[37] Gilla Dacker means "a slothful fellow"—a fellow hard to move, hard to manage, hard to have anything to do with.
[38] The ancient Irish used drinking vessels of various forms and with several names. A "Drinking-horn" (called a corn: pronounced curn) was usually made of a bullock's horn, hollowed out, cut into shape, and often highly ornamented with silver rim, precious stones, carvings, and other [decorations]. A beautiful drinking-horn will be found figured in the "Child's History of Ireland," p. 26. Another kind of drinking vessel—the mether—has been already noticed here (page [17] above).
[39] In books he is often called Columba; but in Ireland he is best known by the name Columkille. This is derived from colum [pron. collum] a dove, and cill, or kill, a church: the "Dove of the church." This name was given him when a boy from his gentle, affectionate disposition, and because he was so fond of praying in the little church of Tullydouglas, near where he was born: so that the little boys who were accustomed to play with him used often to ask: "Has our little Colum yet come from the church?"
The sketch given here is taken chiefly, but not altogether, from Adamnan's "Life of St. Columba." Adamnan was a native of Tirconnell or Donegal, like Columba himself. He died in the year 703. He was the ninth abbot of Iona, of which Columba was the first. His "Life of St. Columba" is a very beautiful piece of Latin composition.
[40] Glastonbury, a town in Somersetshire, in England, where in old times there was a celebrated monastery, much reported to by Irish students.
[41] This simple and beautiful narrative of the last days of St. Columkille, including the two pleasing little stories about the crane and the old white horse, with the affecting account of the saint's death, is taken altogether from Adamnan's Life. The circumstances of Columkille's death are, in some respects, very like those attending the death of the Venerable Bede, as recorded in the tender and loving letter of his pupil, the monk Cuthbert. But Adamnan's narrative was written more than forty years before that of Cuthbert.
Baithen was St. Columkille's first cousin and his most beloved disciple, and succeeded him as abbot of Iona.
[42] This Alfred must be distinguished from Alfred the Great who lived two centuries later.
[43] Meath, one of the five Kingdoms into which Ireland was divided. Ben-Edar, the old name of Howth, near Dublin.
[44] It was translated very exactly into prose in 1832 by the great Irish scholar Dr. John O'Donovan: the Irish poet James Clarence Mangan turned this prose with very little change into verse, part of which is given here.