COLUMCILLE'S COFFIN -- The Black Watch

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Date Posted: 05:38:26 01/28/02 Mon
Author: Nancy
Author Host/IP: spider-th043.proxy.aol.com / 152.163.213.63
Subject: COLUMCILLE'S COFFIN

A Celtic folktale

Colum Cille (Dove of the Church) was born in AD 521 in Gartan. Co. Donegal, and belonged to the U� N�ill dynasty. There are more than 50 monasteries in Ireland and Scotland claiming to be founded by him, probably only were founded by Colum Cille himself, the others by his disciples.

After Colum was sentenced to exile (another story unto itself), he sailed away from Derry to Scotland. He wasn't even allowed to look back as he went. He went to Iona and spent his life there converting pagans.

Colum had a lovely big white horse of which he was very fond and when Colum grew old and lay on his deathbed, the horse came into the house and over to the bed where he lay. It sniffed and nosed around him and then went out again. Colum died that night. But before he died, he asked that his name be put on his coffin and that the coffin should be cast out into the sea. And so it was done.

Down in Inishowen there was a man who had a lot of cattle and he had a boy hired to herd them. The boy used to take them down to the shore every day to graze. But there was one cow which never ate any grass and was forever down on the sands licking at something or other.

The boy never paid much attention to her, but the farmer noticed that this particular cow was beginning to give more and more milk, far more than the rest of them, so much so, in fact, that there weren't enough vessels about the place to hold it all.

"What's that cow eating more than any of the rest of them?" asked the farmer."She's not eating anything at all," said the boy. "But she's always down on the sands licking at something or other."

Down they went to see what the cow was licking and , sure enough, there was Columcille's coffin sticking up out of the sand on the shore with his name on the lid and orders from him to be buried inDownpatrick. And so it was done....the man who would later become a saint was laid to rest.

Nancy

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