Columcille And His Brother Dobhran

Columcille began to build on Iona. He gathered together a great host of people. But all that he used to build in the day, it used to be thrown down at night. That drove him to set people to keep a watch on Iona. Every morning those men [whom he had set to watch] used to be dead at the foot of Iona. He did not continue long to set people to watch there, but since he himself was a holy man he went and remained watching Iona to try if he could see or find out what was going wrong with it. He was keeping to it and from it, and they were saying that it was on the scaur of the crag near the sea that she was, I did not see her.

He saw a _Biast_ coming off the shore and one half of it was a fish and the other half in the likeness of a woman. She was old, with scales. When she shook herself she set Iona and the land a-quaking. There went from her a tinkling sound as it were earthenware pigs (jars) a-shaking. Columcille went down to meet her and spoke to her, and asked her did she know what was killing the people whom he was setting to watch Iona in the night. She said she did. "What was happening to them?" said he. She said, "Nothing but the fear that seized them at her appearance; that when she was a-coming to land the heart was leaping out of its cockles[73] with them."

[73] The "cockles of the heart" is a common expression in Anglo-Irish. It is taken from the Irish, cochall, meaning really a cowl.

"Do you know," said he, "what is throwing down Iona that I am building?"

"I do," said she, "Iona will be for ever falling so, O holy Columcille. It is not I who am throwing it down, but still it is being thrown down."[74]

[74] Thather ag a leagadh. The autonomous form in Scotch Gaelic.

"Do you know now any means by which I can make Iona go forward?"

"I do," said she. "O holy Columcille, to-morrow you shall question all the people that you have at work to find out what man will consent to offer himself alive [to be buried] under the ground, and his soul shall be saved if he consents to do that, and people shall never see me here afterwards. Iona shall go forward without any doubt."

On the morrow he put the question to the great host of people, "Was there any one of them at all who would consent to offer himself alive on condition that his soul should be saved in heaven?"

There was not one man of them willing to go into the grave although he was told that his soul would be saved by the decree of God. She [the _Biast_] had told him too that the grave had to be seven times as deep as the man's length.

Poor Dobhran, his brother, was on the outskirts of the crowd. He came over and stood behind his brother, Columcille, and said that he was quite willing to be offered up alive under the ground on condition that Iona might be built up by his holy brother Columcille, and he gave credence to Columcille that his soul would be saved by the decree of God.

Said Columcille, "Although I have no other brother but poor Dobhran, I am pleased that he has offered himself to go to the grave, and that the _Biast_ shall not be seen coming any more to the shore for ever."

The grave was made seven times the height of the man in depth. When Dobhran saw the grave he turned to Columcille and asked him as a favour to put a roof over the grave and to leave him there standing so long as it might please God to leave him alive.

He got his request--to be put down alive into the grave. He was left there.

Columcille came and began to work at Iona [again], and he was twenty days working, and Iona was going forward wondrously. He was pleased that his work was succeeding.

At the end of twenty days when everything was conjectured to be going on well, he said it were right to look what end had come to poor Dobhran, and [bade] open the grave.

Dobhran was walking on the floor of the grave [when the roof was taken off]. When Dobhran saw that the grave was opened and when he heard all the world round it, he gave an expert leap out of it to the mouth of the grave and he put up his two hands on high on the mouth of the grave. He supported himself on the [edge of the] grave [by his hands.] There was a big smooth meadow going up from Iona and much rushes on it. All the rushes that Dobhran's eyes lit upon grew red, and that little red top is on the rushes ever.

Columcille cried out and he on the far side, "Clay! clay on Dobhran's eyes! before he see any more of the world and of sin!"

They threw in the clay upon him then and returned to their work. And nothing any more went against Columcille until he had Iona finished.