Saint Columba : Apostle of Caledonia

CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE YOUTH OF COLUMBA, AND HIS MONASTIC LIFE IN IRELAND. The biographers of Columba. — His different names. — His royal origin. — The supreme kings of Ireland : the O'Neills and O'Donnells; Red Hugh. — Birth of Columba ; vision of his mother. — His monastic education; jealousy of his comrades; Kieran; the two Finnians; the school of Clonard. — Vision of the guardian angel and the three brides. — The assassin of a virgin struck by death at the prayer of Columba. — His youthful influence in Ireland; his monastic foundations, especially at Durrow and at Deny ; his song in honour of Deny. — His love for poetry; his connection with the travelling bards. — He was himself a poet, a great traveller, and of a quarrelsome disposition. — His passion for manuscripts. — Longarad of the hairy legs and his bag of books. — Dispute about the Psalter of Fhmian; judgment of King Diarmid, founder of Clonmacnoise. — Protest of Columba; he takes to flight, chanting the Hymn of Confidence and raises a civil war. — Battle of Cul-Dreimhne; the Cathae or Psalter of battle. — Synod of Teltown; Columba is excommunicated. — St. Brendan takes part with Columba, who consults several hermits, and among others Abban, in the Cell of Tears. — The last of his advisers, Molaise, condemns him to exile. — Twelve of his disciples follow him; devotion of the young Mochonna. — Contradictory reports concerning the first forty years of his life, 1 CHAPTER II. COLUMBA AN EMIGRANT IN CALEDONIA — THE HOLY ISLE OF IONA. Aspect of the Hebridean archipelago. — Columba first lands at Oronsay, but leaves it because Ireland is visible from its shores. — Description of Iona. — First buildings of the new monastery. — What remains of it. — Enthusiasm of Johnson on landing there in the eighteenth century. — Columba bitterly regrets his country. — Passionate elegies on the pains of exile. — Note upon the poem of Alius. — Proofs in his biography of the continuance of that patriotic regret. — The stork co