Legend of the Celtic Stone

by Michael Phillips

  Gifted with magnetic personality and filled with youthful zeal to expand throughout his country what was still a relatively new faith, at only twenty-five, Columba founded a monastery school at Derry. In 553 another followed at Durrow, and the following year still another at Kells. By the age of thirty-three the apostolic mission of Colum O’Neill’s life was set—to establish monasteries and churches, like the three already in existence, throughout a pagan land.

  Such a vision carried political implications. The fact that an atmosphere of miracle had surrounded the young priest since his birth insured that he would be drawn into the affairs of his nation. So did his family name, which was linked to Irish royal descent. By the age of thirty-five, Columba was a national figure. And a controversial one. Some said his noble birth gave him a right to the throne.

  But King Diarmaid of Eire was not about to relinquish power to a young upstart priest, kinsman or not. The rivalry between supporters of the two grew heated and bitter. Columba’s public criticism of Diarmaid over the killing of another Irish prince expanded the quarrel and drew in all of Ireland’s leading families. Hostilities eventually erupted in the bloody battle of Cuil-dremne. Ireland’s future leadership was at stake.

  It was a rivalry, however, that Colum O’Neill was destined to lose. From influential, even miraculous beginnings, fate seemed now to turn against him. Suddenly the cousin of the king was also his enemy. Church leaders had to make a choice of allegiance. Most sided with king against priest. Columba was censured publicly, excommunicated for a brief period, and suddenly found himself in disgrace.

  Time had come for a change. Whatever claim his noble birth might have entitled him to make, he now decided to leave his homeland. He would seek a new mission field . . . across the waters to the east.

  If he was bound for exile, it was a convenient one, for escape from Eire might be the only way he could stay alive. His future lay in the land of northern Britannia. Whatever motivations stirred within his heart—whether he was a spiritual outcast, an outlaw, or merely one whose ambitions had been curbed and whose pride was humbled—at forty-two, Colum O’Neill now sailed from the land of his birth.

  Ahead lay the land of the wild pagans known as the Picts, on the western shores of whose territory his own native Celtic Scots had begun to establish a foothold in what they called the kingdom of Dalriada. In the land to which he was bound, his destiny would bring him sainthood . . . and the stature of legend.

  He and the twelve companions who sailed with him were hopeful of both evangelizing the Picts who controlled most of Caledonia, and strengthening their fellow Irishmen—the Scots of Dalriada, who had several years before suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the natives.

  The motives of his sojourn were thus threefold: personal, political, and spiritual.

  Four

  A long, narrow boat of pine and oak sliced through the waters of the North Channel. On the prow and gazing into the distance for sight of land stood the Irish priest responsible for the voyage.

  By the standards of any age he would have been considered a giant among men. Tall, commanding, confident, bold. A visionary, perhaps. Passionate, certainly—to the point of being hotheaded, said some. A dove is the last image these latter would have affixed to their memory of him.

  Whatever the mix of traits, and whatever his temperament, this Celt from the Irish race known as Scots was destined to change not merely the history of the Picts, but of all Caledonia.

  Columba stood at the front of the vessel observing the white water thrown aside as the wind carried them forward. In the distance off starboard could barely be seen the island of Islay. The wind had blown uncharacteristically from behind them, and the crossing thus far had been without incident. The next landfall would be the tiny chunk of rock just off the tip of Mull.

  What would they find at Iona, he wondered. There could not be much left following the plague of fifteen years ago. Three churches had been established in these outer islands two decades earlier, but most of the priests had died of the dread disease. Thereafter the beginning efforts to bring the faith to northern Pictland had been frustrated. Hopefully Columba and his companions would be able to reverse that setback.

  “What are you thinking, my cousin?”

  Shaken from his reverie, Columba turned.

  “Ah, Baithen, my friend,” he replied with a smile. “I was just reflecting on how delicious this southerly breeze felt in my hair, and how wonderful is God’s sweet-smelling provision of the sea!”

  “Is that all? The look on your face spoke of weightier concerns.”

  “You know me well!”

  “It must be difficult for you, now that Erin is out of sight behind us, not to know when you will see your homeland again.”

  “Perhaps there is a certain melancholy in my heart, I cannot deny it. Yet Alban-Dalriada is also in Erin’s domain—we are merely bound for a different corner of our own kingdom.”

  “And one in which you will be recognized as a religious leader, rather than an outcast.”

  Columba smiled pensively but did not reply.

  “What else are you thinking?” asked his cousin, younger by a dozen years.

  “I was wondering what we are likely to find on Hy3, and what the Almighty has in store for us in this adventure.”

  “Do you think he will open the mainland to us?”

  “It is my hope,” replied Columba. “Much will depend on what we learn from my kinsman King Conaill.”

  “You will visit Dunadd?”

  “As soon as is possible. Conaill, after all, rules over Hy.”

  “And then?”

  “There is a great deal we can do among our own people to be sure. And the pagan Picts in the north are greatly in need of the church and its gospel.”

  “It is they who stand most in the way of the expansion of the Dalriadic kingdom as well.”

  “You have spoken shrewdly,” rejoined Columba. “Their conversion will certainly serve the political purpose of our nation’s expansion.”

  Master and protégé fell again to their contemplations of the early summer’s sea.

  It was midday and they should see their landfall soon. They had set out from Derry at dawn, Columba and his faithful companions: Echoid, Baithen, Grillaan, Brenden, Rus, Rodain, Scandal, Luguid, Cobthach, Diormait, Tochannu, and Cairnaan.

  The sound of the waves slapping against the sides of the small ship turned Columba’s thoughts poetic. By the time the rocky shoreline above Port-na-Curaich was in view an hour or two later, the verses were in his brain that he would write down that same night during his time of contemplation and prayer:

  That I might listen to the thunder of the crowding waves upon the shore;

  That I might stand in the sanctuary of the surrounding sea, and hear its roar;

  That I might observe its noble flocks in winged flight over the watery ocean;

  That I might witness the greatest of its wonders, leviathan in powerful motion;

  That I might watch its waters ebb and flood, outstretched for me therein;

  That my mystical name might be, I say, Cul ri Erin.4

  Five

  The land the Irish nobleman and cleric would evangelize was part of a Celtic world steeped in heathen tradition.

  It was a paganism hideous to modern sensitivities whose practices involved occult rituals. Like its continental cousins, these Celts took pleasure in placing the heads of slain enemies on stakes in dedication to their gods. It was a paganism not so different from that of the Hittites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Amorites, and Amalikites of the ancient Middle East.

  The druids who presided over Celtic paganism were of an ancient priesthood of magicians and sorcerers, sprung from the great Amairgen of Ireland. In the eyes of the masses, they possessed enormous spiritual power. Through dark and mysterious rites they maintained their grip upon tribal society, incorporating into one the roles of bard, poet, priest, fortune-teller, seer, prophet, and witch doctor. It was everywhere a p
rimitive world, and in its Celtic corners the druids conducted Satan’s business.

  But even in the midst of this darkness, mankind yet found ways to progress intellectually. Druids also served as the lawgivers, teachers, and judges for their communities. Their educational and magisterial function was equal to the spiritual. Learned in mathematics, geometry, art, physics, Latin, and Greek, druids were the primary educators of an illiterate people. Important families sent their princes and sons to be privately tutored in druidic learning.

  Yet it was a primitive culture gradually being displaced by the dawning religion and civilization of Europe and the Mediterranean. And in one small corner of the Celtic world—the Ireland from which Columba sailed—the Judeo-Christian heritage had already begun to infiltrate druidic tradition.

  When Christianity came to the Celts, however, it did not instantly change all tribal customs. Christianity changed the foundation of religious belief. But many old forms and methods remained. Even when the Christian God replaced traditional idols as the object of worship, many superstitions, demonic symbols and chants, and much art and folklore remained.

  The result was that many subtle forms of druidism’s pantheistic tradition continued. Thus did the entire material world continue to be seen as endowed with deified elements of the supernatural. Animal and other nature cults, worship of sacred oak trees, water and celestial gods and goddesses, and hundreds of aboriginal superstitions, therefore, intermingled their way into the complex structure of primitive Celtic Christianity.

  Nor was this a purely Celtic phenomenon. In many parts of the world, an incoming Judeo-Christian belief system often adapted more to the conventions of pagan cultures than eliminated them.

  The Hebrews of the Old Testament—with Moses and Joshua and David and Solomon and the prophets to guide them—continually lapsed into the practices of their heathen neighbors. How much more, in the early years of its influence in other regions of the earth, did residual paganism interfuse with the modes in which Christianity was expressed. Especially was this true in the Celtic world.

  A sort of dualism, therefore, emerged between Christian belief and pagan tradition. As the new religion gradually took hold, it retained many customs from the old ways. Celtic missionaries did not demand that every element of paganism be cast aside. They were themselves Celts. A primitive and idolatrous sort of religious perspective was inbred in the Celtic temperament. The culture of their race spawned a harmony of outlook which allowed the old and new to coexist together naturally.

  Many Christian priests, moreover, had themselves been taught by druids. Most of the early Christian monastic schools in Ireland had once been druidical schools. The new thus flowed out of the old.

  The result was enormously practical: Christian Celtic monks allowed the transition out of paganism to occur slowly.

  This was a far different kind of evangelization than had occurred in other parts of the world and in other cultures. The apostle Paul and his colleagues were outspoken in their judgments against imperial Rome. For the average Roman to accept the Christian faith meant going against everything he had been taught throughout a lifetime. Christianity was antagonistic to what the Roman Empire stood for everywhere.

  In Britannia, on the other hand, Christianity was easily accepted because it tolerated what had come before. The pagan heritage of Columba’s race formed an intrinsic foundation for the particular form of Celtic Christianity that now rose up.

  Thus, when Christianity slowly swept across from Erin to Alba, then south to England, and ultimately across the continent back in the direction of Rome itself, many of the old Celtic ways lived on within it.

  Six

  The first Scot to venture across from Ireland had been Cairpre Riata, late in the third century. This ancestor of the great Conn of Eire and son of Cormac macArt, founded the first Irish, or Scotian, settlement on Alba, a settlement which his son Colla Uais and grandson Eochaidh expanded.

  And now the mainland fortress of Dunadd, between the Sound of Jura and Loch Fyne at the narrowest point on the Argyll peninsula, was strategically located to give Irish Dalriadic king Conaill a well-placed base for his Alban kingdom.

  These Irish emigrants, or Scots, had been hounded by the Picts since their first migrations to the western shores of Caledonia. But Dalriada maintained its bridgehead. Now it was Conaill’s hope that Columba’s arrival might give him opportunity to expand the kingdom. He was anxious to offer the abbot whatever help lay in his power. Any spiritual influence Columba might exert could only strengthen Dalriada.

  Within a month of his arrival at Iona, Columba sailed across to the fortress of Dunadd on the mainland at Argyll. He and the king discussed many matters, not the least of which was the most mutually advantageous strategy for establishing contact with the Pict king, and how to convert him to the Christian faith.

  “Brudei is a strong leader,” said Conaill. “If you win him over, his people will follow.”

  “Is he a man of reason?” Columba asked.

  “I have never spoken with him. But I understand he surrounds himself with powerful druids capable of great sorcery.”

  “Sorcery is no match for the power of the gospel,” rejoined Columba.

  “There is a particular wizard by the name of Broichan. It is said he is more powerful with his magic than all the rest.”

  “Is anything known about him?”

  “He was Brudei’s tutor as a boy. The king places great store in him.”

  “Then that is how I shall win them over to us,” said Columba, “—by defeating his magic.”

  They spoke further, and did not part until certain arrangements had been made in view of Columba’s proposed mission.

  “Without protection, you would be dead before reaching the Great Loch,” said Conaill. “I will send word of your coming to the Picts. I will tell them you are a holy man in the line of Scotia’s kings. They will allow you safe passage.”

  Conaill paused.

  “There is one more thing,” the king added solemnly. “I intend to grant you full possession of Iona from which to carry out your mission.”

  “I am honored with the confidence you place in me,” replied Columba respectfully. “You will not regret this decision.”

  Though religious affairs in Erin and Dalriada at the time were as political as spiritual, in his own way, Columba was a deeply devout man. He was proud and ambitious, it was true—some still called him by his given name of Crimthann, the fox, not Colum, the dove. But his was an ambition not primarily on his own behalf or for worldly gain, but rather for nation and tribe . . . and for the gospel.

  Though his influence in Irish politics was enormous, Columba remained in a certain way a simple monk. Private contemplation and prayer came in for a heavy share in his daily schedule. He had no desire to build monuments to himself, nor gather wealth or possessions. He lived an austere personal life, was never too proud to sleep on bare ground or remove the shoes of the monks under his charge to wash their feet. He ate no meat, drank no ale.

  From the beginning to the end of his days—in the midst of controversial involvement in the secular affairs of the world—Columba remained dedicated to that most fundamental of priestly duties, a painstaking copying of the Word of God. Books were of the world’s greatest treasures. They could be made available only through reproduction by hand. Columba’s favorites were the Gospel accounts and the Psalms. Wherever his travels took him throughout the years, he toiled in his priestly cell laboriously duplicating whatever manuscripts he could lay his hand on.

  He found himself especially drawn to the miracle passages. The stories of healings, and the conflicts between demons and angels, the power of God over beasts and events and men . . . these became as real in his mind as they had been to he whom he called Master. Columba perceived in the Gospels a story he could step into himself, and whose truths he too, like Jesus, could embrace and live.

  From an early age he had seen people healed at his hand. As he grew, so did Co
lumba’s faith to believe that whatever he prayed would come about.

  Seven

  Eight months passed after Columba’s visit to Dunadd.

  He and his comrades put the winter to use making their quarters on Iona permanently livable. They began to cultivate the protected portions of what land contained sufficient soil. Though several buildings survived in tolerable repair from the first missions here, much new construction was necessary. Living quarters, animal barns and pens, a kiln, and a church all had to be built. Several voyages were made back to Erin for supplies.

  On stone foundations, they made initial huts and structures from wattle-and-daub—interwoven twig mesh, over and through which they spread mud and cob, a mixture of clay and straw. To this they added what wood was available, as well as stone, and finally thatch for roofs. As long as such dried mud walls were thick and kept dry, the structure proved strong and serviceable.

  As time went on, gradually monastery buildings grew in size and in the sophistication of their construction. Sheep and cattle were brought across from Dalriada.

  The following spring and summer more strides were made toward permanency and self-sufficiency. Personal cells and the chapel were completed. More animals were ferried from the mainland. The garden area was expanded. Many crops were planted. Great quantities of peats were cut, and other winter stores laid aside. A new barn was constructed.

  By the onset of his second winter on Iona, Columba’s thoughts and prayers began to turn toward the mission for which he and his comrades had left their homeland. Now that his base was well established and secure, he was free to set his sights on his next objective—the Picts in the north.

  One morning Columba walked about the grounds in prayer. The time approaches, he thought to himself. I will journey north as soon as weather next year permits. There I will seek audience with the powerful Pict ruler Brudei.

  Throughout the winter, the small island drew the priest to its remotest places. By the emergence of spring he knew every corner and rock on the tiny isle from Carraig ard annraidh in the north to Port a churraich in the south and had explored each of its two dozen bays.