A Book of Cornwall. Baring-Gould Sabine
father had been lent a sword by King Illand, son of Dunlaing of Leinster. He asked his daughter to negotiate with the king that this sword should become his personal property. She agreed. At the same time one of Illand's men threw himself upon her, and begged her to put him into her tribe. So she asked the king for two things: the man and the sword.
"Humph!" said he. "What am I to have in return?"
"I will obtain for you eternal life, for one thing, and for the other the assurance that the crown shall remain to your sons."
"As to eternal life," replied the practical and sceptical king, "I have never seen it, and so do not know what it is worth; as to the boys, if they are worth their salt, they will maintain their own rights. Give me victory over those Ulster rascals, and you shall have my man and the sword."
So Bridget agreed to this.
These Celtic saints certainly appropriated to themselves the right of the keys, to give heaven to whom they would, and to exclude from it whoever offended them. Of course they could appeal to the Bible for their authority, and who were these half-wild men to dispute it with them and quibble the text away? That they were sincere in their belief that the power of the keys was given to them is certain.
I have mentioned reciprocal rights.
Now one of those demanded of the saint by the chief of the land was to march with him to battle and to curse his enemies.
This had been what was expected and exacted of the chief Druid; and in this, as in many another particular, the saint stepped into the shoes of the Druid. This is frankly enough admitted in one life, in which we are told that the king sent for S. Finnchu to curse his enemies, because the Druid was too old and feeble to do the job effectively.
When a saint passed out of this world he left a bell, a book, or a crosier, to be the cathair of the tribe, and his coarb marched with it in his name before the tribesmen.
When the tribe was successful in battle, then certain dues were paid to the saint for his assistance.
In the lives of some of the early Celtic saints we are told strange stories of their self-mortification, their rigorous fasts. This was due to a very curious cause.
According to the Celtic law of distress, the appellant took the matter into his own hands. There was no executive administration of law. Everyone who was aggrieved had to exact the penalty as best he might. If he were too weak to recover the penalty by force, then the legal proceeding for him was to fast against the debtor or aggressor. He sat down at his door and starved himself. The person fasted against almost always gave way, as the fact of the institution of the fast doubled the fine, and as he did not venture to allow the creditor to proceed to the last extremities lest he should entail on himself a blood feud.
When S. Patrick wanted to carry a point with King Lear (Laogaire) he adopted this method and succeeded, and the king gave way.
There is a very odd story-of course mere legend-of S. Germanus when he came to Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy. He found one particular city mightily opposed to the orthodox doctrine, and as he could not convince the citizens by reasoning with them, he and his attendant clerks sat down at the gates and starved themselves to force the citizens into adopting the true faith.
The same law of distress is found in the code of Menu, and the British Government has had to forbid the dharma-i. e. the legal fasting against a creditor-from being put in practice in India.
Now, very naturally, and by an easy transition, the early Celtic saints carried their legal ideas into their religion, and just as when S. Patrick, wanting something from King Lear, fasted against him till he obtained it, so did the followers of Patrick, when they desired something of God for themselves or for others, proceed against Him by the legal method of levying a distress.
This is frankly admitted in an odd story in the Book of Lismore. Three clerks agreed together that they would each recite a certain number of psalms daily, and that should one die the other two would share his psalms between them. All went smoothly enough for a while. Then one died, whereupon the survivors divided his portion of the Psalter between them. But soon after a second died, whereat the third found himself saddled with the sets of psalms that appertained to both the others. He was very angry. He thought the Almighty had dealt unfairly by him in letting the other two off so lightly and overburdening him, and in a fit of spleen and resentment he fasted against Him.
But this view of asceticism was held only at the outset, and rapidly sounder ideas gained the mastery, and we find self-denial in the saints assume quite another complexion.
An instance in point is in the life of S. Columba. One day he saw a poor widow gathering stinging-nettles, and he asked her why she did it. "For the pot," said she; "I have no other food."
The good old man was troubled. He went back to the monastery and said to the cook, "I will eat nettles only now."
When this had gone on for some time, his disciple who cooked the nettles for him saw that he was falling away in flesh, so he took a hollow elder-stick, put butter into the tube, and by this means enriched the dish.
S. Columba said, "The nettles do not taste as before. They have a richer flavour. What have you done to them?"
"Master dear," answered his disciple, "I have put nothing into the pot but this stick, wherewith I stirred its contents."
Nor were they pedantic in observance of rule.
Travellers came to S. Cronan, and he had meat and ale set on the board, and he himself and his monks sat down to make merry with them.
"Humph!" said a formalist among them, "at this rate I do not see much prospect of matins being said."
"My friend," answered Cronan, "in receiving strangers we receive Christ; as to the matins, the angels will sing them in our room."
Finding that some travellers had wandered all night unable to find shelter, "This will never do," said he; "I shall move my quarters to the roadside."
Though rough in their treatment of themselves, they were tender-hearted and kind to bird and beast and man. It was through a frightened fawn flying for refuge to S. Petrock that Constantine was brought to repentance. S. Columba prayed with his arms extended till the birds perched on his hands. Another Columba, the founder, as I suspect, of Columb Major and Minor, was almost incommoded with their affection, fluttering about his face.
"How is it," asked one of his disciples, "that the birds avoid us and gather round you?"
"Is it not natural," answered the saint, "that birds should come to a bird?"
A play on his name, for Columba signifies a dove.
S. Cainnech saw a rich lady with a starved dog.
"Who feeds that poor brute?" he asked.
"I do," answered the lady.
"Feed it? Maltreat it. Go and eat what you cast to the poor hound, and in a week return and tell me how you relish such treatment."
One day an abbot saw a little bird with drooping wings.
"Why is the poor thing so wretched?" he asked.
"Do you not know," said a bystander, "that Molua is dead? He was full of pity to all animals. Never did he injure one. Do you marvel then that the little birds lament his decease?"
It was the same with regard to children.
One day King Eochaid sent his little son with a message to S. Maccarthen. The child's mother gave him an apple to eat on the way. The boy played with it, and it rolled from him and was lost. He hunted for his apple till the sun set, and then, tired, laid himself down in the middle of the road and fell asleep. Maccarthen was going along the road and found the sleeping child there. He at once wrapped his mantle round him, and sat by him all night. Many horsemen and cars passed before the child woke, but the old man made them get by as best they might, and he would neither suffer the child to be disturbed, nor let an accident befall him in the dark.
Great as were the powers conferred on the Celtic saints or arrogated to themselves, there can be no doubt but that they employed them mainly as a means of