CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 513 



Life says that Columba preached to the Saxons, but there is a 

 difficulty in accepting this statement. How was an Irishman, 

 who had never been brought in contact with Saxons, to acquire 

 their tongue so as to be able to preach in it with fluency ? More- 

 over, the route to and from the continent was, for the Irish of the 

 southern parts of their Island, by Forth Mawr near 8. David's, 

 then to Milford Haven, to cross to Padstow, thence over the 

 back-bone of Cornwall to one of the estuaries on the south, 

 where they embarked for Dol, or S. Malo. 



The life of S. Columba was not written till after his death. 

 Finding, whilst in Britain, that one of his disciples was com- 

 piling his' biography, he threw the MS. into the fire, and spoke on 

 the matter so seriously to them, that none ventured to commit to 

 writing anything concerning him, till after his death. But the 

 Life we have is a much later composition, and unhappily only a 

 single copy remains, so that we have no means of saying which of 

 the statements made in it are additions by a late redactor. 

 It is quite possible that the editor, in the 12th or 13th century, 

 finding in the original that his hero had preached and converted 

 a Rig in Britain, added the information that this was a Saxon 

 king. 



It was not till 577 that the West Saxons set their faces to 

 the setting sun, and defeated the Britons at Deorham, took and 

 burnt Gloucester, Bath, and Cirencester. The Saxons then spread 

 over Somerset to the marshes of the Axe below Weston-super- 

 Mare. It was not till the second half of the eighth century that 

 Devon was conquered. 



Now, the period when Columba was returning to Ireland 

 must have been before 550, and one does not see how he could 

 have ventured among Saxons, so far out of his way, and whom, 

 moreover, he could not address in their own tongue. 



But if, as I suspect was the case, in crossing Cornwall, so as 

 to take ship for Wales, he came into contact with a Domnonian 

 Rig at Castle-an-Dinas, and converted him, a necessary conse- 

 quence would be a grant of land, and the founding of a monastic 

 settlement. Conversion has two meanings, it is applied to the 

 rescuing of a Pagan from heathenism to Christianity, and also 

 to the bringing of a secular into the monastic life. 



