Fantasy fiction; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Mythology, Celtic -- Fiction
little in my wonder, and the beggar turned and saw me, and, bending low,
said, "O Brother Dove, if I have done wrong, forgive me, and I will do
penance. It was my pity moved me;" but I was afraid and I ran away, and
did not stop running until I came here.' Then all the Brothers began
talking together, one saying it was such and such a saint, and one that
it was not he but another; and one that it was none of these, for they
were still in their brotherhoods, but that it was such and such a
one; and the talk was as near to quarreling as might be in that
gentle community, for each would claim so great a saint for his native
province. At last the abbot said, 'He is none that you have named, for
at Easter I had greeting from all, and each was in his brotherhood; but
he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the first of those who have gone to
live in the wild places and among the wild beasts. Ten years ago he felt
the burden of many labours in a brotherhood under the Hill of Patrick
and went into the forest that he might labour only with song to the
Lord; but the fame of his holiness brought many thousands to his cell,
so that a little pride clung to a soul from which all else had been
driven. Nine years ago he dressed himself in rags, and from that day
none has seen him, unless, indeed, it be true that he has been seen
living among the wolves on the mountains and eating the grass of the
fields. Let us go to him and bow down before him; for at last, after
long seeking, he has found the nothing that is God; and bid him lead us
in the pathway he has trodden.'
They passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood,
the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with his
crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense; and
came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray, awaiting
the moment when the child would wake, and the Saint cease from his watch
and come to look at the sun going down into the unknown darkness, as his
way was.
OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT, AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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