{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6740", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6740, "subject": "Short Story 128*: How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2015-04-26T19:11:04+00:00", "last": "2015-04-26T20:01:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-26T19:11:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 128*: How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "#HOW THE BISHOP SAILED TO INNISKEEN\n\n“How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen” was first published in *Spirits of\nChristmas* in 1989 and is collected in *Innocents Aboard*.\n\n##Summary:\n\nThe story begins with a verse from T.H. White’s “The Godstone and the\nBlackymore”, concerning a King who once ruled over the Inniskeas chosen on\nthe basis of his strength, and how the only festival held at that time was\nthe sick call of a Priest coming to visit. In many ways, the entire story\nis a rewriting of White’s memoir and his own visit to the Inniskeas.\n\nOn the first day of winter (and almost certainly on the solstice), the\nunnamed first person narrator, a writer of novels concerning Xerxes and\n“King” Pausanius, by inference Gene Wolfe (whose Latro served under Xerxes\nand came to befriend Pausanius), is exploring the westernmost islands of\nIreland.\n\nThe narrator speaks with his guide, Pat Hogan, in the unroofed remains of a\nchapel on the island of Inniskeen. They discuss that the empty niche above\nthe door once held a stone, which served as Saint Cian’s pillow, which was\nrough when he got it but smooth when he died, for he had slept on it every\nday for 60 years. Hogan claims that the stone had worn away to reveal an\nimage of the Virgin Mary.\n\nThe narrator asks why he would want a stone pillow, and Hogan responds,\n“Not for his own sins, sure, for he’d none. But for yours, sir, an” mine.\nThere was others, too, that come to live on this island.\n\nBesides the hermits and eremites Hogan mentions here, fisherfolk came to\nthe island after them, and eventually the chapel was built and the stone\nset above the door. To quell storms, they would anoint the stone with\nwater, but in the case of an extreme storm, they would carry the entire\nstone into the water and submerge it. Hogan says the stone was sunk in the\nbay in his grandfather’s time. “Some say it was the pirates and some the\nProtestants. They told that to a woman that come from Dublin, an” she\nbelieved them.\n\nOur narrator already knows that this woman was the one who had fenced the\ncromlech at the summit of the island [in White’s memoir, a cromlech\ncomposed of stones, shells, and the bones of men, though Wolfe does not\nmention this]. The narrator asks what happened to the stone, and he\nresponds that a Bishop took it on Christmas Even in the time of his\ngrandfather (or great-grandfather).\n\nHogan claims there was never a priest assigned to the chapel, just a man\nnamed O?Dea appointed to take care of the stone. When the men were away,\nPat says that it was the women who wetted the stone. He claims the stone is\nin Dublin, dry as a bone, since the woman dove for it and took it to the\nmuseum there, bringing it up in two pieces: “Some say she broke it under\nthe water to make the bringing up easier.”\n\nThe narrator asks if the bishop threw it into the bay [see the story of the\nGodstone and Father O?Reilly below in Literary and Cultural Allusions for\nthe source of this question].\n\nHogan tells that the bishop who preceded the titular one always stayed\nclose to the cathedral, and when the new bishop was appointed, he vowed,\n“The devil take me — if ever I say mass Christmas Eve twice in the same\nchurch”, and traveled throughout the area finding the most remote and needy\ncommunities. [Hogan mentions the sorry state of the roads in those days,\nenough to make one, “thank the Lord for General Wade” — an early 18th\ncentury officer who was responsible for many of the roads and bridges in\nScotland.]\n\nWhen the Bishop hears of Inniskeen, he wants word sent to the O?Dea to have\na boat waiting for him at Erris. A fight determined who would have the\nhonor of picking up the Bishop, and Pat’s great-grandfather won. The\ngrandfather of Hogan, named Sean, is not permitted to go with his father,\nfor there was rough weather. Sean fell asleep. He awakens to see the\nBishop there, but very few of the people actually come to attend the\nceremony: “But Lord, sir, there wasn’t half there that should ve been!”\n\nThe Bishop was friendly and blessed everyone, and, “When they sang, there\nwas angels singing with them. — It was like cryin” for happiness, an? it\nwas forever. At the end of the mass, the bishop gave O?Dea a letter, and\nsays that he must take the stone with him. The bishop left with Hogan’s\ngreat-grandfather. His son sneaks away to watch them leave, and as the sun\nrises, his father, the boat, and the bishop all vanish.\n\nThe body of his great grandfather washed up, but the bishop’s was never\nfound. “He’d wanted the holy stone, do you see, to weight him. Or some say\nto sleep on, there on the bottom. ?Tis the same thing, maybe.”\n\nHogan continues, “They’re all dead now — But they do say the ghosts of them\nthat missed midnight mass can be seen comin” over the bay Christmas Eve,\nfor they was buried on the mainland, sir, most of “em, or died at sea like\nthe bishop.”\n\nThe narrator says he does not want to come back to the island for Christmas\nEve, for he must go to Bangor [probably the small city in Wales].\n\nHogan reveals that O?Dea would let no one see the letter until after New\nYear’s. It said that the bishop had drowned on his way to Inniskeen, and\nwas written by the priest at Erris two days after Christmas.\n\nThe narrator says that he had come to Inniskeen in search of the remote\npast: “For I am, among various other things, a writer of novels about that\npast. — And yet it seemed to me that night that I had not found the past,\nbut the future; for they were all gone” In the Inniskeas our race is\nalready extinct. We stayed a hundred centuries, and are gone. When he\narrives at Bangor on December 22nd, he finds himself stranded there and\ndecides to hire Hogan to take him to the island on Christmas Eve from Erris.\n\nHeading there, they face a huge storm, and Hogan says that they will never\nactually arrive. He looks for the North Island, and glimpses something to\nthe left which “might have been Duvillaun or Innisglora, or even Achill, or\nall three. Black Rock Light was visible only occasionally, which was\nsomewhat reassuring.” [See Literary and Cultural Allusions below]\n\nThe boat is lifted in a comber, and lightning reveals a sight which causes\nthe narrator to point back towards Erris. They sit in Hogan’s parlor and\nthe narrator looks at the small cr?che set ?with its as-yet empty manger,\ncracked, ethereal Mary, an devoted Joseph, [which] had more to say about\nChristmas than any tree I have ever seen. He does not want to try again\nnext year, and is silent when Hogan’s wife asks him what he saw out there." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It was no ghost, or at least there was nothing of sheet or skull or\nectoplasm, none of the conventional claptrap of movies and Halloween. In\nappearance it was no more than the floating corpse of a rather small man\nwith longish white hair. He was dressed in dark clothes, and his eyes - I\nsaw them plainly as he rolled in the wave - were open. No doubt it was the\nmotion of the water; but as I stared at him for half a second or so in the\nlightning’s glare, it appeared to me that he raised his arm and gestured,\ninvitingly and with the utmost good will, in the direction of Inniskeen." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have never returned to Ireland, and never will. And yet I have no doubt\nat all that the time will soon come when I, too, shall attend his midnight\nmass in the ruined chapel. What will follow that service, I cannot guess." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In Christ’s name, I implore mercy for my soul." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "##Commentary:\n\nOf this story, Wolfe says in his introduction to *Innocents Aboard*, \"There\nreally are islands like the one in 'How the Bishop Sailed to Iniskeen' off\nthe coast of Ireland, islands with ruined monasteries on them. It's hard\nfor us to understand how happy monks are, for the most part. Yet they are,\nand pity us, and pray for us.\" The majority of the text of Wolfe’s story is\nactually culled from one of T.H. White’s memoirs, in which White searches\nfor rumors and facts of a stone known as the Godstone, historically from\nthe same islands that our narrator is visiting. The strange blending of\npagan powers and Catholic reverence combined in the stone are discussed at\nlength below under Literary and Cultural Allusions, but the subtext of\nWolfe’s story is that of more overtly Christian salvation and damnation —\nWolfe’s does not seem to dwell on any pagan origin for the stone. Is the\nrisen Bishop, floating in the stormy waters, a figure of benevolence or\ndamnation? It seems that he perished before he ever said mass, and took the\nstone pillow of Saint Cian to give him rest in the sea. In many ways, this\nis a simple Christmas ghost story, in which a holy man dies in seeking to\nbring the message of Christmas salvation to remote places, and still\nmanages to do so even long after he is gone. Those who missed his mass are\ndefinitely implied to be the worse for it. The most confusing aspect of\nthe story is of course the letter telling of the Bishop’s death at sea,\nwritten two days after Christmas, and delivered by the Bishop himself\nbefore it was ever written. Of course, as a spiritual fantasy, this is not\ntruly a problem: the bishop and Hogan’s great-grandfather perish at sea\nbefore they ever arrive, and their spirits come to ultimately take the\nhermit’s stone after performing the Christmas Eve mass, designed to\ncelebrate the good news of the birth of Jesus. Once again, Wolfe has set\nhis started his story on the winter solstice, as with so many of his other\n“modern” but religious works.\n\nOne of the themes of the story is the desolate abandonment of the Inniskeas\nand the mortal nature of man, that endured for so long but is now gone. Yet\nsomething lingers after the death of man, and it is a personification of\nCatholic spirituality, though it disturbs the narrator greatly. In White’s\nmemoir, the woman from Dublin who fences the mounds on the North Island\nexcavated them up, to find that they were made up of stones, shells, and\nthe bones of men. She finds a cognate of the stone in one of the mounds\nrather than at sea, for in White’s memoir, he speculates that the stone\nmight have been switched before it ever fell into the priest’s hands, and\navoided a watery fate. [See Literary and Cultural Allusions below for a\nmuch more thorough explanation in White’s own words]. In Wolfe’s story, it\nseems that this woman from Dublin and her undersea excavation may have\ndisturbed the sleep of the Bishop (though there was no indication that his\nwork ever truly ceased). Wolfe’s narrative has in some way transported the\nmounds of shells and bones fenced off by the woman from Dublin (identified\nas Mlle. Henry in White’s memoir) into an excavation of the sea. The\nbishop is still inviting people to the Christmas mass on the North Island,\neven though he is dead, for in Wolfe’s cosmology, even if there are\nsinister implications for “sinners”, this particular spirit has not ceased\nthe work that it began in life.\n\n##Literary and cultural allusions:\n\nMuch of the back story can actually be found in the rather obscure travel\nmemoir of T.H. White, *The Godstone and the Blackymore*, including the\nconcept of a stone which a holy hermit used as a pillow. [In the book, the\nlong digressions on falconry and training goshawks and peregrines, one of\nWhite’s amateur passions, with his mentor and patron Bunny, really resonate\nwith some of the scenes of Musk and Blood in *The Book of the Long Sun* -\nespecially given White’s classification by Sylvia Warner as a homosexual\nwith sado-masochistic tendencies - though other sources tend to contradict\nthis, merely stating that at times White was confused about his sexuality.\nTowards the end of White’s memoir, one Irishman tells the story of a man\nforced to stay the night in a haunted room to win the hand of the owner’s\ndaughter — which strongly echoes the story of the Banshee in *Peace*.]\n\nIn his memoir, White actually stays alone on the Inniskea Islands for some\ntime, seeking refuge in broken houses and hunting. Alone in midwinter, he\ncontemplates the history of the island and its blend of pagan influence\nwith Catholic reverence, and even composes the poem below, a stanza of\nwhich begins Wolfe’s story:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Inniskeas are islands off the west coast, once inhabited by men. But\nten were drowned in 1927, in what was called the Inniskea Disaster, and the\nland being too exhausted by a thousand years of 'sea-manure' (sea-weed) to\ngrow potatoes any longer they had been abandoned. The little village stood\nquite silent beside its anchorage, the roofs fallen, the stones of the\nwalls in the street. In twelve years it seemed to have lost all human\norigin. No people were expected by its broken doors. A few black bullocks\nsheltered there at night, the seals came into the harbour, two small black\nbirds visited it in the mornings, two ravens cronked higher up, and all the\ntime you heard the eternal geese, which, driven away during man's thousand\nyears of residence, had now returned." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The people in the currach had been afraid to leave me, because it was a\nbad coast. There was a chance that they might not be able to come back in\nsix weeks, as sometimes happened on the next-door neighbour, the Black Rock\nLight. Also they feared the dead of the disaster and perhaps a certain old\ngod of the island, venerated until the last generation, of whom I was to\nhear more." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Inniskea, long before Patrick came," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Stood the stone idol of the secret name:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The magic people made him. No surprise," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No threat, no question lit his two round eyes," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nor had he other features. Consciousness" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Was all his feeling, all his creed 'I wis.'" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He watched the wild geese twenty centuries." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Inniskea is an island. Ten years gone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The human race lived here, the windows shone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "With candles over the water, and men" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fished currachs, women wellwards went from ben." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There was a King to rule the island then," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chosen for might, who had his admiral" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of all the Inniskeas. The priest's sick call" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Was this cold pasture's only festival." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mass was so far off, with such storms between," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And in the dark nights moved so much unseen" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the wild waters, that Man's beating heart" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Still sometimes turned towards the old God's art." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Much magic was made with the dew. The wells" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Secretly stirred with strange internal spells." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To keep the Agent off, or the Excise," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fires were lit before the God of Eyes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And dances made around his stone, sunwise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Their old cold Godstone they, for comfort, dressed" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In one new suit each year: his Sunday best." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then the remorseless sea, the all-beleaguring," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The crafty, long-combed sea, the stark and whistling," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The savage, ancient sea, master at waiting," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Struck once." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Two hours later the mainland" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Received one man, a saucepan in his hand," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Astride an upturned currach. At the Inn" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They gave him clothes without, whisky within," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Such as they could: but he nor left nor right" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Altered his eyes. Only, with all his might," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This man bailed with his saucepan all that night." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In half one hour of squall, from calm to calm, the Main" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Holding his ten mates drowned had fallen on sleep again." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nobody painted the houses after." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The islanders lost all heart for laughter." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Work was a weariness, dances were done," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the island whose pride of Man was gone." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now I am all alone on Inniskea," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All alone with the wind and with the sea." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The corrugated iron, rusted brown," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gives a burnt look to the abandoned town." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The roofs are ruins and the walls are down." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Land Commission took the people ashore." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "King Phillip Lavell is here no more." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They have even taken away the God Who Saw," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To stand in Dublin Museum. From ten till four" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He eyes the opposite wall." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Oh God of Eyes," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Bound there in darkness and deprived of skies," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Know that your Geese are back. Know that their cries" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lag on the loud wind as, by candlelight," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At Inniskea's one fire, I, your last subject, write:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lulled by their laughter, cradled in their night." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "fire bright." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The explicit mention of the stone as a kind of panopticon that now stares\nat the same wall daily, imprisoned in a museum rather than working amongst\nthe people — a people now gone or dead - must have appealed to Wolfe. While\non the island, White furthermore recollects a strange encounter with a bull\nafter his door flies open by itself:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, stepping out, I found myself face to face with the Devil." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He was black, motionless, a darkness silhouetted against the darkness,\nconsidering me with ears and horns. I stopped also, and considered him. The\nhorns took shape against the night." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When the door had opened itself, I had stood for two heartbeats, then\nfirmly shut it. When the lights had dimmed, I had sat for two heart-beats,\nwaiting for them to burn again. To the cries of otters I had turned a\ndefiant ear. Now, face to face with Satan, I stood as quietly as himself,\nfor many heart-beats." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We watched each other with curiosity, in the calm of aidless spirits. You\ncan only be afraid when you are clothed with civilization, when you have\nliens of succour. You can only be frightened when you have a chance of\nescape. Now that I had no human ties, no roof over my head, no means of\nescape, I had no fears. The Devil, with the same dignity as I felt myself,\nmoved off quietly in the shape of one of the few black bullocks which were\nleft all winter on the island. I had not frightened him he did not gallop\naway with the sudden panic of half-wild cattle and he had not frightened me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe employs some of these details, mentioning how “a few shaggy black\ncattle are humanity’s sole contribution; I cannot call them wild, because\nthey do not know human beings well enough for fear. In the Inniskeas our\nrace is already extinct. We stayed a hundred centuries, and are gone.” In\nWolfe’s story, this bull is the only sign that human beings once lived\nthere — save, of course, for the eternal presence of the bishop himself.\n\nBesides depicting this abandoned desolation, White soon becomes obsessed\nwith stories of The Godstone, which, in the memoir, is given new clothes\nevery year, though White recounts many different versions of its tale:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The South Island, once growing jealous of the North's holy possession,\nstole him [the Godstone] away to the South in a currach on a dark night. At\nabout this time a barrel of paraffin was washed ashore, and the King of the\nSouth had it brought into the house where the Godstone stood, hidden away\nbehind a curtain at the hinder end. They were experimenting with the\nparaffin?a novelty to them in the hope that it would be something to drink,\nwhen a child set fire to it, and the house was consumed. One man was burned\nto death in the flames. But the fire halted at the curtain of the Godstone,\nand he was untouched. ?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Godstone had begun to fascinate me. It had become a wild goose chase\nof its own. ?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[The Catholic Islanders] did not want to be investigated as idolaters by\nan infidel. It had happened before, in the case of some interfering\nProtestant missionaries from Achill, and the search had resulted in\ncalamity. They were partly ashamed of the stone and partly anxious to\ndefend it. My heavy mind too blunt, direct and Saxon was bejingled with\nideas about paganism and phallic pillars and the claptrap of a half-baked\narchaeologist. Their reaction therefore, unless carefully stalked, was to\nmaintain that the image never had been worshipped, and was in fact an\nordinary Catholic statue before which Creeds, Our Fathers and Hail Marys\nmight be recited. In this, they were not being quite frank." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The thing was called in English the Godstone. In Gaelic, so far as I could\ncatch it by ear, it was called the Naomh?g?that not very secret name,\nmentioned in the verses which I had written on the island before starting\nthe quest in earnest. Now 'naomh?g' could mean a canoe or a cot. But\n'naomh' meant 'saint or holy one' and '?g' was the adjective for 'young'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Little Holy One. ?. They pronounced it 'nee-vogue'. Scrabbling about\nin a dictionary, I found that 'neamh' meant 'heaven' and 'n?am'\n'brightness'; but also that 'neamh' was a negative prefix, so that\n'neamh-?g', unless I had gone astray in the grammar, might mean the reverse\nof young: the Old One. .\n\nWhite spent five months investigating the stone and the stories surrounding\nit." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It was said in one of the country legends that St Patrick failed to bless\nErris when he blessed all Ireland from the top of the Reek. ?. [People] had\nabandoned the two narrow, rocky islands of Inniskea, which covered a\nstretch of about four miles, three miles out to sea, because of the\n'disaster' in 1927 and because life on them was said to be 'slavery'. All\ncommodities, including religion and fuel, had had to be imported by boat,\nfor there was no priest. Two other islands, Innisglora and Duvillaun (the\nBlack Island), were also deserted. All had been inhabited by 'saints'?that\nis to say, by monks in the seventh century, and long before that by other\nraces, stretching back to people perhaps like Esquimaux, who lived on\nshellfish. Vikings had raided their waters, as the French lobster-fishermen\nstill did. The islands bristled with prehistory with shell-mounds and\nbeehive huts and stone circles and the graves of saints. Within living\nmemory they had had their own admirals and kings. It was by no means\nimprobable that they should have had their demi-gods, particularly since\nthe nearest priest was over the sea. If a man died on the islands, he was\nleft untouched where he lay, even in the turf ashes for many days if the\nweather kept the priest from coming because to touch him before the Church\ndid so was dangerous." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Godstone was attributed with several properties: it could stimulate the\ngrowth of potatoes (the ostensible reason the South Island stole it from\nthe North), making White believe it must have originated as some kind of\nfertility god. Some of his witnesses claimed the Catholic Father O?Reilly\nhad thrown the Godstone into the sea, which no doubt inspired the question\nour narrator asks in the Wolfe story, if the bishop cast the stone into the\nsea. White also gathered the following facts:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(1) the Godstone was destroyed fifty years ago; (2) it had been stolen and\nkept by the South Island before the old man's time, but he confirmed the\nstory of the fire; (3) it was given three suits of clothes every year; (4)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "it was in the likeness of a man; (5) it was sunk by the priest in the home\nharbour?Portavally on Ordnance Survey, i.e. Abhaile, the Village Haven.\n\nHe includes several descriptions of the stone, which are the source for the\nmention of both pirates and Protestants in Wolfe’s story:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The naomh?g, he said, was a small stone, weighing two or three pounds. It\nwas about as long as your hand. It was shaped like 'an iron' (? smoothing\niron). It was of greenish stone. It had originally been 'broken by a\npirate'. (An author called Knight, writing in 1834, stated that ?20,000\nworth of smuggled goods were annually landed on the shores of Erris. But\npirates could be anything on the peninsula?could be Vikings or Elizabethan\nprivateers or Spaniards from the Armada or French fishermen or raiders from\nanother island or anybody not understood. History and prehistory and the\npresent existed in these parts on the same plane.) The pirate, who was to\nus a new character in the story and we were to hear more of pirates as it\nunfolded?broke the image very long ago, not within family memories, at the\nfoot of the photygraph stone on the South Island. The photygraph stone,\nprobably a grave-stone cut for himself by one of the anchorites in the\nseventh century, was called the Grave of Taidhg. The naomh?g was brought\noriginally from Columkille's church on the North Island. Because it had\nbeen broken, it had to be kept together with something, and hence the\n'suits of clothes'. They were of red flannel. It was stolen by the South\nIsland from the North, but there was no fight about this. On the South\nIsland it was lodged high in the gable of a house the one I had slept in in\na sort of niche. It was taken out of the house if the weather was required\nto be fine. It caused potatoes to multiply. There was a prayer which could\nbe said to it in case of sickness." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "An informant claims that he was in the house which caught fire, and that\nthe stone was not burned, also claiming that the priest who cast it into\nthe harbor was dead within the year." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wanted him [the stone] to be pre-Christian, druidical, limitlessly old\nand powerful, if possible even priapic. Of course our informants had\ndetected this tendency of mine at once, and reacted in the opposite\ndirection. S?an was trying to put me on a middle course." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolf chooses to make Sean the grandfather (or great-grandfather) of Pat\nHogan, the same name as one of White’s acquaintances and helpers as he\nexplores the Inniskeas. Much as one might imagine Wolfe doing from a love\nof names and meanings, White also takes great pains to explore the meaning\nof the names in the Inniskea region:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What was Inniskea? Was it the island of St Kay or Cay or Gedh, as some\nsaid, and how was it really spelt? If it was Inis-sgeithe, could it mean\nthe Island of Fear; or, if it was Inis-c?, could it mean the Island World,\nlike Atlantis? And Inis-sg?the might mean the Island of Rest. ?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "With the Island of Rest, I was off at full tilt. Why could it not be\nTir-na-n-?g, the Island of Youth, where the mythological hero Ois?n?the\nOssian of the eighteenth century was taken by the golden-haired, immortal\nbeauty whose name was Niamh? Niamh! And the '?g' in Tir-na-n-?g!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Niamh-?ighe! Was it possible, could it be possible, let it be possible,\nthat Inniskea was the veritable Land of Youth which coloured so much of\nIrish legend, and let my naomh?g be none other than the girl Niamh?ighe,\nYoung Neave, who took Ois?n on his wanderings! So far as I could remember\nthe wonderful rendering of this legend by W. B. Yeats, she took him to\nthree islands. They went to the Island of Youth, where everybody danced and\nwas eternally young; to the Island of Battle, where he fought the demon of\nthe cave; and to the Island of Sleep or Forgetfulness, where the giants\nrested." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There were exactly three main island-groups off the coast of Erris! There\nwas Innisglora, where the soil had the property of preserving bodies from\ndecay and what could correspond better with the legendary island of\nimmortality, the Land of Youth? There was Duvillaun, the Black Island and\nsurely a black island suited well with the Island of Battle? Finally there\nwas Inniskea, which might mean the Isle of Rest and what more extraordinary\nthan that there should be a real naomh?g on it, which pronounced itself so\nmuch like Naimh-?ighe, the conductress of Ois?n?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What were Yeat's sources? Presumably they derived through Michael Comyn\nfrom the Fenian cycle and the voyage of Bran. What was the date of the\nFenian cycle, what of Bran?for St Brendan really was connected with the\nneighbour isle of Innisglora?and with what parts of Ireland were they\nhitched up?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe mentions all of these isles as well as that of Achill in his text,\nand one imagines that the close relationship of the names to mythic origins\nwould also interest him. It seems that the sleep of the Bishop has been\ndisturbed, and the ending of our story, couched in orthodox Christian\nimagery, is still somewhat haunting — and, for a Christmas story, a\nfestival designed to spread the good news of Christ’s coming to redeem\nhumanity, the concluding imagery of a long dead man floating in a tempest\nand gesturing to an abandoned isle devoid of human life seems particularly\nsinister.\n\nDespite the possibility of older and crueler pagan stories lurking behind\nthe stone, most of White’s witnesses deny that the Godstone was ever pagan\nat all, and despite his desires to prove it to be a remnant of an older\nbelief system, he eventually comes to the conclusion that it is probably\nnot pagan in origin. In at least one account of the stone, a Canon O?Reilly\n(a different man who came after the Father O?Reilly who cast it into the\nsea) is said to have described it as a terracotta statuette of the Infant\nJesus which would not burn during a pirate attack, though the pirates\nsucceeded in breaking it. When Protestants saw the reverence the stone was\nstill held in on the island, they wrote to the paper in Dublin, which\nprompted a priest named “Big Father Pat O?Reilly” to come and cast the\nstone into the sea. In this version of the story, a pedestal which was\nonce a part of a statuette of the Blessed Infant Jesus was recovered from\nthe water and supposedly placed in a Dublin Museum, though the teller of\nthat particular story could not find it there on her visit. In Wolfe’s\nstory, the woman from Dublin is the one who was rumored to have broken the\nstone underwater.\n\nWhite’s witness account from a woman identified as Mrs. Padden says of the\nstone:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "?There was a stone in Inniskea shaped like a pillow, and the natives\ntreasured it, as the relic of a saint who lived one time on the island,\nthey said it was the saint's pillow worn in the middle like the shape or\nmark of a head. Some tourists went in to visit the island, and after they\nleft this place they published in foreign journals that the Islanders of\nInniskea were pagans and worshipped idols. The Catholic Church ordered the\nparish priest to go in and destroy that relic and cast it into the sea. The\nislanders recovered it and the priests were told of it and they went in\nagain and found the relic or neevogue as it was called dressed in a robe of\nflannel made from the first fleece of the year. They took the robe off it\nand burned it in the house of a man named Keane, and broke up the neevogue\nand cast it into the depth of the sea. The curate died some time after, and\nthe parish priest contracted a cold in his head (coming from the island) as\nhe thought, which turned out to be a serious disease called “Polypus”. He\nhad an operation and never recovered consciousness. The man named Keane was\ncalled the King of the island, and himself and all his family died except\ntwo girls, their mother brought them into the nearest town Belmullet and\nthey also died." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "All of the people White interviewed concurred that the stone was gray-green\nin color with red inside, though they do not agree on its size or weight —\nbut the string of fatalities which follow in the wake of its disturbance is\nnotable. White’s argument with an orthodox Catholic really shows the\netymological link between pagan and Catholic worship which he was trying to\nestablish, and the slippery nature of these Gaelic names:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "?Even if it was a Christian relic, don't you see that rumours about it, on\nthe mainland, might have given rise to a garbled story about Niamh?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crampton does say that the enchanted land was between Inniskea and\nInnisglora, ?. Besides, what about the island being called Inis-sg?the, the\nIsland of Repose, just like in the Niamh legend??" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "?It could just as well be Inis-ke?dhe, the island of St Kay. She was a\nreal saint." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "?And besides, added Miss Cronin, “the Island of Repose could be meant in\na religious sense, like a Retreat. It could be the island where hermits\nwent to repose.”" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Everything on the Inniskeas was a cairn. Everything was a monument." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The monument to death and a lost people is mirrored in the image of the\nfloating Bishop, who while alive travelled ceaselessly on his Christmas\njourney to bring a message of salvation, but in death seems condemned to\nrepeat the mass at Inniskeen over and over, with no stone to quell the\nstorm and no pillow to rest upon. The final images in White’s chapter on\nthe Godstone really resonate with this:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Standing on top of it in the drifting sand, among the etiolated, clean\nrelics of a monastery which had perhaps been founded by a disciple of St\nColumba, we gazed upon crucifixion slabs — cut thirteen or fourteen\ncenturies ago upon the skull, rolled carelessly on the golden, salty,\naseptic ground, of him who perhaps cut it on bits of bone and ashes on the\nwhite quartz stones which, except for clay pipes, are all the ornaments\nstill afforded for the dead by western graveyards?on ruined igloos?on\nColumba's roofless church to the westward, hardly five paces long, with its\nholy-water stoup cut from the living stone, and its fitting lid from the\nsame rock on the modern village with its skeleton roof-beams, inhabited\ntill 1927, now abandoned like everything else. It was a soul-satisfying\nabandonment, not a desolate one. The peace and cleanness of desertion had\nbeen replenished, had been filled to the brim with calm. It was still the\nisle of hermits. .." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Looking down ruefully [at the fallen, open cairns]?rueful for this\ncentury, not for theirs on that holy, desiccated, pleasant skull, I began\nto understand Miss Cronin [the orthodox Catholic with whom White argued\nearlier]. I picked up a rib of a sheep or a saint it did not seem to matter\nwhich for a keepsake, and, on the way back to the motor-boat, extracted two\nsharp teeth from the entire skeleton of a basking shark. Then, with teeth\nand bones, which really symbolized the islet, and with a tranquillity about\nsaints who to me no longer seemed to need to be connected with fertility\ngods or phallic symbols, we spluttered home, sleepy and hungry, to the real\nworld." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A hermit of the sixth or seventh century may have dwelt in one of the\nigloos, using a stone for a pillow. ? His head might have worn a\ndepression or shape in this stone, or he might have chosen it because it\nhad such a depression, or it might have had a cross cut on it. The original\npirates might have been those very Vikings who came from the north with\ntheir long swords of iron, round about the tenth century, to shatter the\nearly Christian monastic settlements of learned Ireland. During the sack of\nthe Island of Retreat, fire had been used. The third of the baileys was\nstill called the burnt one. Perhaps the fire had stopped at the hermit's\npillow? Reverence being now attached to his relic, and the Scandinavians\nsettling down with their victims, perhaps it had begun to be venerated for\nits properties against fire. Storm would have followed naturally, on these\nferocious seas, and after that the fertility of potatoes. Food, fire and\nstorm had always been the main measures of life for the islanders. Could a\nnew form of pirate, centuries later, Taidhg or Se in?n, privateer or\nrevenue man or raider from Achill, have been the one who smashed it up with\na sledge-hammer, to stop its influence on the weather? Then came the thongs\nand flannel to keep it together: then the derogatory clergymen Otway and\nNangle to mock it, and the priest O'Reilly to scotch the cause of scandal\nin the sea. When Canon O'Reilly caused them to fish it out again, a few\nyards from Carraigin dubh, the Black Rock and a black day it must have been\nwhen they were made to throw it thence he had found only pedestal. If this\n'pedestal' was really the little saint's pillow, more than a millennium\nold, I doubt whether the well-meaning canon was really allowed to impound\nit or to take it to the Dublin Museum. If the islanders of the 1870s\nresembled their descendants in simplicity, subtlety and natural piety: and\nif they knew, as they did know, and as Miss Cronin knew, that their naomh?g\nwas a genuine object of Christian veneration: and if they had already\nretrieved and repaired it twice or three tunes: then surely, if that canon\ndid go away with a stone, it was any stone, to keep his reverence happy,\nand their [Gaelic: naomh?g]; itself is probably back again today?I hope\nso in its proper niche behind the lobster pots of Padden's cottage." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Incidentally, it has kept the cottage roofed and habitable." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In 1945, some years after the end of this story, Mlle Henry, the excavator\nof Inniskea, published her findings. She made no mention of the Godstone\nand did not seem to have heard of it, but she quoted from Adamnan's Life to\nthe effect that a certain Cormac, grandson of Lethan and disciple of St\nColumba, once sailed from the region called Eirros Domno to seek a\n“solitude in the ocean”." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of her own finds she wrote: “Both in Houses A and C there were, lying on\nboth sides of the ?bed-posts”, at the head of the sleeping space, two\npebbles of red stone about 10 ins. to 1 ft. long, egg-shaped and polished,\nmost probably by the action of the sea. Their presence is certainly not\naccidental, but what was their function? Two possible explanations occur to\nme. They may have been primitive foot-warmers ... but ... such a\nsybaritical notion is hardly consistent with the atmosphere of early Irish\nmonasteries ... Another solution lies in the suggestion that these stones\nwere ascetics' pillows. There is for that hypothesis a very interesting\nanalogy, that of a stone of about the same shape as the Inishkea ones, also\na sea-pebble but about twice as big, which is at present preserved in the\nCathedral of Iona. It was found lying on the ground within twenty yards of\nthe large granite boulder beneath which, according to tradition, St Columba\nwas buried. Commenting upon it, Joseph Anderson called attention to the\npassage of Adamnan's Life of St Columba where the death of the saint is\ndescribed: ?... he returns to his cell, and sits up throughout the night on\nhis bed, where he had the bare rock for pallet, and a stone for pillow\nwhich to this day stands by his grave as his monumental pillar. The stone\nhas a cross carved on it, and the identification seems quite plausible." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is another stone of the same type but of unknown origin in the\nCathedral of Iona; it is nearly as big as the first one and has a cross\nwith expanded arms carved on it. St Ciaran, apparently, had a similar stone\npillow. It is mentioned in his Irish Life, but the reference to it is much\nmore elaborate in the Latin Life:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "?St Kiaranus used greatly to crucify his body, and we write here an\nexample of this. He even had a stone pillow beneath his head, which, till\ntoday, remains in the monastery of St Kiaranus, and is reverenced by every\none. Moreover, when he was growing weak he would not have the stone removed\nfrom him, but commanded it to be placed to his shoulders, that he should\nhave affliction to the end for the sake of an everlasting reward in\nheaven.?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The conclusion of this chapter in White’s memoir is almost exactly matches\nthe final image of the Bishop in Wolfe’s story, pointing at the northern\nisland:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Bathing on summer days in the lace-work of the Atlantic rollers, frothy\nlike milk just spurted in the pail, or stretched among the snail-shells on\nthe sand dunes of Drumreagh, I often thought kindly of St Cormac or whoever\nhe may have been, with his solitude and holy head-rest. His islands of\nrepose stood lonely in the distance, their hazy silhouette topped by the\nsea-mark of the south one a finger pointing to the heaven he had longed\nfor. I never went to the islands again. For all I know, his skull still\nrolls in the golden sand, rewarded with his own kind of peace which passed\nall understanding, and as contented to be pillowed there, as it was with\nits Godstone when living." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is one other bizarre claim that White makes of the island chain which\nis worth examining, though it does not seem to be directly invoked in\nWolfe’s story [ though he does make mention of St. Brendan in the novel\n*Peace*]:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In the sea which Erris looks across, there is to be seen an island called\nInisgloria. In it, they say that grandfathers and great-grandfathers, once\nthey are dead and buried, preserve their forms and remain quick, with\ngrowing hair and nails. No human flesh putrifies." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well — everybody knows and always has known that corpses do not corrupt on\nInnisglora. Why do you suppose that St Brendan was still there and his\nwooden statue in the beehive cell?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "##Names:\n\n-*Pat Hogan*- Patrick means “nobleman” and is obviously popular in Ireland\ndue to the chosen name of St. Patrick. Hogan is descended from the Gaelic\nword for “young” but can also imply a “young warrior.”\n\n-*Sean*- Sean can imply that “God is gracious” or “a gift from God.”\n\n-*O?Dea* - The name O?Dea is derived from the name Deaghaidh, a tenth\ncentury chieftan. At least one Bishop of Limerick was named O?Dea.\n\n-*Saint Cian*- It seems that Wolfe chose his own saint’s name here, neither\nusing Corman nor Kiaranus. Cian means “ancient”.\n\n##Unanswered questions\n\nIt seems that our narrator is Wolfe, here doing research for his historical\nnovels. Why is there so little mention of the pagan religions of the\nisland, given their importance to White’s speculations? Was Wolfe’s intent\nto present a purely Catholic world view, with the Bishop ceaselessly\nworking to spread his Christmas message, or are the pagan implications\nmeant to be lurking in the background?\n\n##Connection with other works:\n\nCertainly the strain of the religious in Wolfe’s writing is obvious and\nstrong. Often, his contemporary religious stories are conceivably narrated\nby a stand in for the author who is sometimes named Gene (as in “Slow\nChildren at Play”). One gets the sense that a man named Gene Wolfe might\nbe the first person narrator of stories such as “A Fish Story”, “The Card”,\nthe previously mentioned Arismaspian duet of which “Slow Children at Play”\nis the second part, and even this story. These are contemporary vignettes\ndealing with either a reality “next door” to ours slipping in or with\novertly spiritual themes. While “Procreation” and “The Last Thrilling\nWonder Story” might fit in here, those stories are more playful and\nmetafictional (especially since the Gene in “Procreation” has a sister,\nthough she might be very far from ordinary). An overtly religious Christmas\nghost story, there is still a kind of dread that is perhaps descended from\nthe pagan, eldritch mystery surrounding the desolate and abandoned isles of\nIreland, where so many mystical and religious sentiments, myths, and fairy\nstories were culled.\n\n##Resources\n\nWarner, Syliva Townsend. *T.H. White: A Biography*. New York City: Viking,\n1967.\n\nWhite, T.H. *The Godstone and the Blackymor*. Project Guttenberg. 26\nFebruary 2015. Web. 25 April 2015.\nhttp://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/whiteth-godstoneandtheblackymor/whiteth-godstoneandtheblackymor-00-h.html#chap06" } ] }, { "message_id": "<553D4249.3030203@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2015-04-26T19:53:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 128*: How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 26/04/2015 20:11, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nThe narrator says he does not want to come back to the island for \nChristmas Eve, for he must go to Bangor [probably the small city in \nWales]." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is also a Bangor in Northern Ireland which was a major centre of \nearly Christianity.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<07p9c8x7h8106ukbjakl4j3e.1430078466094@email.android.com>", "from": { "name": "marcaramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-26T20:01:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 128*: How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen", "in_reply_to": "<553D4249.3030203@bindweed.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThen definitely that one. “Thanks !”\n\n\nSent via the Samsung Galaxy Alpha?, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone\n\n-------- Original message --------\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nDate: 04/26/2015 12:53 PM (GMT-07:00) \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story 128*: How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen \n\n\n \n\n \n\n On 26/04/2015 20:11, Marc Aramini\n wrote:\n\n \n \n \n\n \n The\n narrator says he does not want to come back to the\n island for Christmas Eve, for he must go to Bangor\n [probably the small city in\n Wales].\n\n \n \n \n \n\n There is also a Bangor in Northern Ireland which was a major centre\n of early Christianity.\n\n \n\n - Gerry Quinn" } ] } ] }