A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present DayHyde, Douglas
History
A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day
Hyde, Douglas
Civilization, Celtic, in literature; Irish literature -- History and criticism; Language and culture -- Ireland
"'I know not where he is,' said Ruadhan, 'if he be not under yon
thatch.'
"After that Diarmuid departs to his house, but he remembered the
cleric's word and returns to the recluse's cell, and he sees the
candle being brought to the spot where Aedh Guairè was. And he sends a
confidential servant to bring him forth--Donnán Donn was his name--and
he dug down in the hiding place, but the arm he stretched out to take
Aedh withered to the shoulder. And he makes obeisance to Ruadhan after
that, and the two servants remained with Ruadhan after that in Poll
Ruadhain. After this Diarmuid [himself] carries off Aedh Guairè to
Tara."
Upon this, we are told, Ruadhan made his way to Brendan of Birr, and
thence to the so-called twelve apostles of Ireland,[7] and they all
followed the King and came to Tara, and they fast upon the King that
night, and he, "relying on his kingly quality and on the justice of his
cause, fasts upon them."[8]
"In such fashion, and to the end of a year they continued before Tara
under Ruadhan's tent exposed to weather and to wet, and they were
every other night without food, Diarmuid and the clergy, fasting on
each other."
After this the story goes on that Brendan the Navigator had in the
meantime landed from his foreign expeditions, and hearing that the
other saints of Ireland were fasting before Tara, he also proceeds
thither. But King Diarmuid, learning of his coming, was terrified,
and consented to give up Aedh Guairè for "fifty horses, blue-eyed
with golden bridles." Brendan the Voyager, fresh from his triumphs on
the ocean, summons fifty seals and makes them look like horses, and
guaranteeing them for a year and a quarter, hands them over to the
King and receives Aedh Guairè. But when the time guaranteed was out,
they became seals again, and brought their riders with them into the
sea. And Diarmuid was very wroth at the deception, "and shut the seven
lisses of Tara to the end that the clergy should not enter into Tara,
lest they should leave behind malevolence and evil bequests."
It appears that the clerics still continued fasting upon the King, and
he fasting upon them,
"And people were assigned [by the King] to wait upon them and to keep
watch and ward over them until the clergy should have accomplished the
act of eating and consuming food in their presence. But on this night
Brendan gave them this advice--their cowls to be about their heads and
they to let their meat and ale pass by their mouths into their bosoms
and down to the ground, and this they did. Word was brought to the
King that the clergy were consuming meat and ale, so Diarmuid ate meat
that night, but the clerics on the other hand fasted on him through
stratagem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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