Innatmar took a step backwards. “Release him,” he instructed. The warriors obeyed. The Druid slowly turned around three times, like a dog preparing to lie down. He examined the palms of his hands. Spat copiously into the left one. Studied the result. Lifted his head and gazed up at the surrounding trees.
“Mm-hm,” said Innatmar.
“Mm-hm,” murmured the warriors in unison.
“Ash-lin,” said Innatmar.
“Ash-lin,” his chorus responded.
The Druid returned to Brendán. He deliberately came a step too close, invading the space between them. Brendán wanted to draw back but held his ground.
Innatmar looked amused. “I have a riddle for you,” he said. “Imagine a quiet pool, shining like a disc of polished silver. Slap the disc with the flat of your hand and it shatters into ripples. Although they all sparkle, no two ripples are the same; each reflects the light in its own, individual way. But in time they form a single surface again.”
Fixing Brendán with a penetrating gaze, Innatmar whispered, “Now tell me: what became of all those separate sparkles?”
The Druid’s stare was unbearable. Brendán looked away, searched desperately for some avenue of escape.
The trees surrounding the glade formed an impenetrable wall.
“I don’t need anything from you!” he cried. “Let me go!”
“We don’t need anything from you,” Innatmar said softly. “You have always been free to go.”
Where the trees had blocked his way a moment before, Brendán saw a gap wide enough for a human body. He bolted.
Armed with a new staff cut from a sturdy blackthorn, a shaken Brendán eventually continued his pilgrimage. Sometimes he wandered aimlessly for days, only to discover he had gone in a large circle. Yet sooner or later he would hear bells announce the canonical hours, and follow them.
The monasteries Brendán visited treated him as an honoured guest. They urged him to stay and join their order. His answer was always the same, “I’m not yet ready to make a decision.”
That was true as far as it went, but I never explained the real reason. None of them gripped my spirit with both hands, like the promontory of the High Grave.
A monastic community was a reflection of its founder, who set down official rules for his order in accordance with his own interpretation of Holy Scripture. In early sixth century Ireland, these communities were hardly regulated at all. The influence of Rome was just beginning to make itself felt.
Having inculcated a sense of sin in its followers, the Church had recognised the need for relieving the unbearable burden of guilt. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Christ had forgiven sins. Rome claimed the same power had descended by apostolic succession to its anointed. Penance, preceded by confession, was about to become a sacrament.
Some abbots dedicated their lives to saving souls from hell. In their monasteries the penitential rituals included reciting the Lord’s Prayer three hundred and sixty-five times a day, every day of the year, and twice on feast days. Sleeping on a bed of nettles could be the penance for a single lustful thought. To overcome gluttony a sinner undertook self-induced starvation. Seeking forgiveness for sloth required one to climb a mountain on his knees.
Other monasteries took a more benign view, concentrating on Christ’s message of loving kindness. They balanced discipline with humour and asceticism with an occasional measure of honey wine. Piety and poetry received almost equal attention. Their rituals might include marching around a large stone a specific number of times on holy days while praying continually. In this way the monks sought to imbue formerly pagan objects of devotion with Christian values.
Brendán explored monasteries at both ends of the scale. After each encounter he took time to reflect. Lying on his back on the grass, looking at the sky. Huddling in a cave, listening to the rain.
I concluded that the Celtic Church was making up its own version of Christianity as it went along.
Our Gaelic forebears interacted on a daily basis with the unseen world. They were well aware of the important activities that take place in invisible spaces. Dreams and visions were not illusion to them but an aspect of reality, so it was easy to accept the miracle of Christ’s resurrection.
The rigid theology of Rome did not allow for any miracles other than its own, and was growing in influence.
If we tried to impose a more concrete form upon our inherited spirituality we might lose its essence. Erc was an able administrator but he did not appreciate the miraculous articulation of a bird’s wing or the soulful plaintiveness of a deer’s cry. That was his blindness; his inability to recognise the hand of God.
Perhaps what he felt for the Druids was not hatred, but jealousy.
Whatever their ethos, Irish monasteries set high standards for idealism and self-sacrifice. Not everyone could live up to them. If he obtained his abbot’s permission a monk might leave a strict order for one less strict—or, on rare occasions, the other way around. A few even moved for the sake of movement, responding to a force older than Christianity: the apparently random disorder of life that blew seeds across the earth and stars through the heavens.
In the same random fashion Brendán continued his pilgrimage. Seeking without knowing exactly what he sought.
At the abbey of Clon Tuaiscirt he met his only surviving brother, Faitleac. He looked like an older version of Brendán, though he was less muscular and not as tall. At first the two men were so excited that their words got tangled. Neither could understand what the other was saying.
The abbot, a round little man with a round red face, smoothly interceded. “Any student of Bishop Erc is welcome here, Brendán. We are great admirers of his. Faitleac will see that you are comfortable. Please stay with us as long as you like. Perhaps you would consider joining our order?”
The guesting house was built of timber and smelled of the cedar shingles used for roofing. Faitleac spread a blanket on the bed and hung Brendán’s cape and bag on wooden pegs. Then the two men looked at each other. The words that had tumbled out in the beginning were lost now.
“So,” Faitleac ventured. “You’re here.”
“I am here.”
“And you’re well?”
“I am well. You?”
“I’m well too.”
“This abbey is impressive,” said Brendán. “A model ecclesiastical centre, in fact. Very…impressive.”
“It is.”
“And you’re happy here?”
“I am content.”
The silence dragged. Both were relieved when the bell summoned them for prayer.
Their next conversation took place after the single meal of the day; Clon Tuaiscirt might be impressive in size, but the order it housed subscribed to a strict asceticism. As Faitleac accompanied his brother back to the guesting house he asked, “Our mother, how is she?”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time. She went back to her own people, you know.”
Faitleac nodded. “I’m not surprised. She had suffered all the grief she could bear. When our brothers were killed she tried to be the proud mother of warriors, but it nearly broke her. So Finnlugh gave her his promise.”
“What promise?”
“To stop fighting the Ciarrí Luachra and devote himself to fishing. That’s when he built the new house at Fenit where you and Brige were born. I remember the first time he took us to see it, and how happy my mother was.”
Brendán was thunderstruck. “I didn’t know,” he said faintly.
Why did no one tell me this before? Did they think I wouldn’t be interested? Children only look one way—ahead—until they start to grow up and wonder what’s behind them. Then the past matters. My brother had lived a different childhood from mine, with parents I would never know.
An entire world was in existence before I was born. On the other side of the darkness from which I emerged.
The two men sat on the ground outside the guesting house with their backs pressed against its walls and the bo
ttomless well of the sky above them. Night sounds. A brief patter of rain on leaves. The smell of the earth.
Faitleac declared he would remain at Clon Tuaiscirt until he died. “I came here straight from Altraighe-Caille and will be buried in the shadow of our High Cross when I die,” he said contentedly. “The good brothers will remember me at every divine service, for as long as the abbey stands.”
“But didn’t you want to do anything else with your life? Even for a few years?”
“I never thought about it. By the time I was born our parents had converted to Christianity, and from early childhood I knew I was destined to be a monk. Just as Brige will be a nun and you will be a priest.”
Brendán stiffened. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because we are Finnlugh’s children.”
“What do you mean, Faitleac?”
“Don’t you understand? We are Bishop Erc’s offering to God.”
We had been at sea for a timeless time, cradled by winds, blanketed by stars. Our supplies had dwindled; we were eating only a few bites every third day. On the morning, we drank the last of our water, sharp-eyed Aedgal reported an inhabited island ahead. As we drew near its shore the wind turned against us and pushed us away. I ordered my crew to lower the sail and make a second approach using the oars. This effort was successful, but we could find no landing place. Massive boulders formed a bulwark that held the land tantalisingly out of reach.
We had circled the island several times before the brothers cried out in frustration, “God give us help!”
A great wave broke against the boulders and crashed down over us. Instinctively, we flinched. When we opened our eyes again we saw a narrow landing place just ahead, with barely enough room for our vessel. The brothers quickly clambered over the side and moored the boat.
A narrow path led up from the landing place to a stretch of level grassy ground. A short walk would bring us to several low buildings. Upon starting towards them we discovered two wells: one held clear water, in the other the water was dark and muddy.
My men clamoured for a drink of the clear water but I told them, “We must ask permission of the inhabitants of this island before we can use their well.” Some of the brothers grumbled; Tarlách the loudest of all. “If God brought us here to obtain water then we should drink water!”
A man with snowy hair and shining face, and wearing the garb of an abbot, approached us and prostrated himself on the earth at my feet. We promptly raised him from the ground. He then embraced me warmly, but said nothing. Instead he beckoned us to follow him to the nearest building, whose doorway was surmounted by a wooden cross. With gestures of the utmost meekness and humility, he urged us to enter.
My companions showered him with questions. “What place is this?” Aedgal wanted to know. Moenniu said, “Can you replenish our supplies?” “Is there any water? I’m parched with thirst,” Liber complained. The abbot only smiled and shook his head. Then I realised that silence must be one of the rules of his order. “Be quiet,” I admonished my monks, “lest you profane a holy place.”
No sooner had I spoken than eleven men in the robes of monks approached us, carrying basins of warm water. The abbot himself gravely washed our feet. When this expression of hospitality had been bestowed the eleven monks embraced each of my companions in turn.
Their abbot then led us to a small refectory which was furnished with an oaken table and benches. He silently invited us to seat ourselves around the table. One of his monks served us with a dozen loaves of bread, whiter and softer than any we had ever seen. A second brother passed a large bowl heaped with pounded roots sweeter than honey. A third brought goblets of sparkling water. The abbot and his monks then sat down with us, but did not touch the food.
While we ate and drank the abbot spoke at last. “I am called Ailbe, and I found this monastery eighty years ago, just as you see it now. One of our wells is muddy because it contains warm water which we only use for washing. The other provides the water you are drinking; it is always pure.
“There are twenty-four monks in the monastery. Every morning we find twelve loaves of bread in the larder. On Sundays and feast days there is an entire loaf for each of us. We eat nothing that is burned by a fire. We suffer neither heat nor cold. We do not age here nor do we sicken.”
I was embarrassed to realise my brothers and I had just consumed their whole day’s ration. My face must have revealed my dismay, because Ailbe said, “Do not concern yourself for our sakes. Whatever we give in charity is always returned to us.
“Now let us go to the church for Vespers. The only time a human voice is heard on this island is when we sing the holy offices, or when God sends one of his saints to visit us and I can speak as I do now.”
I shrank from his kindly-meant imputation of sainthood. Ailbe did not know me.
My monks arose, and together with the other eleven, silently preceded Ailbe and myself to the church. From the doorway we saw twelve more monks inside. They genuflected and went outside to make room for us.
Their church was exactly the right size to accommodate twenty-four men, kneeling on cushions arranged around the central altar. The building was perfectly square and lit by seven lamps, three in front of the altar and two in front of each of the two small side altars. “We brought seven beeswax candles with us from our homeland,” said Ailbe. “On this island they acquired special properties. We have never needed to replace them.”
The patens, cruets, and chalices on the altar were all cut from crystal, but I was more moved by the beauty of the voices raised in prayer. When the abbot intoned, “God, come to our aid,” the congregation chanted in response, “We have acted wrongly, we have sullied our souls with iniquity. We ask our faithful Father to spare us. Let us sleep in peace this night, knowing that you, Our Lord, have given us hope.”
We did indeed sleep peacefully that night. The burdens on my soul did not trouble me, and when I awoke at dawn I felt fresh and new.
As we broke our fast I asked Ailbe, “Does the rule of silence ever become too much of a strain?”
“In this place we are in harmony; we do not need to debate or quarrel or question,” he replied, “so we maintain a friendly silence. Quietude bestows peace, and rest.”
Ailbe’s community seemed almost perfect to me, if perfection could be obtained in this world. I inquired, “May I stay here and spend my days with you?”
The abbot paused, as if listening to a distant voice. Then he said, “You are meant to return to your own monastery in Ireland and be buried there. But first you will see amazing things. When your journey is over you may come to us again and spend Christmas and Epiphany here.”
I promised that we would accept his invitation.
Then we sailed on.
Chapter 12
Brendán remained at Clon Tuaiscirt long enough to satisfy the requirements of hospitality and familial obligation, then went on his way again.
Days passed. Weeks. Seasons. Sun and sleet were all the same to him. His sandals wore out and he repaired them, then repaired them again. His tunic frayed around the bottom. He tore his sleeves on briars.
If he came to a crossroads where a market was being held, he lingered for a time. Men bargained, wives gossiped, craftsmen extolled their wares and children scampered about like mice on a meadow. Swirl of colour and smell of life. Cattle bawling, pigs squealing. And always talk, rolling tides of talk. Standing on the fringes, Brendán listened with thirsty ears.
When the silent call came he went on his way.
The silent call was very low and whispered, and as loud as rolling thunder. It was a voice and a cry and a command that rose up out of the land around me and was irresistible.
Outwards. Always outwards.
In the scriptorium at Clon Fert, Brendán wrote, ‘While on pilgrimage I encountered Tarlách, from the kingdom of Ulster, who claimed to be a pilgrim like myself. We shared our food and exchanged views.’
At first Brendán warmed to Tarlách. The man�
��s huge hands and feet were out of proportion to the rest of his body; he resembled a young hound that was failing to fulfil the early promise of giant paws. Mournful, downturned eyes and habitual sniffling added to the illusion of a lonesome puppy looking for someone to scratch his ears.
Tarlách’s first words dispelled the illusion. Even in normal conversation his voice had a truculent tone. “My father has a hostelry near Ard Macha, Patrick’s holy city,” he told Brendán, “but I never liked the place. Too many hills; no matter where you want to go it’s always uphill. I didn’t like the hostelry business either, it’s full of idiots who make unreasonable demands. After one quarrel too many I decided to become a pilgrim.”
“Did your father encourage you?”
Tarlách gave a sour smile. “Let’s just say he didn’t discourage me. He thought I’d come running back as soon as I got hungry, but he was wrong. People feed pilgrims,” he added smugly.
“Surely you’ve learned more than that during your travels,” Brendán said.
“I’ve learned everything I wish to know. For example, I spent enough time in Leinster to become an expert on the eastern tribes. Ask me anything about them. I can tell you this much: they’re as slippery as eels. Every Leinsterman is worse than the next.”
It was Brendán’s turn to smile. “That’s a slippery remark itself.”
“Not at all, it’s absolutely accurate. I’m an excellent judge of character.”
When Brendán offered to walk with him for a way, Tarlách agreed. “But only until we fall out,” he stipulated.
“Are you so sure we will?”
“I fall out with everyone,” said the Ulsterman.
I soon discovered why. Tarlách’s only idea of conversation was debate. He contradicted every statement I made. With him it was possible to avoid an argument only by exerting infinite patience—and my patience wasn’t always infinite.
Brendan Page 13
