gious order, where he led a monastic life and became an eminent confessor for the faith of Christ.'

Such were the stories that passed for ecclesiastical history in the times when the Irish Annals were written. In the mass, those medieval chronicles are distinguished by the most childish ignorance and credulity; they are plainly but clumsy travesties of the heathen mythology, adapted to monkish purposes, and are little more historical, in the true sense of the word, than fairy tales. In the story of the Pagan Priest there is a traditional glimpse of the beautiful temples and imposing Sun-worship of the Tuath da Danaans, who preceded the Celts as the rulers of the island. Dr. Keating informs his readers that the Chronicle of the Irish Saints and other ancient authorities take notice that there were twenty-two saints in Ireland named Columbkill, and says 'The first of which name was the saint whose piety and virtuous acts have been described, and in honour of whose name every one was desirous of that title, as a sort of check and restraint upon immorality and vice, and a signal example of temperance, charity, and every Christian virtue.' We learn from the same source that the Columba was naturally of a hale and robust constitution; 'for the author of his Life relates that when he used to celebrate mass or sing the Psalms his voice might be heard distinctly a mile and a half from the place where he was performing his devotions ;' and as we find it expressly related in his Vision:

St. Columba by his sweet melodious voice
Expelled the evil spirits, who from the sound
Precipitately fled; for by Heaven inspired,

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He charmed the good, but was a scourge and terror

To the profane.

The power of his voice and its sweetness were the more wonderful when we consider his mode of life. The description of his austerities shows how the poetical legends of the Bards were worked up in the prose Chronicles. The ancient poet' sung:

This pious saint as a religious penance

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Lay on the cold ground, and through his garments
His bones looked sharp and meagre; his poor cell
Was open to the inclemency of the winds

Which blew through the unplastered walls.

Here is the version of the prose Chronicler: The Irish saint

mortified his body by a continued course of abstinence and austerity, which, by this severe usage, became so macerated that his bones had almost pierced through his skin; and when the wind blew hard through the wall of his cell, which was unplastered, and forced aside his upper garment, his ribs became visible through his habit; for by fasting and other acts of devotion he was no more than the image of a man, and was worn to a very ghastly spectacle.' Though he spent 34 years in Iona out of the 77 of his life, by the Irish accounts he did not wish that his bones should rest out of Erin. Thus dying he remembered his favourite haunts:

My soul delights to meditate and pray
At Hy, the happy Paradise of Scotland;
Derry, the glory of my native isle,

I celebrate thy praise by nature blessed;

To Dunn de Leathglass I bequeath my bones,

In life a sweet retreat.

This must have been written by some one who did not know that in Columba's time and for centuries after, Scotland, or Scotia, was the name of Ireland, and that the Irish were called Scots.

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Mr. John Stuart, in his work on the Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' says that the Rev. Dr. Reeves, our greatest Irish antiquary, has amply illustrated the fact, so long of being recognised by our early historical writers, that Ireland was the ancient Scotland, and home of the Scotch.'2 From the mother country,' writes Dr. Reeves, 'issued St. Columba and almost all the early saints of the Scottish calendar. Coming from Ireland, yet frequently visiting it, they maintained their old relation, so that their memory was equally cherished in either country, and a common day appointed to the festival of each.'

In the days of Columba the Picts had no less than seven Kings, the proud name assumed by the heads of clans, as in Ireland; and among them, says Mr. Stuart, there was wanting any principle of coherence or national unity, or any germ of diffusive vitality for civilising the masses.' The monasteries of the Picts were all subject to Iona.

In Ireland more than 300 religious houses are ascribed to the name Columba and Colman. Mr. Marcus Keane remarks that 2 Vol. ii. p. 47.

Published by the Spalding Club.

the numerous legends told of them in the most extreme counties of Ireland attest their Pagan origin; but the foundation of the names is to be sought for in Babylonian Mythology. The name 'Colmban' literally means the 'White dove,' from Colm, dove, and ban, white. The name Colman may also be rendered 'swift dove.' Mr. Keane thinks it probable that Colman is the name Colmban, only spelled as usually pronounced in the south of Ireland, the B not being sounded; and consequently we find Colmban as a distinguished saint in connexion with numerous establishments throughout the Northern and Midland Counties; while the name of Colman, given to 200 saints, is generally found in the Southern and Western Counties. St. Colman's religious foundations are said by Colgan to be no fewer than 300 (Ulster Journal,' vol. i. p. 27). I am confirmed in the opinion. that Colman and Colomb represent the same heathen divinity (Juno the dove) by the fact that Columban, Colman, and Mocholmog are in the Martyrology of Donegal identified as the same individual. And again the same authority informs us that Columnan was called Colman.'

''Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland,' p. 79.

CHAPTER II.

MYTHOLOGY AND HAGIOLOGY.

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Or the origin of the name Columba a curious account is given by Mr. Hislop in his learned work The Two Babylons." He states that in ancient Babylon the title of the Goddess-mother as the dwelling place of God was Sacca, or in the emphatic form Sactha, that is, the " Tabernacle." Every quality

of gentleness and mercy was regarded as centred in her; and when death had closed her career she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, to express the celestial benignity of her nature. She was called D'Juné, or the Dove,' without the article Juno, a name of the Roman Queen of Heaven, which has the very same meaning; and, under the form of a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians. The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified Queen, is represented with an olive branch in her mouth, as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand.' He adds that in the sculptures at Nineveh, the wings and tail of the dove represented the third member of the Idolatrous Assyrian Trinity. In confirmation of this view it must be stated that the Assyrian Juno, or the Virgin Venus as she was called, was identified with the air. Thus Julius Fermicus says the Assyrians and part of the Africans believe the air to have the supremacy of the elements; for they have consecrated this same element under the name of Juno or the Virgin Venus. Why this air, thus identi

The author of 'The Two Babylons' was a learned Scottish clergyman. It was the work of many years, in which he was aided by several friends, who took an interest in antiquities, among them Lord John Scott. But his most valuable coadjutor was an Irish gentleman, Edward J. Cooper, Esq., Markree Castle, for many years M.P. for the county Sligo. He died in 1863. An eminent amateur astronomer, he was author of a 'Catalogue of Ecliptic Stars.' The Royal Society speaks of him as ' a sincere Christian, no mean poet, an accomplished linguist and exquisite musician, who possessed a wide and varied range of general information.' He spent much money in the pursuit of knowledge.

fied with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian Trinity? why, but because in Chaldea the same word which signifies the "air" signifies also the Holy Ghost. The knowledge of this accounts entirely for the statement of Proclus that Juno imports the generation of soul. Whence could the soul, the spirit of man, be supposed to have its origin but from the spirit of God?'

Now as Colman or Columban literally means 'the white dove,' Mr. Keane infers from this quotation the fact that, as so many other unmistakeably Babylonish divinities are found among the names of Irish saints, this connection is sufficient to account for the 200 Irish saints bearing that name. There seems no doubt of Juno's having been worshipped in Ireland as Da Mater, 'the mother of the Gods;' her Irish name was Una or Unan or Iun, the dove, like the Hebrew; and this name is still preserved in Iona, the island in West Scotland sacred to St. Colman, the dove. Ion or Iun is also to be found as part of compound names in many localities throughout Ireland-the divine Incarnation, as her son was styled, Mac Ion or Mac Owen; we have therefore Kil Mac Owen, or Temple Mac Owen; and Kiledeus tells us that there were fifty-eight saints of the name of Mochuan. The name Una is frequently introduced into ancient Irish poetry. It is translated into the English name Winifred, a saint celebrated for holy wells. The name Una or Iun, with which many of the Holy Wells of Ireland were associated, has fallen into oblivion, and that of St. John has been substituted for it, both names being nearly identical in the Irish:-therefore it is that so many of St. John's Wells are found throughout Ireland.

Mr. Keane associates another name with Da Mater for the female nature-Daire, the oak.' Thus St. Dairèbille or Belle Mullet, the Oak-tree; St. Dairearca, the oak of the Ark;' St. Dairmilla, or the four paps,' the mother of several Irish saints. Dairmaid, the oak twig, answers to the branch of Juno of Cuthite mythology, and there are fifty-eight St. Mochuans, the sons of the Dove.

It is an unquestionable fact, of which Mr. Keane has produced an irresistible array of historic proofs and illustrations, that the early Celtic saints became the actual inheritors of the