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The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present dayMacNeill, Nigel

History

The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present day

Name: The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present day
Author: MacNeill, Nigel

MacNeill, Nigel

Scottish Gaelic literature -- History and criticism

I bind myself to-day—
          To God’s pow’r to be controlled;
          To His might me to uphold;
          To His wisdom me to bow;
          To His eye the path to show;
          To His ear to hear my cry;
          To His word to speak my sigh;
          To His hand me to protect;
          To His way me to direct;
          To His shield as my defence;
          To His host till I go hence.

          Against demons’ dire devices;
          Against allurements of all vices;
          Against strong solicitations
          Of our nature’s inclinations;
          Against all the bad desires
          With which sin men’s hearts inspires,
          Afar or near where’er I be
          In solitude or company.

          Thus I have sought protection from on high
          Against the powers of ill and cruelty;
          Against deceitful prophets’ incantations;
          Against the black laws of the gentile nations;
          Against the false laws of all heretics;
          Against the craft of the idolator’s tricks;
          Against the spells of druids, smiths, and women;
          Against all lore that taints the spirit human.

          Let Christ protect me to-day against poison—
          Against burning, drowning, against wound,
          Until abundance of reward comes round.

          Christ be with me, Christ before, behind,
          Christ without me, Christ within my mind,
          Christ above me, and in breadth, length, height,
          Christ below me, at my left and right.

          Let Christ in all who think of me reside,
          And on all lips that speak to me abide;
          Christ be in every eye that sees my walk,
          Christ be in every ear that hears my talk.

          I bind myself to-day—
              To the power of the Trinity,
              To belief in the all-gracious Three,
              To confession that the Three are One,
              In the Maker of the earth and sun.

Dr Cameron, who has a learned article on “St. Patrick’s Hymn” in _The
Scottish Celtic Review_, and to whose accurate prose translation as
well as to Dr Stokes’s in his Goidelica. I am so much indebted in the
above rendering, makes the following remark:—“This hymn forms one of
the Irish hymns in the ‘Liber Hymnorum,’ a MS. belonging to Trinity
College, Dublin, and written, as Dr Stokes conjectures, about the end
of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. The hymn
itself, however, belongs to a much earlier date.”

The chief dates in the life of Patrick, who was probably born about
387, are his landing in Ireland in 432 when he is represented as
attending the assembly of the Irish Kings and Chieftains which was
held on the hill of Tara that year; his celebrated letter against
Coroticus in 453 to regulate church discipline; and his death which
occurred in 493.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present day

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