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Carmina Gadelica, Volume 2, by Alexander Carmicheal, [1900], at sacred-texts.com
THERE were many religious houses throughout the Isles. Two of these were in Benbecula--one at 'Baile-mhanaich,' Monk's-town, and one at 'Baile-nan-cailleach,' Nuns'-town. These houses were attached to Iona, and were ruled and occupied by members of the first families of the Western Isles. Probably their insularity secured them from dissolution at the time of the Reformation, for these communities lingered long after the Reformation, and ceased to exist simply through natural decay.
It is said that two nuns had been visiting a sick woman. When returning home from the moorland to the townland, they heard the shrill voice of a child and the soft voice of a woman. The nuns groped their way down the rugged rocks, and there found a woman soothing a child in her arms. They were the only two saved from a wreck--the two frailest in the ship. The nuns took them home to Nunton. The woman was an Irish princess and a nun, and the child an Irish prince, against whose life a usurper to the throne had conceived a plot. The holy princess fled with the child-prince, intending to take him for safety to Scandinavia. The two nuns are said to have composed the two following poems.
One version of the story says that the child grew up and succeeded to the throne in Ireland; another that he died in the North Sea, and that he was buried in North Ronaldsay, Orkney.
During the three centuries of the Norse occupation there was much cordial communication between Scotland and Ireland, and much, but not cordial communication between Ireland and Scandinavia. Norsemen infested the east of Ireland and west of Scotland. There were plots and counterplots and wars innumerable between invaders and invaded, the ends of the beam ascending p. 202 and descending in sore quick succession. Ultimately the Irish succeeded in inflicting a crushing defeat on the Scandinavians at the battle of Clontarf.
Clontarf is situated on Dublin Bay, a few miles below the city. It is a low-lying plain of much extent and great fertility. In the adjoining sea is a spit or bar emitting curious sounds during certain conditions of tide and wind. The sounds resemble the bellowing of a bull, and hence the name 'Cluain tarbh,' Clontarf, the plain of bulls.
The famous battle of Clontarf was fought on Good Friday, 23rd April, 1014. The Irish were led by their celebrated warrior-king, Brian Boroimhe, monarch of all Ireland, and the Danes by their Celto-Danish Prince, Earl Sigurd. There was indescribable havoc on both sides. The slaughter, as seen from the walls of Dublin, is described as resembling the work of mad reapers in a field of corn. Earl Sigurd fell. This was foretold him by his mother, Audna, daughter of Carroll, King of Ireland, when she gave him the 'Raven Banner of Battle' at Skidda-myre, now Skidden, in Caithness. Audna told Sigurd that the Raven Banner would always bring victory to the owner, but death to the bearer. At the battle of Clontarf every man who took up the Raven Banner fell. At last no one would take it up. Seeing this, Sigurd himself seized the banner, saying, '’Tis meetest that the beggar himself should bear his bag.' Immediately thereafter Sigurd fell, and with him the Norse power in Ireland. The victorious Irish slaughtered the defeated Danes with all the concentrated hate of three centuries of cruel wrong. The fall of Earl Sigurd was made known to his friends in the North through the fore-knowledge of the Valkymar, the twelve weird sisters of Northern Mythology, of whom Gray sings in his 'Fatal Sisters.'
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CO i bhain-tighearna bhinn, Chan alca, [fhalc |
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WHO is she the melodious lady-lord, Not the ale, | |
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Co i bhain-tighearna bhinn, Chan fhosga, Co i bhain-tighearna bhinn, * * * * Co i bhain-tighearna bhinn, Cha bhreac air a bhuinne, Co i bhain-tighearna bhinn, Cha bhainisg na cuigeil, |
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Who is she the melodious lady-lord, Not the lark, Who is she the melodious lady-lord, * * * * Who is she the melodious lady-lord, Not the grilse of the stream, Who is she the melodious lady-lord, Not the dame of the distaff, |
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Co i bhain-tighearna bhinn, Bain-tighearna bhinn, Ighinn righ, A Eirinn a shiubhail i, |
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Who is she the melodious lady-lord, Melodious lady-lord, Daughter of a king, From Erin she travelled, |
