Celts to Vikings 10: St. Columba Battles the Druids

Among the many stories recorded in the Life of St. Columba are two battles between the saint and a Pictish druid named Broichan.

One day Broichan addressed St. Columba, saying, "Tell me, Columba, when do you intend to sail?"

"God willing and life lasting," replied St. Columba, "we plan to start our voyage in threes days' time."

"You will not be able to," said Broichan combatively, "for I will produce wind and mist to stop you."

"The almighty power of God rules all things," said the saint, "and he directs all our comings and goings."

Why say more? On the day he had planned in his heart, Columba came to the long loch at the head of the River Ness. The druids began to congratulate themselves, seeing a great mist covered the loch and a stormy wind was blowing against Columba's people. . . .

Columba, seeing that the elements were roused to fury against him, called upon Christ the Lord. Though the sailors were hesitant, he was steadfast. He boarded the boat and ordered them to hoist the sail into the wind. This was done,and all the crowd of people saw his boat move off directly into the wind at marvelous speed.

In this and several other stories Columba seems to battle the druids on common magical ground, testing his power over the weather or disease against theirs. In other stories Columba acts just as druids once had, making prophecies about the future fortunes of kings and their houses. Columba's druidic qualities provide a way to understand the Christianization of northern Europe. In some ways, things changed a great deal. Christianity brought its admiration for humility, asceticism, and willful poverty into these societies, and they would thenceforth have two competing value systems rather than just the worldly aristocratic values they had had before. Christianity brought with it Latin and a huge chunk of classical, Mediterranean civilization. Christian institutions, especially monasteries, became vital social organs. As a religion of the book Christianity brought an obsession with writing everything down, and it is mostly because of the efforts of monks that we have any record of the pagan past.

In other ways, though, Irish or Germanic society went on after Christianity just as it had before. Fundamental things like the way land was distributed, the legal status of women, the organization of agriculture, the power of kings, and so on were not altered. Many things about the religious attitudes of people did not change: the Irish, for example, continued to believe in the prophetic power of visions and dreams, the possibility of divine beings appearing in our world, and even in the existence of the old gods, although they were gradually changed into heroes, demons, or minor spirits like leprechauns and banshees.