28 THE pbesident's addbess. 



eating on their fast day. When Diarmid heard this, he broke 

 his fast, whereupon the Saints got ahead of him and triumphed.* 



Another remarkable story is that of Adamnan, the biog- 

 rapher of St. Columba. Irghalach son of Conaing had killed 

 Adamuan's kinsman Niall. The Saint thereupon fasted upon 

 Irghalach to obtain a violent death for him. The chief, aware 

 of this, fasted against Adamnan. The Saint not only fasted, 

 but stood all night in a river up to his neck. The chief did the 

 same. At last the Saint outwitted the chief by dressing his 

 servant in his clothes and letting Irghalach see him eat and 

 drink. The chief thereupon intermitted his fasting, and so 

 Adamnan got the better of him, and obtained his death. When 

 the Qrueen heard how he had been overreached, she was in terror 

 lest the Saint should curse her unborn child. So she " grovelled 

 at his feet," imploring mercy for the child. Adamnaiwconsented 

 only so far to curse it, that it should be born with one eye.f 



I have spoken particularly of this levy of a distress by 

 fasting, for it gives us the clue to the extravagant asceticism, 

 not of the early Celtic saints only, but of the yogis and fakirs of 

 India. 



The half-Christianised Celtic saints were perfectly familiar 

 with the law just described, they put its process into operation 

 against the chiefs with excellent effect. By no great e:ffort of 

 mind they carried their legal conceptions into their ideas of their 

 relation with the Almighty. When they desired to obtain 

 something from a chief, they fasted against him, and God was 

 to them the greatest of all chieftains, so they supposed that to 

 obtain a favour from God they must proceed against Him 

 by levying a distress. 



This lies at the root of all fakir self-torture in India. The 

 ascetic dares the Almighty to let him die of starvation. He is 

 perfectly assured that He will not do it, lest He should fall into 

 disrepute among the people, and that He will be brought to 

 submit, however reluctant He may be, in the end, just as would 

 a human chieftain. 



* " Silva Gadelica," ii, p. 82. 



t " Fragmentary Annals," ibid ii, p. 442-3. 



