observes, is here directed at undoing the weird legend of the earlier life, which gives the unedifying account of the conception of Kentigern, does not name either father or daughter. He calls Kentigern's mother simply the daughter of a certain king, most pagan in his creed, who ruled in the northern parts of Britannia.' Neither does he name the suitor who betrayed her, but declares that she had no consciousness by whom, when, or in what manner she conceived, and had possibly been drugged. He states that, according to the law of the country, any girl in her situation was to be cast down from the summit of a high mountain, and her betrayer beheaded; that she was taken to the top of a high hill called Dunpelder, and was cast down, but came to the bottom uninjured; that she was then taken out to sea by the king's servants, and placed in a little boat of hides made after the fashion of the Scots, without any oar, and,' the little vessel in which the pregnant girl was detained ploughed the watery breakers and eddies of the waves towards the opposite shore more quickly than if propelled by a wind that filled the sail, or by the effort of many oarsmen;' that the girl landed on the sands at a place called Culenros, in which place at that time Servanus dwelt, and taught sacred literature to many boys who went to be trained to the divine service. The birth then takes place as in the other narrative, and they are brought and presented to Servanus, who 'in the language of his country exclaimed, Mochohe, Mochohe, which in Latin means "Care mi, Care mi," adding, Blessed art thou that hast come in the name of the Lord. He therefore took them to himself, and nourished and educated them as if they were his own pledges. After certain days had passed, he dipped them in the laver of regeneration and restoration, and anointed them with the sacred chrism, calling the mother Taneu and the child Kyentyern, which by interpretation is Capitalis Dominus.' He then educates him, and the gifts of grace manifested by the boy were so great that he was accustomed to call him, in the language of his country, Munghu, which in Latin means Karrissimus Amicus.' Kentigern is brought up by Servanus, and the usual boyish miracles are recorded as evidences of his sanctity, till, having excited the jealousy and hatred of his fellow-students, he resolves, under Divine guidance of course, to leave the place. He accordingly retreated secretly, and 'journeying arrived at the Frisican shore, where the river, by name Mallena, overpassing its banks when the tide flows in, took away all hope of crossing;' but the river is miraculously divided to enable him to pass, the tide flowing back so that the waters of the sea and of the river stood as walls on his right hand and on his left. He then crosses a little arm of the sea near a bridge, which by the inhabitants is called Servanus's bridge; and on looking back, he saw that the waters had not only flowed back and filled the channel of the Mallena, but were overflowing the bridge and denying a passage to any one. Servanus, who had followed in pursuit of the fugitive, stood above on the bank and endeavoured to persuade him to return, but without success; and 'having mutually blessed each other, they were divided one from the other, and never looked in each other's face again in this world. And the place by which Kentigern crossed became after that entirely impassable; for that bridge, always after that covered by the waves of the sea, afforded to no one any longer means of transit. Even the Mallena altered the force of its current from the proper place, and from that day to this turned back its channel into the river Ledone; so that forthwith the rivers which till then had been separate from each other now became mingled 4 In this narrative Servanus speaks a mongrel language. Mochohe seems a Gaelic form, as the prefix Mo appears in the Gaelic interjections, as Mo thruaigh!-woe's me! and Chohe is probably meant for Oche, Ochon!-alas! well-a-day! but 'Capitalis Dominus' is only applicable to the Welsh form of his name. Cyndeyrn and Munghu are pure Welsh-Cyndeyrn from Cyn, chief, teyrn, lord. Mwyngu from Mwyn, amiable: Cu, dear. Anachron necting St. Servanus with St. Kentigern. and united.' Kentigern passes the night at a town called Kernach, where he finds an old man, Fregus, on his deathbed, who dies in the night; and next morning Kentigern, having yoked two untamed bulls to a new wain, in which he placed the body whence the spirit had departed, and having prayed in the name of the Lord, enjoined upon the brute beasts to carry the burden placed upon them to the place which the Lord had provided for it. And in truth the bulls, in no way resisting or disobeying the voice of Kentigern, came by a straight road, along which there was no path, as far as Cathures, which is now called Glasgu,' and halted near a certain cemetery which had long before been consecrated by Saint Ninian. Here Kentigern lives for some time; and then the king and clergy of the Cumbrian region, with other Christians, albeit they were few in number, came together and, after taking into consideration what was to be done to restore the good estate of the church, which was well-nigh destroyed, they with one consent approached Kentigern, and elected him, in spite of his many remonstrances and strong resistance, to be the shepherd and bishop of their souls;' and 'having called one bishop from Ireland, after the manner of the Britons and Scots of that period, they caused Kentigern to be consecrated bishop.'5 Such is the substance of these narratives; and here we ism in con- are met, at the very outset, by a great anachronism. Along with the lives of Kentigern there is found a life of Servanus, in which he is made the founder of the church of Culenros; but there is not one syllable about his having been the master of Kentigern, or in any way connected with him, but the whole events of his life, as there given, indisputably place him, as we shall afterwards see, nearly two centuries later. In spite, therefore, of the statements of his biographers 5 Jocelyn, Vit. S. Kent., cc. i. ii. iii. iv. The Breviary of Aberdeen at tempts to get over the difficulty by supposing two Servanuses-one the disciple of Palladius, the other the and of the belief of popular tradition, the only conclusion we can come to is that Servanus and St. Kentigern were divided by a more impassable barrier than the river Mallena-the stream of time, and that they had never looked in each other's face at all. The scenery, however, of the narrative can be easily identified. The hill called in the one narrative Kepduf, and in the other Dunpelder, is Traprain Law, formerly called Dumpender Law, in the county of Haddington. It is an isolated hill and, along with North Berwick Law, forms a conspicuous object in the landscape. It is about 700 feet above the level of the sea, and on the south side it is nearly perpendicular. It is distant about seven or eight miles from Aberlady Bay, the Aberlessic of the older narrative. Culenros is Culross, on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, here called the Frisican shore, as the Forth itself is called by Nennius the Frisican Sea. The names of the two rivers Mallena and Ledone are simply the Latin terms for the flood and ebb tide, but the course of the two rivers, the Teith and the Forth, seems to have suggested the legend. They run nearly parallel to each other till they approach within three miles of Stirling, when the southern of the two rivers, the Forth, takes a sudden bend to the north, as if it would flow backwards, and discharges its waters into the Teith, the two forming one river, but adopting the name of the former. Kernach is Carnock, in the parish of Saint Ninian's in Stirlingshire. notices of If, however, that part of the legend which introduces Earlier Servanus must be rejected, the remainder derives some sup- st. Kentiport from the old Welsh documents. In the Triads of Arthur gern. and his Warriors, which are undoubtedly old, the first is termed Three tribe thrones of the island of Prydain;' and the third of the tribe thrones is Arthur, the chief lord at Servanus of the life; but this does not help matters much, as it involves the improbability of both having founded Culenros, and both Kentigern Penrionyd in the north, and Cyndeyrn Garthwys, the chief bishop, and Garthmwl Guledic, the chief elder." The chronology of the life of Kentigern is not inconsistent with that which here connects him with the historic Arthur, and the epithet Guledic, which was applied to the chief among the Cymric kings of the north, gives us Garthmwl as the name of the king of the district in which Glasgow was situated. In the Bonedd y Seint ynys Prydain, or Pedigrees of the Saints of Britain, we find the following pedigree: 'Kyndeyrn Garthwys, son of Ywein, son of Urien Reged, son of Cynfarch, son of Meirchiawngul, son of Grwst Ledlwm, son of Cenau, son of Coel; and Dwynwen, daughter of Ladden Lueddog of the city of Edwin (Ddinas Edwin, or Edinburgh), in the north, was his mother.' We have seen that prior to this period Monenna had founded a church on the summit of Dunpelder, in which she established nuns; and it is possible that Dwynwen or Taneu may have been one of these nuns, who, by the violation of her religious vow, had incurred the sentence of being exposed in a curach in the adjacent firth. There is nothing impossible in a small boat being driven before an east wind as far as Culross; and certain it is that on the shore where she is said to have landed there was a small chapel dedicated to Kentigern.10 We learn from the narrative that there had been an earlier church at Glasgow founded by Ninian, which Kentigern may have restored, and he makes his appearance in the martyrologies in the ninth century as 'Saint Kentigern, Bishop of Glasgow and Confessor.' 11 9 Jocelyn, after describing Kentigern's mode of life and driven to how he spread the faith of Christ in his diocese, tells us Wales. 7 Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. ii.p. 457. It is possible that the epithet Garthwys may be the word Jocelyn has converted into Cathures. 8 Myvyrian Archæology, vol. ii. P. 34. 9 See p. 37. 10 Old Stat. Ac., vol. x. p. 146. 11 Id. Jan. In Scotia sancti Kentigerni episcopi Glascuensis et confessoris.-Mart. Usuardi, A.D. 875. |