Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/462

 420 The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland.

will recite it at lying down and at rising up. Even with that Sechnall was dissatisfied. " The hymn," he truthfully said, " is long, and not everyone will be able to remember it " ; and, finally, St. Patrick compounded for the recitation of the last three stanzas only, which will convey a blessing equal to the whole. " Deo gratias" said the eulogist, satis- fied at last. It would appear that the Irish mediaeval memory was not to be trusted for long efforts, and that the convenient method of making three stanzas serve for the whole poem was one commonly resorted to, and we find indeed that in the Book of Mulling, in which this poem takes its place with other hymns in a special Office to invoke divine protection against that dreadful scourge of Ireland, the Yellow Plague, only three stanzas are used. The same thing occurs in this same service with regard to the hymns Noli Pater of St. Columba, that of Cum main Fota, Celebra Jtida, and that of St. Hilary, Hymnum dicat, in all of which cases three stanzas serve for the whole hymn. This convenient plan of claiming the rewards of devotion with a minimum of effort is further shown by an abridg- ment of the Psalter found in the Liber Hymnoriun, in which a collection of 365 verses is made to do duty for the whole Psalter, the Preface stating that the selection was made by Pope Gregory and bore his special commendation. That the promise of St. Patrick was fulfilled may be held to be proved by a story in the Life of St. Canice, in which a man is said to have been saved from demons by reciting the last three stanzas, " nam vir ille tria capittda de hymno S. Patricii ante mortem . . . cantavit et per hoc liberaius est de manibus tiostris." ^

only the three last verses are extant, all the remaining stanzas of this alphabetical hymn having apparently been forgotten. In the Basle Psalter (Ms. A. vii. 3) the hymn is described as Xps in nostra.
 * Colgan, Tr. Thaum, p. 210. In the case of the hymn Christus in nostra,

For other examples of the benefit derived from reciting three stanzas see "The Colloquy," Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., p. 202; Mugroin, abbot of Hi, is said to have been " skilled in the three verses."