [bade] open the grave.
Dobhran was walking on the floor of the grave [when the roof was taken off]. When Dobhran saw that the grave was opened and when he heard all the world round it, he gave an expert leap out of it to the mouth of the grave and he put up his two hands on high on the mouth of the grave. He supported himself on the [edge of the] grave [by his hands.] There was a big smooth meadow going up from Iona and much rushes on it. All the rushes that Dobhran's eyes lit upon grew red, and that little red top is on the rushes ever.
Columcille cried out and he on the far side, "Clay! clay on Dobhran's eyes! before he see any more of the world and of sin!"
They threw in the clay upon him then and returned to their work. And nothing any more went against Columcille until he had Iona finished.