Colum Cille & the Picts notes

Another Facebook comment  from my Celtic Surnames and Place-names - History and Origins group. We were discussing the roots of placenames with aver, inver. I created a long list. I will post it here later—when I find it! I am conversing with someone whose handle is Celtic England (in italics.) The rest is mine

St. Adamnán, 9th abbot of Iona (627– 704 AD), in a centennial celebration of his distant cousin, St. Columba, scribed Vita Columbae. St. Adamnán wrote that Colum Cille (521-597 AD) was able to converse with King of the Picts, Bridei ca. 565 AD in Inverness.

Of course, Inverness—Inbhir Nis—is a Gaelic word—dating from at least 679 AD—according to Adamnán.

Bridei is mentioned in 558–560 AD in the Irish annals. The Annals of Ulster report "the migration before Máelchú's son, i.e., king Bruide"—which makes him a pagan Irish king in Pictland? Or Bruide— son of Máelchú, or Maelcom/n, an Irish name, or Melcho; or possibly even Maelgwn-Welsh. It would certainly explain why Columba, who spoke Irish, could converse with him. An overlooked detail.

Adomnán of Iona, Life of St Columba, tr. & ed. Richard Sharpe. Penguin, London, 1995.

(Celtic England wrote that Maelchu and Malcolm are different names. He also notes that he used a translator.)

I'm merely gathering from many sources. But we're not so much debating the spelling of King Brude's father's name—the thread is more watery in nature as in river, mouth. Pictish vs Gaelic place names, no?

One source noted Maelwyn. It was also distinguished as Maelchon vs com. I wondered over the spelling. Máel (disciple/follower of) + Con (Máelchon), or Máel Com. Máel + Coluim = Malcolm. I found this too: Mael means 'prince' in Breton and Welsh.

Celtic England: given that he subdues a monster in the river ness we might not want to take what Adamnan says too literally, especially as the Vita Columbae was finished in about 703 and that Columba's visit to Bridei's court was supposed to be in 566 or so. 

Nonetheless, Inverness was an Irish place-name in Adamnán's time. That, we can take literally. Forms: inber; Inber; indbir. VC, Book 1: chs, 26, 29, etc.

Abhainn is Irish for river. Don't let the spelling throw you off*, it sounds like Aven, or Awen.

(*IE in which the consonants count for very little and the vowels for nothing at all.)

You disparage the text because of the Loch Ness monster? Note that Adamnán refers to the monster as an account told to Columba by the Pictish inhabitants of Loch Ness: "according to the account of those who were burying him…"

"ON another occasion also, when the blessed man was living for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa (the Ness); and when he reached the bank of the river, he saw some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate man, who, according to the account of those who were burying him, was a short time before seized, as he was swimming, and bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water;"

ALIO quoque in tempore, cum vir beatus in Pictorum provincia per aliquot moraretur dies, necesse habuit fluvium transire Nesam: ad cujus cum accessisset ripam, alios ex accolis aspicit misellum humantes homunculum; quem, ut ipsi sepultores ferebant, quaedam paulo ante nantem aquatilis praeripiens bestia morsu momordit saevissimo: —Book II, ch 28.

Vita Columbae was written in Latin–so I doubt that the translator's veracity is in question. Vita Columbae was written 100 years after the death of St Columba aka Colum Cille (521-597 AD) —to commemorate the centennial of his death. It would've been completed loser to 697AD  than 700 AD. So 703 AD is a bit late. Besides, Adamnán was doing some serious traveling in 703 AD, the year before he died. No time to work on a treatise that was due in 697 AD. 

"Adomnan had almost certainly finished the Life of Columba before traveling to Northumbria for his last visit. Bede tells us that Adomnan had an extended visit in Northumbria and then traveled to Ireland where he discussed eucmentical relations between the Irish and Rome and then he returned home where he died before the next Easter"

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-l.asp

St. Patrick Portrayed as a Druid

A reader asked: "Where did you find the information about Patrick's intolerance toward non-converts and his running down his own sister?"

It was probably from The Life and Writings of St. Patrick, John Healy, 1905. 

"'Driver the chariot over her,' says Patrick; and the chariot went over her three times for each time she would come and place herself in front of it."  St. Patrick’s Labors in Armagh, P 502.

Dr. Healy (1841–1918) was Archbishop of Tuam from 1903 to 1918. "The Life and Writings of St. Patrick" is considered to be one of the fullest accounts of St. Patrick's mission in Ireland.

"Dr. Healy has collected the popular traditions; has identified, wherever possible, the sites of the old Patrician churches, and to our mind has given the most accurate, the most complete, and the most interesting account of what may be called the topography of St. Patrick’s life." —The Irish Ecclesiastical Record

I guess the larger question is: what were Healy's sources? I have read this account in more than one book. I think the original source comes from The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick. You can download and read it here at Project Gutenberg: Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick

Of course, that three times thing is a charm—signifying a druidic event. (Drumroll.) Of what, I'm not sure. However, what's even more curious is that that Patrick's sister placed herself in FRONT of the chariot three times. Maybe it's more about the chariot itself, than putting one's self in harm's way.

When Saint Patrick was trying to convert King Lóegaire to Christianity, the ghost of Cú Chulainn appeared in his chariot, warning him of the torments of hell.  —Cú Chulainn (Wiki)

St Patrick was reputed to have driven three times over the prostrate body of his coarb, or disciple, Sechnaill, or Secundinus, (who was not only Patrick's nephew—his sister's son—but also one of the first bishops of Armagh).  

And thrice, like some great warrior of the bards,
Your conquering wheels above me you have driven. —From The Legends of Saint Patrick, by Aubrey De Vere, 1872, P. 247.

What is it exactly with this "meek and mild" Patrick fellah doing running over all his relations with chariots? A case of being a really bad driver, perhaps it was a faith-based DUI? But we know that Patrick had his own personal chariot driver, Odhrán. Later ninth and tenth c. interpolations of the Patrick stories seem to have distorted the meaning of the original roughshod tradition. Whatever that was.

To drive over someone, is probably a metaphor, as in overthrow. As in driving out snakes. So, I hope it's a trope of sorts—perhaps once understood in Irish, but clearly something got lost in translation.

"St. Patrick's Breastplate," a journey poem composed in the style of a druidic incantation or "Lorica," on the theme of Patrick's this victory over paganism. (It was written in 8th c. Old Irish and is sometimes attributed to Sechnaill. You can see the original here—but there's no chariot line.)     

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat…

My reader also commented upon the  "multitude of "historical documents" and that most them contradict one another." Well, I think the above paragraphs prove this theory out nicely.

I try and read the oldest known documents from manuscripts (prima materia), and then fill in my knowledge base from there as I juggle and weigh the varied accounts. 

In this case, I studied with UC Berkeley Celtic Studies Chair, and Rhetoric Chair, professor, Dr. Dan Melia. We read several medieval hagiographies including  Adamnán's "Life of St. Columba," which also gave me glimpses into that realm—at least from ca. 650 AD.

And we read the "Confessio of Saint Patrick & Letter to Coroticus" (probably written by himself) which is as close as one can get to the source material. Adamnán's "biography" gives us a glimpse of  how Irish saints were viewed—using the druidic model. (You can read a translation online here:)

I found I had to hold more than one world view: 20th c. synopses were not useful, many 19th c. treatises were loony, but the Medieval view—what was known, what was expected, was most enlightening, provided that you were able to put on a Medieval mindset. No 21st. c. anachronisms or historicity through a modern lens need apply.

Adamnán of Iona: Life of St Columba, summary

Klar, Celtic Romanticism 170
Summary:

ADAMNÁN OF IONA: LIFE OF ST COLUMBA
Fisherman of the Fishful River

St. Adamnán, 3rd paternal cousin to Columba (of the northern Uí Néill princes: Cenél Conaill, the religious dynasty of Iona) writes a Tripartite Life, 100 years after Columba’s death.

Using earlier Lives (Sts Antony, Benedict) as his models, he portrays his kinsman as a Christ-like archdruid and warrior-king—much in the vein of the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick and the Historical Life... by St. Fiacc, ca. 500. 

Though the three sections of the book are loosely modeled after the (150) Psalms (Columba dies while writing the 34th Psalm), many of the stories are straight out of folk tradition. 

Foremost of Columba’s larger than life accomplishments is his ability to control the weather (wind, water: especially the sea), a druidic function. Good following wind (lateen sails) for good sailors. A religious hero, Columba is associated with pagan heroes and gods: is he Mananán mac Lír, or Finn? Light is heavily associated with him (probably the Aurora Borealis), making him a half-mortal CuChulainn type hero: Lug comes to mind. We learn angels travel at the speed of light.

Lots of epic tags—with feasts lasting 3 days and 3 nights, Otherworldly music, water monsters, chariots, a magic cloak, magic hunting stake, ruddy cheeks, holy/evil wells and floating magic white healing stones thus making him a healer as well... Along with Columba’s beseeching that no one is to breathe a word that he’s special “he wanted to avoid boasting,” is the monkish preoccupation that the community will be overrun with pilgrims who, under the laws of hospitality, would have to be fed and housed. 

Adamnán mentions “Soldiers of Christ” reaffirming the fianna warrior role of monks who dip white robes into red blood (priestly & warrior functions). Heaven and death (many stories record saints’ deaths) takes on the guise of the Otherworld, the Land of Promise. 

Several saint/heroes are mentioned: Brendan of Birr, Colmán, Finnian (St. Uinniau—the ‘F’ silent/lenited) to titillate the crowd. The cult of Columba is so strong he can even perform posthumous weather miracles.

Columba has a way with animals: salmon leap into his boat (don’t eat his seals!). His white horse (king-function?) buries his head in Columba’s lap (paying homage?) and weeps at his upcoming death. Many cattle/milk-demon stories (bull’s milk = white blood; a sacrifice story. 

He spends time on an unidentified islet called Hinba: h-in-ba (h-inis bó) could be translated as the isle of the cows. He raises laymen to nobleman status with 5-fold (105) herds of magic cows. As the Life was written in Latin, it seems Eilean Shona (the S is silent) where they built longships? could be construed as a garbled form of Iona (a scribal error?).

Several references to holy or “righteous” pagans earning their way towards heaven—smack of Pelagianism—baptism, an afterthought. The landscape is fraught with remote isle hermitages; every monk searching for his own little hut (in a bee-loud glade), an influence from St. Antony of Egypt. 

Curious are the painstaking references to “...three witnesses as required by law,” Adamnán inserts: he sounds like a Brehon. 

Adamnán sternly addresses his future audience: the reader/copyist several times: this ms. wasn’t just meant to be read aloud to assembled monks after dinner, but also to be read alone in the scriptorium. There is a preoccupation with copying manuscripts: whenever Columba absent-mindedly blesses something is when he’s copying a book—the very reason why he was exiled to begin with (and, a war). 

The story also documents the first copyright, and the first reference to proofreading (the missing letter ‘i”). Adamnán makes light of Columba’s crime, and beseeches readers to copy HIS text word-for-word (to receive blessings and to establish Ionian Church claims farther afield—a missionary effort.) 

It is Adomnán’s last wish that copies of the ms. of Columba reach the far corners tripartite Celtic homeland (& Christendom): Spain (Celto-Iberia), Italy Beyond the Alps (Cisalpine Gaul), and Gaul—even to Rome.