Glendalough's Saint Kevin, a Fine Example to Men Everywhere

I spent a pleasant afternoon in Glendalough yesterday, eating ice cream and strolling in the sunshine with a few friends. Having been there on many a previous occasion and being the naturally garrulous sort, I was the unofficial tour guide for the group, pointing out things of interest and making up plausible but inaccurate stories about them. My favourites are the ones about St. Kevin himself, founder of the monastic site and all-round nice guy. Oh no, wait...

According to (apparently untrustworthy) legends, Kevin Bokelmann was a bit of a bollox. Different sources have different slants on his tale. Being the shite but entertaining tour guide that I am, I like to pick salacious details from each of them and construct my own version of events. He died in 618AD anyway, so is unlikely to sue. He lived as a hermit in a pokey hole in the rockface above the upper lake and liked to pray for extended periods of time with his arms outstretched, crucifixion style. Apparently he was a master at it and could ignore the burning pain in his arms for, oh, I dunno, ages. I can't do it for very long myself. But he was so good at it that one day, as he was praying, a blackbird nested on his hand and laid an egg. Being fonder of blackbirds than he was of women (more on this anon) he was loathe to disturb it, and so maintained his pose until the bird had hatched. The story has some fuzzy moral behind it, but I tell it as I think it works well as a contrast to the story of how Kevin is supposed to have treated his would-be paramour, Kathleen.

Thomas Moore sets the scene for us in his neat little ditty; By that Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore. Like many Irish men, Kevin was a shy lad and utterly terrified of women and their womanly bits. To escape their bewildering temptations he high-hoed to his miserable little pokey hole in the rock, to live out his days in solitude, emphatically not touching himself.

By that Lake, whose gloomy shore
Sky-lark never warbles o'er,*
Where the cliff hangs high and steep,
Young Saint Kevin stole to sleep.
"Here, at least," he calmly said,
"Woman ne'er shall find my bed."
Ah! the good Saint little knew
What that wily sex can do.

Some verses in the middle describe how nice a stalker Kathleen was, and how she tracked him down to his pokey hole in the rock with the intention of seducing him. Her plan was foiled, however, as he whipped her with a bunch of nettles and then drowned her in the lake below.

Sternly from his bed he starts,
And with rude repulsive shock
Hurls her from the beetling rock.

He redeems himself in the final verse and repents like a good Christian. Alas, it's too little too late and poor Kathleen's sleeping with the fishes at this stage.

Glendalough, thy gloomy wave
Soon was gentle Kathleen's grave!
Soon the Saint (yet ah! too late,)
Felt her love, and mourn'd her fate.
When he said, "Heaven rest her soul!"
Round the Lake light music stole;
And her ghost was seen to glide,
Smiling, o'er the fatal tide.

So she died happy, it seems. No harm done then.

*Not fond of the early mornings, Kevin put a hex on the lark so that none sing over the lakes in Glendalough. True story.