Part 8 (2/2)

Damasus, received him very cordially, and give him special teachers {133} to instruct him in the doctrines of the Church. After he had spent there fifteen years, Pope St. Siricius made him priest and bishop, and sent him to preach the Faith in his native country.

Ninian settled in the district now called Galloway. The recollection of the churches he had seen in Rome awoke in him a desire to build one more worthy of G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p than the simple edifices of that early age in these northern countries. By the help of his friend, St.

Martin of Tours, he obtained Prankish masons for this purpose, and built the first stone church ever yet seen in Britain. It was called _Candida Casa_, or ”White House” (still the designation in Latin of the See of Galloway). The point of land on which it stood became known as the ”White Home,” from which Whithorn derives its name.

Besides converting the people of his own neighbourhood, St. Ninian, by his zeal, brought into the Church the Southern Picts, who inhabited the old Roman province of Valentia, south of the Forth. He is therefore styled their Apostle. He was more than seventy when he died, and was laid to rest in the {134} church he had built and dedicated to St. Martin. Later on it was called after him and became ill.u.s.trious for pilgrimages from England and Ireland, as well as from all parts of Scotland. So many churches in Scotland bore his name that the enumeration of them would be impossible here, while almost every important church had an altar dedicated to him. An altar of St.

Ninian was endowed by the Scottish nation in the Carmelite Church at Bruges in Catholic ages. There is a portion of a fresco on the wall of Turriff Church, Aberdeens.h.i.+re, which bears the figure of St.

Ninian. The burgh of Nairn was placed under his patronage. Many holy wells bore his name: at Arbirlot, Arbroath, Mains and Menmuir (Forfars.h.i.+re); Ashkirk (Selkirks.h.i.+re); Alyth, Dull (Perths.h.i.+re); Mayfield (Kirkcubrights.h.i.+re); Sandwick (Orkney); Penninghame, Wigtown (Wigtowns.h.i.+re); Isle of Mull. That at Dull is said by a Protestant writer of 1845 to have been greatly frequented by invalids from far and near, on account of its reputed healing powers.

St. Ninian's fairs were held at Whithorn {135} (for four days), and also at Arbroath. The saint's feast, which had previously been long observed in the diocese of Galloway and at the Benedictine Abbey, Fort-Augustus, was extended to the whole Scottish Church by Leo XIII. in 1898.

St. Laisren. Abbot, A.D. 605.

He was a cousin of St. Columba. He ruled for some years the Abbey of Durrow in Ireland, and afterwards that of Iona, of which he was the third abbot.

20--St. Marthom.

A fair was held annually at Ordiquhill (Banffs.h.i.+re) for eight days from September 20, under the name of St. Marthom's fair. Nothing is known about the life of the saint.

22--St. Lolan, Bishop.

Many extraordinary miracles are related of this saint, but his real history is involved in obscurity.

The crozier and bell of St. Lolan were long preserved at Kincardine-on-Forth, Perths.h.i.+re, {136} and were included in the feudal invest.i.tures of the earldom of Perth. They are alluded to in doc.u.ments of the 12th century, and the mention of the bell occurs in one as late as 1675. Both relics have long disappeared.

23--St. Ad.a.m.nan, Abbot, A.D. 704.

He was of Irish race, and belonged to the same family as St. Columba.

In his 55th year he was elected Abbot of Iona. He is said to have been instrumental in obtaining the pa.s.sing of ”The Law of the Innocents” in the Irish National a.s.sembly of Tara. This statute exempted the Irish women from serving on the battle field, which before that time they had been bound to do. In 701 St. Ad.a.m.nan was sent on an emba.s.sy to his former pupil, Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, to seek reparation for injuries committed by that King's subjects in the Province of Meath. It was during this visit to England that he conformed to the Roman usage with regard to the time for keeping Easter, and he was afterwards successful in introducing the true practice into the Irish Church. His efforts in this respect were {137} not successful with his monks at Iona; though his earnest exhortations, and the unfailing charity which he exhibited towards those who differed from him, must have helped to dispose them to conform to the rest of the Church, which they did about twenty years after his death.

St. Ad.a.m.nan is most renowned for his life of St. Columba, which has been called by a competent judge ”the most complete piece of such biography that all Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period, but throughout the whole Middle Ages.” He is also the author of a treatise on the Holy Land, valuable as being one of the earliest produced in Europe.

Though the saint died at Iona, his relics were carried to Ireland; but they must have been restored to Iona, as they were venerated there in 1520. He was one of the most popular of the Scottish saints, and many churches were named after him. The chief of these were at Aboyne and Forvie (parish of Slains) in Aberdeens.h.i.+re; Abriachan in Inverness-s.h.i.+re; Forglen or Teunan Kirk in Banffs.h.i.+re; Tannadice in Forfars.h.i.+re; Kileunan (parish of Kilkerran) {138} in Kintyre; Kinneff in Kincardines.h.i.+re; the Island of Sanda; Dull, Grandtully and Blair Athole in Perths.h.i.+re--the latter place was once known as _Kilmaveonaig_, from the quaint little chapel and burying ground of the saint. There were chapels in his honour at Campsie in Stirlings.h.i.+re and Dalmeny in Linlithgow. At Aboyne are ”Skeulan Tree”

and ”Skeulan Well,” at Tannadice ”St. Arnold's Seat,” at Campsie ”St.

Ad.a.m.nan's Acre,” at Kinneff ”St. Arnty's Cell.” At Dull a fair was formerly held on his feast-day (old style); it was called _Feille Eonan_. Another fair at Blair Athole was known as _Feill Espic Eoin_ (”Bishop Eunan's Fair” though St. Ad.a.m.nan was an abbot only); it has been abolished in modern times. His well is still to be seen in the Manse garden there, and down the glen a fissure in the rock is called ”St. Ennan's Footmark.” There was a ”St. Ad.a.m.nan's Croft” in Glenurquhart (Inverness-s.h.i.+re), but the site is no longer known.

Ardeonaig, near Loch Tay; Ben Eunaich, Dalmally; and Damsey (Ad.a.m.nan's Isle) in Orkney, take their names from this saint. At {139} Firth-on-the-Spey, near Kingussie, is a very ancient bronze bell, long kept on a window-sill of the old church, and tradition relates that when moved from thence it produced a sound similar to the words, ”Tom Eunan, Tom Eunan,” until it was restored to its original resting-place in the church, which stands on the hill bearing that name. The tradition points to the dedication of the church to this saint. Few names have pa.s.sed through such various transformations in the course of ages as that of Ad.a.m.nan. It is met under the forms of Aunan, Arnty, Eunan, Ounan, Teunan (Saint-Eunan), Skeulan, Eonan, Ewen and even Arnold.

St. Ad.a.m.nan's feast was restored by Pope Leo XIII. in 1898.

25--St. Barr or Finbar, Bishop, 6th century.

He was born in Connaught and was the founder of a celebrated monastery and school on an island in Lough Eirce (now known as Gougane-Barra), in County Cork, and to this house, says Colgan in his _Acta Sanctorum_, so {140} many came through zeal for a holy life that it changed a desert into a great city.

St. Finbar became the first Bishop of Cork, where he founded a monastery almost as famous as the former. St. Finbar, like so many Irish saints, made a pilgrimage to Rome. Missionary zeal led him later on to Scotland, and for some time he laboured in Kintyre.

Devotion to St. Barr was very great in Catholic Scotland, as numerous dedications attest. His churches are chiefly to be found on solitary islands, which seem to have had a special attraction for him. Thus in the parish of Kilkerran, Kintyre, is an island now known as Davar; it was formerly called St. Barre's Island. The island of Barra takes its name from him; traces of his _cultus_ lingered on there long after the Reformation. At Kilbar (sometimes called s.h.i.+lbar), for example, an image of the saint, which was long preserved, used to be clothed with a linen robe on his feast-day in comparatively recent times.

Other curious customs also prevailed in the island in connection with him; his holy well is there. St. Barr was the patron saint of the churches of {141} Dornoch, and of Eddleston (Peebles-s.h.i.+re); at both places a fair was annually held on his feast-day. In Ayrs.h.i.+re is the parish of Barr, and in Forfars.h.i.+re that of Inch bare. At Midd Genie, in Tarbat, is Chapel Barre.

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