Lots of legends about Kevin. Here's a piece of an account I wrote some 23
yuears ago--I was gathering stories from two old men--that contains a
rather odd one.
Saint Kevin was a 5th Century disciple of Saint Patrick who christianized
Wicklow to the extent that it became Christian, and he has joined the
Fianna as a hero of local mythology, more as shaman than priest. At
Holywood on the west slope of Wicklow is a stone where the Saint is said to
have rested his hand. Its imprint is still there, and if one rests one's
own hand in the water that usually fills the depression one's warts will be
cured. The place is called Holywood because when Kevin, to escape the
presence of his unwanted disciples, decided to cross the then-forested
hills to find himself a wilderness hermitage the trees parted, like the Red
Sea, to make a path for him across the mountains. He arrived at
Glendalough, the Valley of the Two Lakes, where he found a cave large
enough to lie down in in the cliffs above the lower lake. Tradition has
decided that this was his hermitage. It did him no good: soon his disciples
had formed a monastic city of 10,000 on the lake shore which thrived until
the first British conquest in the 12th Century. There are still many
remains there, among them an intact 9th Century chapel, and, as on the
lakeshore in Connaught and everywhere else in Ireland, the ruined churches,
on grounds sacred probably before Saint Patrick, are now cemetaries, the
ground still considered sacred. And the glen, dramatically beautiful,
supports that assumption.
I mentioned that we had been to Glendalough the day before, and Leo,
holding his pipe, pronounced, undaunted by the presence of my family, which
rendered his pronouncement decidedly unexpected, "Never go on a honeymoon
to Glendalough. And why is this? There was a young woman was after wanting
Saint Kevin to marry her. And she pestered and pestered him and would not
be leaving him alone, until finally he drowned her in the lough." And Leo,
who had never been to Glendalough, although it was only ten miles away,
leaned theatrically forwards, so that the fire could catch a spark in his
eye (he enjoyed the bizarreness of his stories), and asked, "And did you
not notice how still the water was?" and waited for his point to sink in
before he leaned back to puff on his pipe.
At 01:34 PM 8/10/2000 GMT, you wrote:
> St. Kevin and the Blackbird
>
>And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
>
>The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
>
>His cell, but the cell is narrow, so
>
>
>
>One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
>
>As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
>
>And lays in it and settles down to nest.
>
>
>
>Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
>
>Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
>
>Into the network of eternal life,
>
>
>
>Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
>
>Like a branck out in the sun and rain for weeks
>
>Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
>
>
>
>And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
>
>Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
>
>Self-forgetful or in agony all the time
>
>
>
>From the neck on out down through his hurting
>
>forearms?
>
>Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
>
>Or has the shut-eyed bla! nk! of underearth
>
>
>
>Crept through him? Is there distance in his head?
>
>Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
>
>'To labour and not seek reward,' he prays,
>
>
>
>A prayer his body makes entirely
>
>For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
>
>And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name. :
>http://www.seamusheaney.com/POEMS/Spirit/stkevin.htm , EP into Italian
>of "St Kevin and the blackbird ("San Kevin e il merlo", Linea D'Ombra 1999.)
>>
>>>>&> Letteratura
>>...acquistare online. Passannanti Erminia NUOVO! - Le......forme di
>>scrittura visiva.
>>http://www.lycos.it/dir/Arte_e_Spettacolo/Letteratura/Autori/Novecento/
>>Altri siti come questo
>>
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