“A branch of the apple-tree from Emain I bring;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal boughs with blossoms.
There is a distant isle,
Around which sea-horses (waves) glisten:”
And the woman sings on, picturing “Mag Mell of many flowers,” and of the host ever rowing thither from across the sea; till at last Bran and his people set forth in their boat and row on and on, till they are welcomed by sweet women with music and wine in island-fields of flowers and bird-song. There is no sad strain in the music from this Gaelic land beyond the grave.
Irish traits observed in poem and Saga are reflected in accounts of not improbable events, and exemplified in Christian saints; for the Irish did not change their spots upon conversion. How Christianity failed to affect the manners of the ancient Irish is illustrated in the story of the Cursing of Tara, where tradition says the high-kings of Ireland held sway. The account is scarcely historical; yet Tara existed, and fell to decay in the sixth century.[160] Its cursing was on this wise. King Dermot was high-king of Ireland. His laws were obeyed throughout the land, and over its length and breadth marched his spear-bearer asserting the royal authority, and holding the king’s spear across his body before him. Every town and castle must open wide enough to let this spear pass, carried crosswise. The spear-bearer comes to the strong house of Ædh. He finds the outer palisade breached to let the spear through, but not the inner house. The bearer demands that it be torn open. “Order it so as to please thyself,” quoth Ædh, as he smote off his head.
King Dermot sent his men to lay waste to Ædh’s land and seize his person. Ædh flees, and at last takes refuge with St. Ruadhan. The king again sends messengers, but they are foiled, till he comes himself, seizes the outlaw, and carries him off to hang him at Tara. Thereupon St. Ruadhan seeks St. Brendan of Birr and others. They proceed to Tara and demand the prisoner. The king answers that the Church cannot protect law-breakers. So all the clergy rang their bells and chanted psalms against the king before Tara, and fasted on him (in order that their imprecations might be more potent), and he fasted on them. King and clergy fasted on each other, till one night the clergy made a show of eating in sight of the town, but passed the meat and ale beneath their cowls. So the king was tricked into taking meat; and an evil dream came to him, by which he knew the clergy would succeed in destroying his kingdom.
In the morning the king went and said to the clergy: “Ill have ye done to undo my kingdom, because I maintained the righteous cause. Be thy diocese, Ruadhan, the first one ruined, and may thy monks desert thee.”
Said the saint: “May thy kingdom droop speedily.”
Said the king: “Thy see shall be empty, and swine shall root up thy churchyards.”
Said the saint: “Tara shall be desolate, and therein shall no dwelling be for ever.”
It was the custom of ancient bards to utter an imprecation or “satire” against those offending them.[161] The irate fasting and cursing by the Irish clergy was a thinly Christianized continuation of the same Irish habit, inspired by the same Irish temper. There was no chasm between the pagan bards and the Christian clergy, who loved the Sagas and preserved them. They had also their predecessors in the Druids, who had performed the functions of diviners, magicians, priests, and teachers, which were assumed by the clergy in the fifth and sixth centuries.[162] Doubtless many of the Druids became monks.
Christianity came to the Irish as a new ardour, effacing none of their characteristics. Irish monks and Irish saints were as irascible as Irish bards and Saga heroes. The Irish temper lived on in St. Columba of Iona and St. Columbanus of Luxeuil and Bobbio. Both of these men left Ireland to spread monastic Christianity, and also because, as Irishmen, they loved to rove, like their forefathers. Christianity furnished this Irish propensity with a definite aim in the mission-passion to convert the heathen. It likewise brought the ascetic hermit-passion, which drove these travel-loving islanders over the sea in search of solitude; and so a yearning came on Irish monks to sail forth to some distant isle and gain within the seclusion of the sea a hermitage beyond the reach of man. There are many stories of these explorers. They sailed along the Hebrides, they settled on the Shetland Islands, they reached the Faroes, and even brought back news of Iceland. But before the seventh century closed, their sea hermitages were harried by Norsemen who were sailing upon quite different ventures. From an opposite direction they too had reached the Shetlands and the Hebrides, and had pushed on farther south among the islands off the west coast of Scotland. So there come sorry tales of monks fleeing from one island to another. These harryings and flights had gone on for a century and more before the Vikings landed in Ireland, apparently for the first time, in 795.[163] There followed two centuries of fierce struggle with the invaders, during which much besides blows was exchanged. Vikings and Irish learned from each other; Norse strains passed into Irish literature, and conversely the Norse story-tellers probably obtained the Saga form of composition.