As for the manuscript which had been the object of this strange conflict of copyright, elevated into a civil war, it was afterward venerated as a kind of natural military and religious palladium. Under the name of Cathach or Fightu, the Latin Psalter transcribed by Columba, enshrined in a sort of portable altar, became the national relic of the O’Donnell clan. For more than a thousand years it was carried with them to battle as a pledge of victory, on the condition of being supported on the breast of a clerk free from all mortal sin.
Still struggling with a stubborn self-will, Columba found his life miserable, unhappy, and full of unrest; yet remorse had even now “planted in his soul the germs at once of a startling conversion and of his future apostolic mission.” Various legends reveal him to us at this crisis of his life, wandering long from solitude to solitude, and from monastery to monastery, seeking out holy monks, masters of penitence and Christian virtue, and asking them anxiously what he should do to obtain the pardon of God for the murder of so many victims as was caused by the battle of Cul-Dreimhne.
At length, after many wanderings in contrition and mortification, “he found the light which he sought from a holy monk, St. Molaise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture, and who had already been his confessor.
“This severe hermit confirmed the decision of the synod; but, to the obligation of converting to the Christian faith an equal number of pagans as there were of Christians killed in the civil war, he added a new condition, which bore cruelly upon a soul so passionately attached to country and kindred. The confessor condemned his penitent to perpetual exile from Ireland!”
This was more hard than to bare his breast to the piercing sword; less welcome than to walk in constant punishment and suffering, so long as his feet pressed the soil of his worshipped Erin!
But it was even so. Thus ran the sentence of Molaise: “Perpetual exile from Ireland!”
Staggered, stunned, struck to the heart, Columba could not speak for a moment. But God gave him in that great crisis of his life the supreme grace to bear the blow and embrace the cross presented to him. At last he spoke, and in a voice choked by emotion he answered: “Be it so; what you have commanded shall be done.” From that instant his life was one long penitential sacrifice. For thirty years he lived and laboured in the distant Iona, and the fame of his sanctity and devotion filled the world.
As a farewell gift to some Irish visitors at Iona, Columba presented the following verses, deservedly classed among the world’s beautiful poetic compositions. The literal translation into English doubtless loses much of the original beauty, but enough, at least, is left to indicate the charm of the original Gaelic thought and sentiment.
“What joy to fly upon the white-crested sea; and watch the waves break upon the Irish shore!
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“My foot is in my little boat; but my sad heart ever bleeds!
“There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erin; but never in this life shall it see Erin, nor her sons, nor her daughters!