"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
Whereat all that mighty multitude, before they sank into the deep, waved their fins and their claws, each after its kind, and repeated as with one voice:
"An ain ann Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spioraid Naoimh!"
And the glory that was upon the Sound of Iona was as though God trailed a starry net upon the waters, with a shining star in every little hollow, and a flowing moon of gold on every wave.
Then Colum the White put out both his arms, and blessed the children of God that are in the deeps of the sea and that are in the deeps of the air.
That is how Sabbath came upon all living things upon Ioua that is called Iona, and within the air above Ioua, and within the sea that is around Ioua.
And the glory is Colum's.
To illustrate the history of the island I select the following episode from Barbaric Tales. It deals with The Flight of the Culdees. The name culdee is somewhat loosely used both by mediæval and modern writers, for it does not appear to have been given to the Brotherhood of the Columban Church till two hundred years after Columba's death. The word may be taken to mean the Cleric of God; perhaps, later, it was the equivalent of anchorite. This episode is, in date, about A.D. 800 or soon after.
On the wane of the moon, on the day following the ruin of Bail'-tiorail, sails were seen far east of Stromness.
Olaus the White called his men together. The boats coming before the wind were doubtless his own galleys which he had lost when the south-gale had blown them against Skye; but no man can know when and how the gods may smile grimly, and let the swords that whirl be broken, or the spears that are flat become a hedge of death.