after his death that we may appeal to their statements of fact, irrespective of the colouring given to them by the circumstances of the time in which these biographers lived, with some confidence as affording us the means of testing the later narratives. Cummene became abbot just sixty years, and Adamnan eighty-two, after Columba’s death. We are warranted therefore in concluding that supposed facts in his life, which either are ignored by them or are inconsistent with their narrative, are the fruit of later and spurious tradition. In the old Irish Life, which Dr. Reeves considers to be a composition probably as old as the tenth century, and which was originally compiled to be read as a discourse upon his festival, a few statements are found which bear this character; but the grand repertory of all these later and questionable additions to his biography is the elaborate Life by Manus O’Donnell, chief of Tyrconnell, compiled in the year 1532, which professes to be a chronological digest of all the existing records concerning the patron of his family.[161] The tale which it tells of the cause of Columba’s mission to Scotland, and which is popularly accepted as true, is shortly this:—In the year 561 a great battle was fought at a place called Cuil-dremhne in Connaught, not far from the boundary between that province and Ulster. The contending parties were Diarmaid son of Cerbaill, head of the southern Hy Neill and king of Ireland, on the one side, and, on the other, the northern Hy Neill under the sons of Murcertach mac Erca, chiefs of the Cinel Eoghain, Ainmere, son of Sedna chief of the Cinel Conaill, and the people of Connaught under their king Aedh. The king of Ireland was defeated with great slaughter, and the cause of the battle was twofold: First, that King Diarmaid had taken Curnan, the son of the king of Connaught, by force from under the protection of Columba; and secondly, that he had given judgment against Columba in a dispute between him and Finnian of Moyville regarding the possession of a transcript of a copy of the Book of Psalms belonging to the latter, which Columba had made without his permission, and which the king had adjudged to belong to Finnian on the ground of the adage, To every cow belongs its calf. Columba, who himself belonged to the race of the northern Hy Neill, was said to have incited his tribe to avenge him upon the king of Ireland, and to have by his prayers contributed to their success. A synod of the saints of Ireland was held, before whom Columba was arraigned as responsible for the great slaughter caused by this battle; and they decided that he must win from paganism as many souls as had been slain in this battle. The mode in which it was to be fulfilled was referred to Laisren, or Molaisse, of Inishmurry, who imposed as a penance upon Columba perpetual exile from Ireland, whose shores his eyes were not again to see and whose soil his feet were not again to tread.