The prevailing feature of Celtic ornament as shown in illuminated manuscripts is the geometrical nature of the designs. The human figure when introduced into the native Irish books is absurdly grotesque, for its delineation seems to have been beyond the artist's skill, or, more correctly, to have lain in another category, and to have belonged to a style distinct from that in which he excelled. At a later period, figure drawing became a marked characteristic of English decorated manuscripts, and English artists attained to a high degree of skill in this branch of their art. Bright colours were employed in the Irish manuscripts, but gold and silver are conspicuous by their absence, and did not appear in the manuscripts of these islands until Celtic art had been touched by continental influence. The tradition that the Book of Kells was written by the great St Columba himself, reminds us that at this period nearly all books were the handiwork of monks and ecclesiastics, and in all monasteries the transcribing of the Scriptures and devotional works was part of the established order of things. Columba, we know, was a famous scribe, and took great pleasure in copying books. He is said to have transcribed no less than three hundred volumes, and all books written by him were believed to be miraculously preserved from danger by water. As an instance of this, Adamnan relates the following story:-- "A book of hymns for the office of every day in the week, and in the handwriting of St Columba, having slipt, with the leathern satchel which contained it, from the shoulder of a boy who fell from a bridge, was immersed in a certain river in the province of the Lagenians (Leinster). This very book lay in the water from the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord till the end of the Paschal season, and was afterwards found on the bank of the river" uninjured, and as clean and dry as if it had never been in the water at all. "And we have ascertained as undoubted truth," continues Adamnan, "from those who were well informed in the matter, that the like things happened in several places with regard to books written by the hand of St Columba;" and he adds that the account just given he received from "certain truthful, excellent, and honourable men who saw the book itself, perfectly white and beautiful, after a submersion of so many days, as we have stated."