that at such an early period an embodiment of womanhood such as hers was realised and brought before the people by the dedication of a church. We will best understand her influence by comparing her self-sacrificing, unworldly, pure life with the type of womanhood which the ancient Greek religion gave its worshippers in the goddess Athene. The comparison, too, is justifiable, since St Bride occupied the same position in early Celtic worship as Athene did in the Greek ritual. Mr Hayman thus describes Athene, verifying every statement by a citation: "Her character is without tenderness or tie of any sort it never owns obligation, it never feels pain or privation, it is pitiless with no gross appetites, its activity is busy and restless, its partisanship unscrupulous, its policy astute, and its dissimulation profound. It is keenly satirical, crafty, whispering base motives of the good (indeed she comprehends no others), beating down the strong, mocking the weak and exulting over them, staunch to a comrade; touched by a sense of liking and admiration for its like (she accounts expressly for her love of Ulysses by his roguery and cunning), of truth to its party, ready to prompt and back a friend through any hazard." Dr Mahaffy regards her as the impersonation of the Greek world; as intellect and energy unshackled by restraint. While she was the creation of the Greek genius and reflected its nature, as an embodiment she would react upon it and not in a redemptive way. Christianity from the earliest days has shown an unequalled power in producing saints, and the presence of such has ever shamed the bad and made the good better; has always been felt as the breath of the living God in men. An early saint of this kind was St Bride, and the reverence that centred around her name would go far to humanise the Picts and hasten the reign of righteousness. The early saints in the Celtic Church were not martyrs, but examples of the Christian life and teachers of the Christian re ligion; they were either the founders of churches or of the monastery from which the founders of churches came. Early dedications have both a religious and historical significance, and it was indeed an epoch-making day in the history of Scotland when the first Christian church here was dedicated to St Bride. There followed other dedications to her in Scotland, and her name was much associated with wells. No doubt the early missionaries did so with the view of freeing them from the superstitions and pagan associations that clustered around them; and so they associated wells with the name of a saint so persuasive and dominant in her influence. The Rev. Dr Stewart, in his "Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe,' quotes an incantation associated with a magical flower called torranain, that was regarded as helpful in warding off the evil eye: "Let me pluck thee, Torranain! With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue, The nine blessings came with the nine parts, By the virtue of the Torranain, The hand of St Bride with me I am now to pluck thee." 1 It is interesting to observe in the early Scottish Kalendars that St Brigid's feast and that of her successor, Darlugdach, who was present at the dedication of Abernethy church, were on the same day the 1st of February.2 On the hill of Gattaway, above the parish church, there is a spot called St Bride's Seat. From it is to be had probably one of the loveliest views in Scotland; whether the saint was ever there herself or not, it is impossible to say; at any rate, this name, coming from a remote antiquity, is an evidence that, like St Columba, she was believed to have a fine appreciation of natural scenery. 1 Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, by J. M. Mackinlay, p. 46. Another interesting personality comes before us, belonging to this period, in St Modwenna or Monynne. She was known to St Bridget of Kildare, visited Scotland, and died at Longforgan (on the opposite side of the Tay below Abernethy). The Martyrology of Donegal ascribes the founding of the church at Longforgan to her. Now the statement that she visited St Bridget and founded the church of Longforgan seems to leave no doubt that she was an early and a remarkable Irish saint, who visited this early centre of Christianity connected with her friend's name, and gave a missionary impulse to Church work. Bishop Forbes says: With all its difficulties, the circumstances of her life may be harmonised so as to suit one individual; and knowing that St Aidan of Ferns has left his traces in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, remembering that the Irish Pandiana is still commemorated in Cambridgeshire, it is not impossible that the same saint should first establish a Christian colony in the north of Ireland, then penetrate through the half-Christianised Galwegia to the Campus Manann and Fortrenn; then, like so many other Celtic recluses, make the pilgrimage to Rome, then found houses of Irish observance on the Tyne and Trent, and at last return to die in her own land, if the history that makes her yield up her spirit in her much-loved Longfortin be surrounded with difficulty.2 A well in this parish, adjacent to the Gattaway stream, was known to the old inhabitants as Brendan's well, and the name still survives in the corrupted form, "Brendi Well." Adjacent to it are to be found large boulder stones, now somewhat scattered by blasting, but in all probability placed originally near the well as a guide for pilgrims. St Brendan is the early Celtic saint of whom it is said that, after hearing heavenly music from the altar, earthly music was ever afterwards distasteful to him. He was contemporary with SS. Finbar, Kiaran, Finnian, and Lenan, and at a later period of his life was one of the four holy founders of monasteries who found St Columba in the island of Hinba.3 Fordun states that he erected a cell in Bute, which 1 P. 187. 2 Kalendars of Scottish Saints, p. 404. * Adamnan, iii. c. 17. took its name from Bothy-" idiomate nostro bothe"; that he lived in Scotland about A.D. 531. He had many dedications in Scotland.1 His name is remembered for its association with the seven years' voyage in search of the Fortunate Islands; and as, no doubt, there is underlying the legend some truth that helps to account for the overgrowth, it is not unlikely that he may have visited an early ecclesiastical centre like Abernethy, associated at that time with the names of SS. Ninian and Bride. Mr Matthew Arnold has a poem on the legend connected with the voyage in "the northern main." St Brendan's name is also connected with Alyth in Perthshire, and Tiree, where he is said to have founded churches; also with Kilbrandon at Seile Island, and Boyndie in Banff.2 He was also connected with the neighbouring parish to Abernethy -Dunbarny.3 Tradition states that St Brendan died and was buried at Glammis in Forfarshire, and an ancient cairn there was known as "Brendi's cairn." All the traditions taken together must have some grain of truth to explain them; and as it seems beyond doubt that he did visit this district, it is more than likely that he must have been at the early Abernethy church. 1 Skene's Fordun, ii, 381. 2 Reeves' Adamnan, p. 226. Old Statistical Account, vol. ix. p. 155. 104 CHAPTER IX. ST COLUMBA-BUILDING OF CHURCH AT ABERNETHY BY KING GARTNAIDH IN CONNECTION WITH ST COLUMBA'S MISSION. THE labours of St Columba are chiefly associated with Iona and the Northern Picts, or the people who lived north of the Grampians. Bede distinctly tells us that he was the apostle of the Northern Picts, and his outstanding work is connected with the conversion of King Brude, who had his royal seat at Inverness. In those days, to have the support of the king was to have access to his territory, with a sympathetic reception from the subjects who lived under his protection, and it cannot be doubted that the conversion of King Brude would help very considerably the progress of Christianity by enabling St Columba to preach the Gospel throughout the northern province. The Pictish Chronicle1 tells us that King Brude died in 584 A.D. Adamnan has difficulty in accounting for his death, and seems to be in perplexity as to how the intercession of the saint should not have prevailed. He explains it by the disappearance of a stone, which was regarded as being able to work miracles. "Wonderful to relate, however, when this same stone was in request for any who were sick, whose term of life had arrived, it could never be found. Thus on the day King Brude died it was sought for, but 1 Skene's edition, p. 67. |