But notwithstanding the deadening influences around and in the Gaelic Church of the Clyde districts subsequent to the period of Patrick’s mission, we still mark in the sixth century the rays of Gospel truth struggling there with the thick inclosing darkness of Paganism. One heroic figure emerges from the surrounding gloom. It is that of Kentigern, or Mungo, forever associated with the origin and rise of the powerful commercial metropolis of Glasgow. The traditions of his life abound with myths and marvels; while his name has been a rich and suggestive theme for the etymological fancy. From the romantic literature that has gathered around his name, we glean what appears to be recognised as generally accepted facts—that he was born at Culross, and that he died at Glasgow about 601-3. He had been the pupil of the famous St. Serf in the east in the northern boundaries of the Brythonic race with Gaels to the north of them. So he may have been a Highland or a Welsh Celt. One or other of the forms of his name has been resolved, apparently with equal ease, into either a Gaelic or a Welsh etymon. Perplexing or unsatisfactory as this undoubtedly is it yet may suggest an explanation. As happens in our own and other times his name would assume various forms according to the dialects or languages of the speakers and writers. The forms of his name, therefore, furnish no key as to the race of his fathers.
When Kentigern began his labours on the Clyde the church of St. Patrick’s people had lost much of its first love. Many of the Gaels themselves had also been driven westward under Brythonic pressure from the east and from the south. As Christian soldiers or Milesians some had sailed to the north of Ireland to find a home; others had drifted into Perthshire and Argyll, which at this period became the true “Gaidhealtachd,” or the “land of the Gael.” Kentigern strove devotedly to revive the drooping church. In his cold stone bed strewn with ashes on the classic banks of the Molendinar stream he cultivated the spirit of prayer; rehearsed the sacred strains of the psalmist; and warmed his spirit by visions of divine fellowship. In the local sovereign of the name of Morken he encountered much disagreeable opposition and sarcastic interpretation of the saint’s faith in a Providence. Kentigern virtually made an application for an ecclesiastical establishment and endowment of himself and his presbyter followers. King Morken received the application for temporalities in a spirit that would do no discredit to a statesman of modern times. He reminds the saint of his own popular saying: “Cast thy care upon the Lord and he will care for thee.” But argued the King further: “Now here am I, who have no faith in such precepts, who do not seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness; yet for all that, are not riches and honours heaped upon me?” The royal granaries were full, while the Christian saints were starving. How could he expect to believe in a Providence that thus arranged the possessions of men. The saint’s replies and interpretations proved unavailing with the royal sceptic, so broken in heart the holy man retired to his oratory to pray. His emotions were profoundly stirred; he began to weep. Then as the tears started in his eyes and coursed down his cheeks, so did the waters of the Clyde begin to rise and swell into a mighty flood, which at last overflowed around the royal granaries, carrying them down the stream, and leaving them stranded at the very door of the saint on the banks of the Molendinar. The sanctity of his youth and the faith of his mature years have been in this fashion richly attested by miraculous manifestations, according to his rather credulous biographer, Jocelyn.
The earnest and heroic labours of Kentigern were not confined to Strathclyde. We obtain glimpses of him beyond the Mounth among the northern Picts of Aberdeenshire, while his Christian fellow-worker and friend, Columba, was beginning to proclaim the gospel in Perthshire. In his latter days we find him in Wales where he founded the church of St. Asaph, and where he finally died, leaving behind him a name whose holy influence has shed lustre across the course of thirteen centuries.
Kentigern is peculiarly associated with the origin of Glasgow. In the armorial bearings of this city we have perpetuated, according to very remarkable legends, three remarkable miracles which were wrought by the holy man, and which it would be probably unfair to pass by without reference, considering that the sons of Gaeldom ever since have helped and shared so very specially in the prosperity of Glasgow. A pet robin redbreast, which belonged to the college over which St. Serf presided, is represented on a shield argent by a bird proper. This bird either through accident or mischief was torn to pieces among the students. When the president appeared to punish, young Kentigern, the best boy among them, was made the scapegoat. The pieces of the bird were thrown in his lap; but the hidden holiness of the boy was such that the creature gathered up his limbs, flapped his wings, and sang a joyous song on the approach of the holy master. On another occasion Kentigern found his fire extinguished by his enemies; so he was compelled to bring a tree from the frozen forest and breathe into it the breath of fire. The remembrance of this feat is preserved in the tree or branch which forms the crest. The figure of a fish, with the ring in its mouth, recalls the scriptural reference to the finding of a fish with the needed coin in its body. The biographer of Kentigern, Jocelyn of Furness, knew well how to enrobe his hero, with the help of the mythic accounts already developed, with those miracles which had served sacred ends in the lives of other saints at that period. Fishes with rings in their bodies had always been found on critical occasions.
This brief sketch, in connection with the lives of Patrick and Kentigern, of the Gaelic Christianity of Scotland in the fifth and sixth centuries, will help to show forth in clearer outlines the work of Columba. The spiritual forces that waved forth from Iona were certainly not the first that brought religious light to the land of the Gael. Nor were they so exclusively of Irish origin as they are represented to be. In eastern Gaeldom in Scotland Christianity had been already known. But in the course of the century which elapsed from the time of Patrick it had greatly decayed. Columba came to the west of Scotland to revive and to proclaim the faith afresh. He came back among his ancestral people from the midst of whom the gospel had been sent a century previously to Ireland. In Iona the religious centre of the land of the Gaels was simply removed further west and north. The Gaelic-speaking people themselves were drifting in the same direction towards the Atlantic. As they themselves were largely absorbed by the Brythons behind them, so they absorbed in their north-west progress those brave non-Aryan clans to whom they became the missionaries of the cross and the channels of letters. They extended the area of Gaeldom, and imposed their Christian and literary tongue on the conquered just as the Christian and more literary Latin had been previously imposed on many of their own ancestors. In the fourth century we mark gospel light in Strathclyde; in the fifth we see it kindling on the shores of Ireland; in the sixth it begins to burn from Iona.
It was among these South Albin Gaels at an early period that we mark the appearance of Brigit: the Mary of the Gael. There is no standard of Gaelic maintained in the orthography of this proper name. Brigit is used here as one of the most ancient forms; as also to preserve a chronological harmony with the secondary significant title of “Mary of the Gael.” As we all know the present form of the name is Bridget in English; but it has been so little talked of in later ages by Gaelic Highlanders that it becomes almost a serious matter for the majority of them even to spell it in Gaelic. It is only in the compound “La-Fheill-Brighde”—[Brìde] or The Day of the Feast of Bridget, and surname MacBride, that we are familiar with this female saintly name.
This by necessary phonological laws recalls Brigid, which in its turn reminds us of the more ancient orthography Brigit, which is adopted by Dr Stokes in his “Three Middle-Irish Homilies.” Other Irish scholars have spelt it Brigid, even when they are quoting from productions such as the poem ascribed to Brigit, found in the Burgundian Library, Brussels, headed thus:
Brighitt (CCT.)
[Brigid (Cecinet)].
The distinguished Stokes follows accurately the spelling of Leabhar Breac, Brigit. This is the form which we also find in “Cormac’s Glossary” compiled originally nearly a thousand years ago. The definition or explanation appended in Cormac’s work is suggestive and instructive. “Brigit i.e. a poetess, daughter of the Dagda (doctus?). This is Brigit the female sage, or woman of wisdom, i.e. Brigit the goddess whom poets adored, because very great and very famous was her protecting care. It is therefore they call her goddess of poets by this name. Whose sisters were Brigit the female physician [woman of leechcraft]; Brigit the female smith [woman of smithwork]; from whose names with all Irishmen a goddess was called Brigit.” To this Dr Stokes adds that the “name is certainly connected with the Old Celtic goddess-name Brigantia as possibly with the Skr. Brhaspati and O. Norse Bragi.” p. 23. This gives us a glimpse of a “female smith”; a “female physician”; and a “female saint” (sanct Brigit) rolled into one, and that one a goddess of Indo-European connections.
With these lofty associations and suggestions clinging to the name of Brigit we almost find it difficult to descend to the regions of ordinary earthly womanhood; and recognize in her a mere Gaelic Christian maiden. Her name has never been absolutely dissociated from the realm of myth, or rather mythus; but at the same time we cannot help regarding her as a historical character. Her name became celebrated very early wherever the Gaelic folks did congregate. We find her name associated with King Nectan of Albin, and with a church founded in her honour at Abernethy. So her fame was not confined to the Gaelic regions of Erin. That illustrious Scot, Patrick, a native of the district of Strathclyde, is supposed to refer to her in his confession, where he says, “There was one blessed Scottic maiden, very fair, of noble birth, and of adult age, whom I baptized; and after a few days she came to me, because, as she declared, she had received a response from a messenger of God desiring her to become a virgin of Christ, and to draw near to God. Thanks be to God, on the sixth day from that, she with praiseworthy eagerness seized on that state of life which all the virgins of God likewise now adopt.” These notices help to bring us nearer what Carlyle calls the “actual Air-Maiden, incorporated tangibility and reality,” whose electric glance has fascinated the Gaelic world. It could not be expected that the date of the birth of Brigit would be preserved; but when she became a woman of consequence in the Gaelic or Scottic world her movements began to be marked. The accounts of the fabulous lives are very circumstantial; but sober-minded critics like O’Curry are fairly satisfied with two principal dates, and most reasonable folks will be the same. These two dates are Brigit’s advent at Downpatrick on the 17th of March, 493, A.D.; and her death in 525 A.D.