Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/30

16 of wolves as a judgment, having strayed, against Bridget's orders, among the mountains. S. Ninnocha had as many as four bishops under her command. Bishop Etchen was subject to the jurisdiction of S. Columba, who was in priest's orders.

The Celtic Church as we know it, till gradually brought under Roman discipline, was purely monastic. The monasteries were the centres whence the ministry of souls was exercised. Within the sanctuary a rampart was thrown up, generally of earth, and within this was the church, and about it the separate circular cells occupied by the monks. Outside the sanctuary and throughout the lands belonging to the saint lived those subject to the rule of the saint or his coarb.

There was a right exercised by the saint which had previously been accorded to the bard. It was that of ill-wishing. The right was a legal one, but hedged about with restrictions. A bard, and after him a saint, might not ill-wish unless he had been refused a just request. If he ill-wished unjustly, then it was held that the ill-wish returned on the head of him who had launched it.

And there can be no doubt that this legal power conferred on the saints inspired terror. If a chief's horse fell under him, or his cows refused their milk, if he got a bad cold or rheumatic pains, he immediately supposed that he had been ill-wished, and sent for the saint, and endeavoured to satisfy him.

That this supposed power may have been employed occasionally for ambitious purposes is likely enough, but in general it was exercised only for