Of the Isle of Man, one chronicler tells us that its early history is “more than ordinarily obscured in the mists of the past;” another, that “the Isle of Man is almost the only place where there is any chance of seeing a fairy;” a third, that “nowhere in the same area are there so many relics of an unknown past.”
The fact that the island owns no ancient literature, its laws being unwritten, and that it maintained scarcely any intercourse with other nations, renders it impossible to disentangle from myth and tradition any authentic chronicle of the little dominion which at a later period was to come under the rule of the Stanleys.
To “begin at the beginning” of Manx history, the precise date of the reign of Mannanen Beg Mac-y-Leir—which, being interpreted, is Little Mannanen, the son of Leir, and who is the mythic hero of Man—is somewhat difficult to determine, seeing that he is said to have reigned any time between thirteen centuries before Christ and four centuries after. As another name for him was Angus Oge, “The Immortal,” this Mannanen may have lived to a good old age; but seventeen centuries is a far cry.
His parentage is further variously attributed to Scottish and to Irish kings; and he was the first law-maker of the island. Also, besides being a warrior, navigator, and trader, he was a skilful forger of weapons, and a mighty necromancer and magician, having the power to hide his dominions in mist at the approach of the enemy.
If Mannanen was killed by St Patrick, and his subjects were driven by that apostle to the alternative of becoming Christians or of being exterminated—for, saith the chronicler, “of the seed of the conjurer, there were none but what the saint destroyed”—the founder of Man necessarily is a comparatively modern personage of sixth-century days. Something like an air of reality is spread over this tradition of Mannanen and St Patrick by the traditions of St Maughold, whose name appears in the English, Scotch, and Irish calendars, and who gives his name to the headland near Ramsey. This Maughold or Macguil appears to have been a wild Irish chieftain who designed to murder St Patrick. The saint however filled Maughold with awe by exercising a miracle, and restoring to life one of his band of ruffian followers. This deed, more marvellous than useful, converted Maughold on the spot to the Christian faith, and he offered to do any penance St Patrick thought fit to impose.
The saint having considered awhile, bade the penitent to repair to the seashore, and there, entering a little coracle, have his hands and feet bound, and then let himself drift over the trackless waters till they should bring him to land once more; and so he was brought to the foot of the rocks eastward of the Isle of Man. Here he was welcomed by the Christian missionaries whom St Patrick had left in charge of the island; and after a long life spent in pious prayers and deeds and many austerities, and, in his turn, miracles, he died, and was buried in the church which afterwards bore his canonised name and stood in the midst of the city which he had founded on that rock. After all this, it is cruel to find that the most laborious and learned seekers into the lives of the saints and early apostles of Christianity can discover not the slightest evidence of this visit of St Patrick to the Isle of Man, nor of any episcopate left there by him. The monkish compilers of the “Chronicles of Man” give their summing-up of this tradition to the same effect, in the fourteenth century:—
“Suffice it to say we are entirely ignorant who or what bishops existed before the time of Goddard Crovan, Captain of William I., because we have not found it written, nor have we learned it by certain report of the elders.”
King Arthur is said to have conquered Man, and then, restoring it to its vanquished possessor, enrolled him among the knights of his Round Table. From its situation, the island was little likely to be left long in the undisputed possession of the latest warrior who might have conceived a desire of annexing it; and it undoubtedly changed hands many times between the Irish and Scots, not to speak of the Welsh and English. Finally, in the ninth century, the Scandinavians, who had made their power felt all over Europe, gained the upper hand in the island, and made it one of their central strongholds. To balance the discredit thrown on the early Christian traditions of Man, stands the fact that monumental vestiges of each race recorded to have inhabited it have been found in it. Prehistoric remains, kist-vaens, burial-places, earthenware urns, flint arrow-heads, not unfrequently are dug up; also circular huts of unhewn stone of the locality. A few Roman relics have been found at Castletown. Mediæval remains are at Peel, Castletown, and Kirk Maughold, and many Runic and Scandinavian monuments in various parts. Querns, the ancient handmills for grinding grain, are found now and again. Such relics of early times all prove that if originally a desert, the Isle of Man was peopled at a comparatively early period in the world’s history.
In the sixteenth century came the renowned Manx hero, Orry, from his Icelandic home. The story tells that he landed on a starlight night, and when the Manx men asked him whence he came, he pointed to the Milky Way: and so it is that the people of Man to this day call the Milky Way Road Moar Ree Orree—King Orry’s highroad. To Orry is ascribed the establishment of a civil government, and its powers and privileges as a separate though feudatory kingdom. It was long designated “The Kingdom of Man and the Isles.” Its representative assembly is the oldest in Europe, coeval with the English Parliament, and is styled the House of Keys. Its Tynwald Court is held on the 5th of July on the Tynwald Hill, and is a signing and proclamation of the Acts passed by the Imperial Government during the preceding year, being proclaimed in English and in Manx.
In former times this assembling of the legislators was attended by great pomp and ceremony. The second Earl of Derby relinquished the title of King of Man, being content with the appellative of Lord of the island; but Sir John Stanley was bidden as king to meet his officers of state, deemsters, and barons in his “royal array, as a king ought to do—and upon the Hill of Tynwald sitt in a chaire covered with a royall cloath and cushions and his visage unto the east”; and many more injunctions to the king, and rules for the conduct of the great annual ceremonial, follow. Since 1765, the Duke of Athoel, the last lord of the island, transferred his right to the English Crown—notwithstanding, the laws of Imperial Parliament are not valid in Man unless they are in accordance with its ancient laws and liberties, and have been duly confirmed by the Tynwald Court and proclaimed on the Tynwald Hill.