hi i'm bruce fumi if you want to
understand the birth of scotland
then you need to know the midwife now in
bbc's call the midwife they're nuns
but this one was a monk so i've brought
you
to dunkell cathedral to tell you about
the monk who made
scotland and yes saint columba died 250
years before scotland existed
so how could he have been the monk that
made scotland
well fifteen hundred years after his
death we still have catholic schools
called saint columba
protestant stained glass windows to him
and whether you call it
london dairy or derry both episcopalian
protestant and
catholic churches in that town are named
after him he's the most revered saint in
scotland after saint
andrew he's one of the twelve apostles
of ireland
inspired the monastery at linda's farm
and even has a lutheran parish
in england named after him i think it's
safe to say
that its influence went beyond the grave
look if you're interested in scottish
history then hit the subscribe button at
the bottom right hand side of the screen
then you have to click the notification
bell
so that youtube will tell you when i
release new videos
in the meantime let me tell you a story
of the saint of scotland's birth
liam mcnamara did the fantastic drone
work for this video
but when i asked him he'd never heard of
sync columba
now when a guy called liam mcnamara has
never heard of a scene
and a guy with a presbyterian background
takes two days to realize it's funny
you know that we're from perth and not
glasgow
now i don't need to know where you're
from but i would really like to know if
you'd already heard about saint columba
if you're hearing these stories for the
first time or if you just never thought
about them in this particular way tell
me
in the comment section below so
the life of columba born in 521 a.d in
donegal i always knew him as saint
columba
until i went to learn gaelic and then i
heard the name
call him kelia the dove of the church
call him kyria he's quite portional
highborn in the line of kings of ireland
no less great-grandson of the famous
nile of the nine hostages and royal
blood are the northern half of the
o'neill family
they'd fight back and forth contesting
kingship
with the southern anneals as later
celtic kings like macbeth
and duncan would do right here in their
turn
if this was game of thrones his house
would be an opening credits
kingship would probably have come to him
later in life but he chose
the stone floors poor food and
asceticism
of a monk he studied under a couple of
guys both called saint finnian
he studied he copied psalms and
scriptures
oh wait till you hear about that
controversy
he founded monasteries performed
miracles and intervened in high affairs
but he still
had the common touch to be loved by all
now here in scotland
we know of him because of his impact and
our pictish pagan
ancestors but we'll come to that later
on
sin columba arrived in what we call
argyle around 563 a.d
with 12 piles now some say he came as a
missionary to the pict
some say that he came and ministered to
the already christian gales of dalryada
and others say that he came for
isolation but i have it in good
authority and i'll tell you
because i know you're not a gossip
although if you shared this video it
would be a great help
anyway don't say you heard that from me
but i was an iona recently
and a really old very white faced almost
translucent monk
told me what actually happened colin
kilia had already established several
monasteries in ireland
and he wanted them all to have accurate
bibles
well years before his old teacher and
mentor finnian
had brought back a precious bible from
pilgrimage in rome
colin kill you thinks i'll go to
finnian's monastery and he'll let me
copy the book
well a second site couldn't have been
working that day because you'll never
guess
oh you did finnian said no
but what he only wanted to copy it
columba couldn't see what the problem
was
so after dark when all the other monks
were in bed he crept down to the chapel
with ink
quill and parchment and started to
intricately copy the book and the
gloaming light of a candle
now there was no way that he was going
to be able to copy the whole bible
so he just decided to copy the psalms
night after night he gave up his sleep
to copy out the sambucan secret
each successive night the struggle
became harder
as weariness bore him down but the
wondrous light of his goal
drew him on now one night a young monk
saw the candlelight coming from the
church
and he looked through a crack in the
door to see colin kaelia
beautifully the young monk went back to
report to finnian
now finna knew what a grand job column
kelia would make of the salter
and he said nothing until the day that
column kilia
was due to leave then he revealed that
colin kelly had copied the book without
his permission
or knowledge and the beautifully
transcribed book
must stay well you can imagine
neither man was going to budge
eventually somebody suggested that they
go to the highest earthly authority
dermot the king of tara now dermot
might have been from the southerner
nails but you still call him kelia's
cousin
that combined with the fact that he was
clearly in the right meant that colin
kaelia felt pretty confident
now i can't tell you how long the
deliberation lasted i can't tell you
whether competing family claims concern
for feuds
the solomonic wisdom or the toss of a
coin we're determining factors
but dermot stated his conclusion thus
the calf belongs to the cow
as such the copy belongs to the original
and it must stay
the lower down dirty cow rustler
column kelio stormed out in a fury but
he was still a man of god
and these things can be healed with time
and the invention of the printing press
but before much time had passed derma
had a great games
i suppose the ancestor of highland games
where warriors would compete in strength
and manly prowess but in the process
high spirits and ultimately anger
led to one of the northern anneals
hitting one of the southern anneals with
such a blow
that it killed him now before revenge
could be sought the young lad
headed for the sanctuary the monastery
of his kinsmen call him kelia
now the tradition of sanctuary was
respected
by everyone but dermot arrived at the
monastery
dragged the young man out of the
sanctuary and had him killed
on the spot to avenge his child
this was another outrage against colin
kaelia
it was an affront to custom and an
offence
against god colin kilia headed north to
ask his kin group
if they would face such an insult
they wouldn't
the two armies met at the battle of
caldrein would call him kelia
standing on the sidelines his arms
raised to heaven and protection
of his people so that whilst dermot lost
3 000 men
the losses of the northern anneals were
few now needless to say
there was a public inquiry the upshot
was that colin kaelia would set the task
of saving
as many souls and he'd caused to be lost
but where was he gonna find enough
sinners
that's right scotland now i say
scotland scotland didn't actually exist
at the time
when he came across the irsc to kentir
he wasn't going
from one country to another watch my
video
how scotland got his borders now i don't
have time to cover all here i'll leave a
link at the end
but back in the 6th century what's now
scotland was made up
of four kingdoms the southwest were
britain's
southeast where saxons north east were
the pigs
and what we'd call argyle was dariada
part of a kingdom that stretched across
the irish sea
and took in heberdeen islands in the
northern part of ireland
so for columbia coming across that
stretch of water wasn't an immigration
so much as a commute now obviously he
had contacts
and connell mccongo king of dariada gave
him iona to build his monastery on what
was effectively
the edge of ireland when colonel died
columba consecrated aidan mcgavrin
another
powerful dowry arden king now when he
moved
from dariada up the great glen to
inverness or down to the mountains of
lorne to tayside
that's when he moved to another land
where a translator was needed
to talk to the pets now the irish the
gaels dariad and scots were part of one
people separated by the irish sea
and the pects were similarly one people
separated by the cairngorm mountains
you're the people for true in the north
and the people
of athol or tay here in the south
james e fraser's book from caledonia to
pickland covers the academics of it and
there's a link in the description
there's a link to alec wolff's book from
pickling to alpha 2.
as our title suggests this was the birth
of scotland now the links are there if
you want an academic read
i'm just here for the gossip
colin kaelia headed up the great glen to
meet with the pictish king
on the way he met the loch ness monster
did you know that the first documented
site of the loch ness monster
was recorded in the life of saint
columba he was the birth of scotland
anyway they're heading up the greek land
to convert the pics and they're coming
along loch ness
and some pagan pics were having a
funeral
who's the funeral forces call him kill
you oh
for the guy who got eaten by the monster
in the lock
now i'm assuming that there were bits
left that hadn't been eaten i wasn't
there at the time
so colin kaelia sees an opportunity to
demonstrate the power of his god
and he says to one of his followers go
and take off your cassock
and swim in the lock why would i do that
says the follower
where else is column kelly it'll lure
the monster
right enough says his father that makes
sense and he jumps in the water
and sure enough up comes a monster just
as a seabee's about to take a bite
saint columba lifts his staff and says
be gone
and the monster disappeared back in the
deep
and ever since ness has been nervous
about coming up to the surface
he did other miracles he cast a demon
out of a bucket of milk and made stilton
cheese
when the king of the picts barred the
doors of his fort
calm kelia made the sign of the cross
and the doors
miraculously opened these
and other miracles persuaded the pics of
the power of his gods
so picture standing stones started to
have crosses
in their design now if you read the
slightly academic book i mentioned by
james fraser
you'll see that he questions whether
colin kaelia really evangelized to the
northern picts
or rather minister to southern pix who'd
already come into contact with
christianity
apparently he and saint mungo the patron
saint of glasgow exchanged staffs
further up the river here at lochte
irish writings tell us that he was the
teacher who would teach the tribes of
the tea
his blessing turned them the mouths of
the fierce ones who lived in the t
to the will of the king columba
is heavily associated with this place
now the stories of his miracles and
ministry
were written by adamant he was born 45
years after colin kaelia died
now that's actually quite soon compared
with biographies of william wallace
or robert the bruce which takes me back
to the making of scotland
you see scotland was made when daoriada
and pickland
came together and very quickly the
languages and culture of those early
colombian christian gales of dalryada
took over from the now disappeared
culture
of the picts that happened in the period
between columbus death
and the coming of kenneth mcalpin a
pectish king
with a garlic name now whether columba
proselytized the pics in person with a
piece of pickled pepper
or whether it was the monks that he
trained his
influence on that cultural shift and
assimilation
was huge now the other huge impact on
the formation of scotland
was of course the vikings in 802
vikings first attacked iona and raided
the monastery built
by columba now they come back again
and again and again in 825 the monk
blamak was martyred killed for refusing
to give the vikings the location
of the shrine to call him kelia iona
was too exposed to these heathen and
columbus relics
had to be moved now when colin kelly had
crossed irish sea to daryada
it was part of the larger kingdom of the
gaels
when his relics were taken from iona for
protection
some were taken to kells and county
meath some
were brought here to dunkell to what had
been southern pickland
the birth pangs of alapa
were here one of the most definitive
and forgotten battles in scottish
history was in 839
vikings wiped out most of the pictition
ability
and into that space came kenneth mcalpin
columbus relics were brought here to
kenneth's chosen spiritual base in the
new kingdom of alappa
dunkeld would be the main church and new
home
of columba in scotland
now academics will argue was kenneth
mcalpin really the first king of scots
or was it his sons or grandsons who
should technically be given the title
the point is that whether we look back
to his children
grandchildren or kenneth himself they
all look back
to the monk that made scotland saint
columba
or as they would have called him colin
kaelian
now the gaelic for devotee of column is
male column
and there will be four kings called
malcolm who would follow kenneth mcalpin
to the scottish throne lots of folks
still have malcolm as some names
or is what we used to call christian
names
i hope that you now have a little more
devotion to
or at least knowledge of colin kaelia
now you have to watch my video how did
scotland get its borders
and feel free to support the channel in
the description below
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