Early Christian Ireland
The Irish Tradition. By Robin Flower. (Oxford University Press. Cumberlege. 8s. 6d4 Our of the medley of religion, superstition and bardic legend which seems to have gone to make up the mind of early Christian Ireland Dr. Flower has fished strange and beautiful things. He has a theory that, when religion begins to put its house in order and an age of spiritual reformation sets in, " the mind turns in- upon itself and examines the secret springs of its being," and we get first personal poetry and then, as a corollary to it, nature poetry. " Pleasant is the glint of the sun today upon these margins, because it flickers so,' writes one scribe at the top of a page of Cassiodorus on the Psalms which he had been copying all winter by the light of a dip candle." Or another writes,
"Over my head the woodland wall Rises ; the ousel sings to me ; Above my booklet lined for words The woodland birds shake out their glee.
"That's the blithe cuckoo chanting clear In mantle grey from bough to bcugh! God keep me still! for here I write A scripture bright in great woods now."
This seems leagues removed from the mixture of pagan and Christian magic-mongering which preceded it, where saints throw away their oars that they may be carried by supernatural means to islands, and where their cat which has supported them by catching salmon is subsequently turned into a monster because it continues to eat salmon instead of taking like its masters to ascetic practices. This is a valuable and scholarly book with excellent verse translations, But its effect upon one reader at least was to remind him that in religion, as well as elsewhere, the mean is still golden, and that even the ages of doubt can have advantages.
MONK GIBBON.
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