St. Malo, weary of the wicked Bretons, flees to Saintonge
in Aquitaine, where he performs yet more miracles.
Meanwhile, a dire famine falls on the Bretons, and
a thousand horrible diseases. Penitent, they
send for St. Malo, who delivers them and their flocks.
But, at the command of an angel, he returns to Saintonge
and dies there, and Saintonge has his relics, and the
innumerable miracles which they work, even to the
days of Sigebert, of Gembloux.
ST. COLUMBA
The famous St. Columba cannot perhaps be numbered
among the hermits: but as the spiritual father
of many hermits, as well as many monks, and as one
whose influence upon the Christianity of these islands
is notorious and extensive, he must needs have some
notice in these pages. Those who wish to study
his life and works at length will of course read Dr.
Reeves’s invaluable edition of Adamnan.
The more general reader will find all that he need
know in Mr. Hill Burton’s excellent “History
of Scotland,” chapters vii. and viii.; and also
in Mr. Maclear’s “History of Christian
Missions during the Middle Ages”—a
book which should be in every Sunday library.
St. Columba, like St. David and St. Cadoc of Wales,
and like many great Irish saints, is a prince and
a statesman as well as a monk. He is mixed up
in quarrels between rival tribes. He is concerned,
according to antiquaries, in three great battles, one
of which sprang, according to some, from Columba’s
own misdeeds. He copies by stealth the Psalter
of St. Finnian. St. Finnian demands the copy,
saying it was his as much as the original. The
matter is referred to King Dermod, who pronounces,
in high court at Tara, the famous decision which has
become a proverb in Ireland, that “to every
cow belongs her own calf.” {283} St. Columba,
who does not seem at this time to have possessed the
dove-like temper which his name, according to his
disciples, indicates, threatens to avenge upon the
king his unjust decision. The son of the king’s
steward and the son of the King of Connaught, a hostage
at Dermod’s court, are playing hurley on the
green before Dermod’s palace. The young
prince strikes the other boy, kills him, and flies
for protection to Columba. He is nevertheless
dragged away, and slain upon the spot. Columba
leaves the palace in a rage, goes to his native mountains
of Donegal, and returns at the head of an army of
northern and western Irish to fight the great battle
of Cooldrevny in Sligo. But after a while public
opinion turns against him; and at the Synod of Teltown,
in Meath, it is proclaimed that Columba, the man of
blood, shall quit Ireland, and win for Christ out
of heathendom as many souls as have perished in that
great fight. Then Columba, with twelve comrades,
sails in a coracle for the coast of Argyleshire; and
on the eve of Pentecost, A.D. 563, lands upon that
island which, it may be, will be famous to all times
as Iona, Hy, or Icolumkill,—Hy of Columb
of the Cells.
Copyrights
The Hermits from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
