Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 2 (of 3), Church and cultureSkene, W. F. (William Forbes)
History
Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 2 (of 3), Church and culture
Skene, W. F. (William Forbes)
Celts -- Scotland; Civilization, Celtic; Scotland -- Antiquities, Celtic; Scotland -- History -- To 1603
In this case, however, an older Irish document gives him a closer
connection with the west. In the tract on the mothers of the saints,
which is ascribed to Aengus the Culdee, in the ninth century, we are
told that ‘Alma, the daughter of the king of the _Cruithnech_,’ or
Picts, ‘was the mother of Serb, or Serf, son of Proc, king of Canaan, of
Egypt; and he is the venerable old man who possesses Cuilenros, in
Stratherne, in the Comgells between the Ochill Hills and the sea of
Giudan.’[487] Here Alpia, a name which has a very Pictish look, the
daughter of the king of Arabia, becomes Alma, the daughter of the king
of the Picts, and the husband of a Pictish princess must have belonged
to a race nearer home than the people of Canaan, here placed on the west
bank of the Nile and connected with Egypt. The Scotch part of the
legend, like that of Bonifacius, is supported by the dedications, all
the churches in the places mentioned in connection with him being
dedicated to St. Serf. The chronology of this part of the Life, too, is
quite consistent; we find no anachronisms in it, and there is not a
syllable about his being a disciple of Palladius or the teacher of
Kentigern. The Brude, son of Dargart, of the Life, may be identified
with Brude, son of Derile, who reigned from 697 to 706, and preceded
that Nectan, son of Derile, who expelled the Columban monks from his
kingdom. Brude appears in one of the chronicles, which seems to have
been connected with Lochleven, as Brude, son of Dargart; and the
chronicle adds, ‘in which time came Saint Servanus to Fife.’[488] Then
Adamnan, who is brought into such close connection with Servanus, died
in 704, only two years before the death of Brude; and there were, as we
know, the most friendly relations between them. Now there is in the
Chartulary of St. Andrews a memorandum of some early charters in the
Celtic period, and one of them is a grant by which ‘Brude, son of
Dergard, who is said by old tradition to have been the last of the kings
of the Picts’—which however he was not—‘gives the isle of Lochlevine to
the omnipotent God, and to Saint Servanus, and to the _Keledei hermits_
dwelling there, who are serving, and shall serve, God in that island.’
In another, ‘Macbeth, son of Finlach, and Gruoch, daughter of Bodhe,
king and queen of the Scots, give to God omnipotent, and the _Keledei_
of the said island of Lochlevine, Kyrkenes.’ And in a third, ‘Macbeth
gives to God and Saint Servanus of Lochlevyne, and the _hermits_ there
serving God, Bolgyne.’[489] We thus see that the establishment founded
by Servanus about the beginning of the eighth century was one of
hermits, and that they bear the name of _Keledei_. There is nothing
inconsistent with probability that they may have been introduced by
Adamnan, after he had himself conformed to Rome and was endeavouring to
bring over his brethren, and that that part of the Life which brings him
to the south shore of the Firth of Forth—in other words, from
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account