Saint Columba and the Monster of Ness
Concerning the repulse of a certain aquatic monster by virtue of the blessed man’s prayer
From: 565 C.E. To: 565 C.E.
Location: River Ness
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The Life of Saint Columba by Saint Adamnan, translated by Wentworth Huyshe.
Concerning the repulse of a certain aquatic monster by virtue of the blessed man’s prayer
At another time also, when the blessed man was sojourning for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa [the Ness]; and when he had come to the bank, he sees some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate fellow whom, as those who were burying him related, a little while before some aquatic monster seized and savagely bit while he was swimming, and whose hapless body some men, coming up though too late in a boat, rescued by means of hooks which they threw out.
The blessed man, however, hearing these things, orders one of his companions to swim out and bring him from over the water a coble that was beached on the other bank. And hearing and obeying the command of the holy and illustrious man, Lugne Mocumin, without delay takes off his clothes, except his tunic, and casts himself" into the water. But the monster, which was lying in the river bed, and whose appetite was rather whetted for more prey than sated with what it already had, perceiving the surface of the water disturbed by the swimmer, suddenly comes up and moves towards the man as he swam in mid stream, and with a great roar rushes on him with open mouth, while all who were there, barbarians as well as Brethren, were greatly terror-struck.
The blessed man seeing it, after making the Salutary Sign of the Cross in the empty air with his holy hand upraised, and invoking the Name of God, commanded the ferocious monster, saying: "Go thou no further, nor touch the man; go back at once." Then, on hearing this word of the Saint, the monster was terrified, and fled away again more quickly than if it had been dragged off by ropes, though it had approached Lugne as he swam so closely that between man and monster there was no more than the length of one punt pole.
Then the Brethren greatly marvelling, seeing the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne had returned to them in the boat, untouched and unharmed, glorified God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens who were there present, constrained by the greatness of the miracle which they themselves had seen, magnified the God of the Christians.
Saint Adamnan. The Life of Saint Columba: (Columb-Kille) A.D. 521-597 Founder of the Monastery of Iona and First Christian Missionary to the Pagan Tribes of North Britain. Translated by Wentworth Huyshe, George Routledge & Sons, 1905.
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