COLUMCILLE AND HIS BROTHER DOBHRAN.
PREFACE.
This very interesting story of Columcille's brother, Dobhran, is common amongst Highlanders, but I have found no trace of it in Ireland, nor any mention of a Dobhran. This particular version was written down by the late Rev. Father Allan MacDonald, of Eriskay, who collected a great deal of the folk-lore of that island. The same story was told to me, but somewhat differently, by a Canadian priest from Sydney, Nova Scotia, one of the Clan MacAdam (really Mac Eudhmoinn) and the sixth in descent from the first refugee of his name who fled to Canada after Culloden. He said he had often heard the story, and that Dobhran when he climbed to the edge of the grave uttered three sentences, but two of them he had forgotten, the third was "cha n'eil an iorron chomh dona agus a tháthar ag rádh," (sic.) i.e., "Hell is not as bad as people say." It was then Columcille cried out, "úir, úir air Dobhran." "Clay, clay on Dobhran's mouth before he says any more!"[68]
Here follow some stories from Irish sources about Columcille himself. His life was written at considerable length by Adamnan, one of his successors in the Abbacy of Iona, who was born only twenty-seven years after Columcille's death, and has come down to us in the actual manuscript written by a man who died in 713; to that we know a good deal about the saint. There exist five other lives of him. According to the Leabhar Breac he died of self-imposed abstinence.
Columcille's Fasting.
Colum's angel, whose name was Axal (a name derived from "Auxilium") requested him to "take virginity around him," but he refused "unless a reward therefor" be given to him. "What reward seekest thou," said the angel. "I declare," said Columcille, "it is not one reward but four." "Mention them," said the angel. "I will," said Columcille, "namely, A death in Repentance, A death from Hunger, and death in Youth[69]—for hideous are bodies through old age." "Even more shall be given thee," said the angel, "for thou shalt be chief prophet of heaven and earth."
And that was fulfilled. He went into pilgrimage, and he was young when he died, and of hunger he perished, but it was wilful hunger.
And this is the cause of that hunger of his. Once it came to pass as he was going round the graveyard in Iona that he saw an old woman cutting nettles to make pottage thereof. "Why art thou doing that, poor woman?" said Columcille. "O dear father," quoth she, "I have one cow and she has not calved yet, and I am expecting it, and this is what has served me for a long time back."