Kentigern in the North, Cyndeyrn in Wales, was the name of an early Pictish saint, who recalled his countrymen from Pelagianism, and is regarded as the apostle and patron of Glasgow. Persecution obliged him to take refuge in Wales, where he founded the church of Llandwy, being guided, as saith the legend, to the spot by a milk-white boar, which ran before him, and on arriving at the spot began to stamp and root up the ground with his tusks. Returning to Glasgow, the saint thence sent missionaries to Iceland, who no doubt were the teachers of the few inhabitants whose descendants were long after found there by the Norse settlers, and called by them Papa, from the title of their priests, a title still lingering in many a bay and islet of the Hebrides, attesting that there the Culdee clergy had been owned as the fathers of their flocks. After a custom that does not seem to have been uncommon among the Keltic saints, Kentigern used every night to sing through the whole Book of Psalms, standing up to his neck in water. He obtained for himself the epithet, Mwyngu, or Munghu, the amiable, by which he is best known in his own city, and which has named both it and a large number of the inhabitants and of his other countrymen, one of whom, namely, Mungo Park, has made it memorable.
Wales had a feminine St. Kentigern, perhaps named after him; perhaps derived from the Irish Caintigern, or fair lady.
Cean, head, the first syllable of the saint’s name, is found in all the Keltic tongues, forming many geographical terms, generally in the form of can or ken.
Either this or cian, vast, was the Irish name Cian or Kean, hereditary in the O'Hara family, but often supposed to be short for Cornelius. So common was it once that fifty Cians were killed in the battle of Magh Rath.
Tuathal, lordly, turned into Toole and O'Toole, are his descendants, and the feminine, Tuathflaith, is entirely lost. The ladies had several of these majestic names; Uallach, the proud; So-Domina, good lady, which must have had a Latin origin; Dunflaith, lady of the fort; besides Mor, which the Scots are pleased to translate by Sarah, and the Irish by Mary and Martha, though it really means a large woman. Morrigu had been the goddess of battle among the Tuath de Danan.
Martha, Maud, and Mabel, are employed to distinguish Meadhbh, Meave, or Mab, one of the very oldest and most famous of Irish names. It would be most satisfactory to take it from meadhail, joy; but this is far from certain, and it may come from an old comparative of mor, great. But Mirth is analogous with the meaning of Ainè, the other fairy queen; and mear, or merry, has furnished another Irish name, namely, the masculine Meaghar or Meara. Meadhbh was the daughter of Eochaid Freidhleach, king of Erin, as it is said, A.M. 3922, and was so brilliant a heroine of Irish romance, that Congal Claen bids the men of Connaught, her husband’s kingdom, to “Remember Meave in the battle.” Afterwards, like other favourite Irish heroines, she became queen of the fairies; and some of the Irish settlers must have carried tidings of her to England, when Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson made Queen Mab our own peculiar possession, if knowing how to make the best use of her establishes a claim. Meave, or Mab, has not entirely lost ground among the Irish peasantry, though generally it has an equivalent.
Toirdelvach, tall as a tower, or, more properly, tower-like, must have been taken from those riddles of Ireland, the mysterious towers, scattered throughout the island, and generally supposed to have been erected in the earliest period of Christian art, if art it may be called.
Toirdelvach was king of Connaught at the time that Dermot M'Morough carried off Devorgoil, and as supreme king of Ireland he punished the offender; nor was it till after his death that the invitation to Earl Strongbow was given. In English history, he is usually called Turlough, the later form of the name, which is still in some use, though more often turned into Terence, which has been oddly borrowed from the Latin dramatist to translate the tall Irishman.
Sealbh, cattle or possessions (for in Gaelic they are the same; just like pecus and pecunia, vieh and fee, cattel and chattels), is the origin of Sealbhach, pronounced Selvach, owned by two kings of the Scots, and of the feminine Sealbhflaith, lady of possessions, now become Sally.[[101]]