But our other records transport us to a distant part of Ireland, far away from the forest of Fochlad, to Pictish soil near the eastern coast of Ulster. Here in the lands east of Lough Neagh, the old race, driven eastward from central Ulster, still held out. The name Ulaid, which originally designated the whole of northern Ireland—even as now in its Danish form of Ulster—had come to be specially applied to the eastern corner, whither the true Ulidians had been driven. It seemed now to be the true Ulaid. Within the borders of Ulidia, in this restricted sense, there was a marked division. In the extreme north were the Scots, and in the south were the Picts. The small land of the Scots was known as Dal-riada, and the larger land of the Picts as Dal-aradia.[31] It is supposed that both peoples, those known as Scots and those known as Picts, represented the older races, which possessed Ireland before the coming of the Goidelic invaders, whose language ultimately prevailed throughout the whole island.
PLACE OF CAPTIVITY
Here, it was believed and recorded, Patrick served a master whose name was Miliucc. His lands and his homestead were in northern Dalaradia, and Patrick herded his droves of pigs on Mount Miss. The name of this mountain still abides unchanged, though by coalescing with sliabh, the Gaelic word for “mountain,” it is slightly disguised in the form Slemish. Not really lofty, and not visible at a distance of many miles, yet, when you come within its range, Mount Miss dominates the whole scene and produces the impression of a massive mountain. Its curious, striking shape, like an inverted bowl, round and wide-brimmed, exercises a sort of charm on the eye, and haunts one who is walking in the valley of the Braid, somewhat as the triangular form of Pentelicus, clear-cut like the pediment of a temple, follows one about in the plain of Athens.
It was in this valley of the Braid and on the slopes of Miss that, according to the common tradition and general belief, Patrick for six years did the bidding of his lord.[32] But it is certain, from his own words, that he served near the forest of Fochlad. An attempt may be made to reconcile the contradiction by assuming that he changed masters, and that, having dwelled at first in the west, he was sold to another master in Dalaradia;[33] but his own description of his bondage seems hardly compatible with such a conjecture. The simplest solution seems to be a frank rejection of the story which connected his captivity with Mount Miss in the land of the Picts.
While he ate the bitter bread of bondage in a foreign land, a profound spiritual change came over him. He had never given much thought to his religion, but now that he was a thrall amid strangers, “the Lord,” he says, “opened the sense of my unbelief.” The ardour of religious emotion, “the love and fear of God,” so fully consumed his soul that in a single day or night he would offer a hundred prayers; and he describes himself, in woodland or on mountain-side, rising from his bed before dawn and going forth to pray in hail, or rain, or snow.
His contemplation was above the earth,
And fixed on spiritual object.
Thus the years of his bondage were also the years of his “conversion,” and he looked back upon this stage in his spiritual development as the most important and critical in his life.
THE ESCAPE