Reared by St. Serf, and trained up in the way he was to pursue, the little boy, who imitated that man of God in all things, became, as he waxed older, a pattern of Christian humility and piety; and those hours which were not spent in labouring with his hands, that he might have food and raiment to bestow on the sick, the aged, and the poor, (for he called the poor the children of God,) he spent in prayer for the sins of men; and long after the blessed Serf had passed to the company of the saints, who are in heaven, the young man had waxed tall and strong, stately in figure and beautiful in face; but the fame of his goodness and sanctity exceeded even those of his pastor, until the simple people of the land, who knew not he was the son of their king, began to assert that his birth had been miraculous.
Now, after many days of deep meditation in the dark woods of Rosse, and of prayer at the shrine of his sainted mother, for her intercession and support, the young man took the staff of St. Serf, and set forth on a pilgrimage to convert the benighted heathens of the south and west; for there were many still in Mercia and the land of the Deirii, who in their secret hearts worshipped fountains that sprung in lonely places, or made human sacrifices in the depths of forests, and lit Beltane fires on the lofty hills in honour of the rising sun; and so, moved by these things, St. Mungo gave the little he possessed to the poor, and, undeterred by the terrors of the journey, by the hostile tribes of savage men, and the equally savage denizens of the vast forests that covered the plains and mountains of Caledonia, the prowling wolves, the howling bulls, the grisly bears and ravenous boars, he went forth to teach and baptize, to convert and to save.
His under garment was sackcloth; his upper was the white skin of a sheep; his head had no other covering than his own fair hair, which curled upon his shoulders and mingled with his beard.
In that age there was no money in the land, save the old coins of the Roman invaders, which the women wore as amulets, and so the saint took no care for his sustenance. He had ever eternity before him; in the morning reflecting that he might not see the night, in the night reflecting that he might not see the morning. The acorns and the wild herbs of the forest were his food; a little water in the hollow of his hand quenched his thirst; and he regretted the time spent in these necessities, as so much taken from the service of his Master. He travelled throughout the whole isle of Britain, preaching, and taking no rest; hence cometh the old proverb—Like the work of St. Mungo, which never was done.
Now the fame of his preaching went far and wide, throughout the length and breadth of the land, till King Eugene in his distant castle of Dunolli, on the mountains of Midlorn, heard of the fame of St. Mungo, and dedicated to him an island in western Lochleven, which still bears his name, and it became the burial-place of the men of Glencoe, who name it Eilan Mundh, or the Island of St. Mungo. But Eugene knew not that the saint was his son, and as little did his queen, (with whom he lived in continual strife,) suppose that he was the same little boy, whom, with his mother, in that wicked moment of wrath and pride, she had committed to the waters of Bodoria; and tidings came that he was preaching and teaching the four gospels in the kingdom of Strathclyde, where he was daily bringing into the fold of God those red-haired Attacotti, who were said to be worshippers of fire and eaters of human flesh. He brought them to repentance and a horror of their ways; they levelled the stones of Loda, the altars of their wickedness, and destroyed the temples of their dreadful idols. He baptized them in thousands at a little stream that meandered through a plain to pour its waters in the Clyde.
To the saint it seemed that this was like the place where his mother lay; and there he built a bower among the alder-bushes, and rested for a time from his pious labours.
Now, about this time, it chanced that the ring which St. Thena had found upon the shore was the occasion of much discord between Eugene and his Pictish queen; for, having bestowed it upon her as a gift at Yule-tide, she had lost it, and thereby excited his jealousy. He swore by the black stones of Iona, the great oath of the Gael, that she should die a terrible death if the ring appeared not before the Beltane day; and, within three days of that time, the queen in great tribulation appeared at the bower on the Clyde, to seek the advice and consolation of St. Mungo; for she had not evilly bestowed the jewel, but had lost it, and knew not where or how; though she dreamt that a bird had flown away with it, and dropped it in the sea.
Though he had learned, from his mother's prayers, of the wrong this proud queen had done her, St. Mungo chid her not, but heard her story benignantly; and she told him in touching language of the king's wrath, and the value of the ring, for it had in it a pearl of great value: only two such were found in the Dee—one was in that trinket, and the other is at this hour in the Scottish diadem, where King Eugene placed it.
St. Mungo ordered one who stood near him to throw a baited line into the Clyde, and, lo! there was drawn forth a noble salmon, having in its mouth a beautiful ring. The queen knew it to be her own, and in a transport of joy she vowed to found there a cathedral church, in honour of God and St. Mungo, who should be first bishop of that see; and there, where the alder-bower had stood, the great lamp of the western tribes was founded and built, and the city that rose around was named Glasgow; but the spot was then, as the old Cistertian monk of Furness tells us, made pleasant by the shade of many a stately tree.
There, after preaching the gospel with St. David, and turning many away from Pelagianism, after converting all the northern Picts, and building an abbey at Culross, where his mother lay, St. Mungo, the first bishop of Glasgow, passed away to the company of the saints, on the 13th day of January, 603, having reached the miraculous age of a hundred and eighty-five years; and there, in his cathedral church, we may yet see his shrine, where many a miracle was wrought of old, when faith was strong in the land, and where the pious of other days gifted many a stone of wax for the candles at a daily mass for the repose of his soul.