The birth and life of St Mo Ling

The Birth and Life of St. Moling

The following legend is preserved, so far as I am aware, only in two MSS., one, the so-called Liber Flavus Fergussiorum, a vellum now in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, Part I, ff. 13a–15a: the other in the Brussels MS. 4190–4200, ff. 43a–65b.Mr. W. K. Sullivan's statement in O' Curry's Manners and Customs, vol. I, p. ccclxv, that there is a Life of St. Molling in H. 3. 17, is, like much else in that volume, absolutely groundless. And there is no Life of St. Moling in the second part of Brussels MS. 2324–2340, p. 24, the maker of the table of contents having mistaken Molacca for Moling. The Liber Flavus was written at the end of the fourteenth, or the beginning of the fifteenth century.See Mr. Edward Gwynn's description of the MS. in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, March, 1906. The Brussels MS., which is on paper, was written by Michael O'Clery (one of the compilers of the Annals of the Four Masters) in the years 1628 and 1629. He transcribed the legend from a MS. which he calls Leabhar Tighe Molling, the Book of Timulling, now, apparently, lost. Notwithstanding its greater antiquity, the copy in the Liber Flavus is far inferior to that in the Brussels MS. For instance, in the account of the Gobbán Saer's inversion of the oratory (infra, paragraph 47), the Brussels MS. has Dobeir Gobban tra trelamh &ersir; acfaing fair, so Gobban puts tackle and apparatus upon it, while the elder codex has Dobeir Goban trath etre a lám &ersir; a moing fair, which is mere gibberish, though it is printed without demur in Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture (ed. I, p. 345, ed. 2, p. 348), and boldly translated by Goban laid hold of it by both post and ridge. If the Irish MSS. at Brussels were well photographed, and the photographs deposited in a Dublin library, the benefit to students of Gaelic and of Celtic hagiology would be exceedingly great.

A fragment corresponding closely with paragraphs 38, 39 of the following edition, exists in the Franciscan MS. A (9), p. 17, where it is entitled, in the margin, de St. Molingo. The statement in the Fourth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 601, that this codex contains a Life of Moling, is erroneous. For a careful copy of this fragment, by Mr. J. G. O Keeffe, I am indebted to Mr. R. I. Best, the Hon. Secretary of the School of Irish Learning. An older copy is, apparently, in Brussels MS. 2324–2340, p. 67, entitled in the table of contents S. Molingo Jesus Christus apparuit in forma Leprosi.

The legend is noteworthy, first, for the pathetic story of St. Moling's birth (paragraphs 5–8), and, secondly, for the light which it throws on the manners, beliefs and morality of the ancient Irish. See, for instance, the description of the young saint begging, like a Buddhist monk (paragraph 14); his interviews with the wicked spectres (paragraphs 16–21) and with his guilty but repentant mother (paragraphs 26, 27); the trace of tree-worship in the mention of the Yew of Ross (paragraph 34); the magical effects of a spell (epaid) and a prayer (paragraphs 35, 37); the wanton insolence of Irish lepers (paragraph 38); the fondling of the boy Jesus (paragraph 39); the story of Gobbán Saer and his wife (paragraphs 41–47). freely rendered by O' CurryManners and Customs, III, 34–36.; the miracle by which an oratory was filled with rye (paragraph 50); the treachery practised upon the saint by two kings (paragraph 52); the livelihood earned by needlework (paragraph 53); the use of horseflesh as food (paragraph 53); the shameful equivocation by which the saint procured the remission of the tribute imposed on Leinster (paragraphs 60–64).See O'Donovan's note x, Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 696. A belief in shape-shifting seems evidenced by paragraphs 52 and 70; and one of the many folk-tales about the wrenSee e. g. Campbell of Islay's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, I, 48, 52, 277. Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, London, 1872, vol. II, p. 208. Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 3. Aufl., nos. 102, 171. Loth, Revue Celtique, 20, 342. (roitelet, Zaunkönig, gr. basilískos = regulus) is contained in paragraphs 73, 74. Attention may also be called to the clear and vigorous prose in which the bulk of the legend is written, and to the dramatic dialogues in paragraphs 17, 38, 42.

Many long vowels not marked as such in the MS. are here denoted by a flat stroke (ā, ē, etc.).

The prose of the following text and the first lines of the poems were published in the Revue Celtique, t. 27, pp. 260–304, but with so many mistakes, both typographical and editorial, as to render a revised edition desirable. The verses are, with one exception,See paragraph 25 infra. now printed in extenso. They are often obscure and sometimes obviously corrupt.

The rarer words and grammatical forms found in this legend are collected in the Glossarial Index.[Not included in the electronic edition. BF]

In the footnotes and the Index, B denotes the Brussels MS. 4190–4200, F the Franciscan fragment, and L the copy in the Liber Flavus Fergussiorum.

For many corrections and useful suggestions, I am indebted to Professors Strachan and Meyer, Mr. O. J. Bergin, Father Henebry, and the Rev. Charles Plummer. To the last-named scholar I also owe the extracts from the unpublished Latin Life of St. Moling, printed infra in the note to paragraph 72.

London, May 1907 W. S.