Saint Cóemgen of Glendalough
The third of June in the Orthodox Church is the feast day of Saint Cóemgen, or Kevin, of Glendalough. An Irish saint of the turn of the seventh century, Saint Cóemgen founded the famous Glendalough Abbey in Wicklow, in the heart of a little valley nestled among the Wicklow Mountains. He drew inspiration, as many of the early Celtic monastics did, from the Eastern Desert Fathers. Much like the Desert Fathers, or the Russian saints of the Northern Thebaïd, Cóemgen lived close to nature, and many of the wonders associated with the saint involved his ability to speak with wild animals, who became biddable at his urging.
Cóemgen [also Kevin] was born in Leinster to Cóemlog and Cóemell; his name means ‘dear-born’ or ‘kindly-born’. The Gælic root cóem, or in modern Irish caoimhe, is cognate with the English word ‘home’; while the suffix -gen should be familiar to any student of Greek. It was said that when Cóemell gave birth to him that she felt no labour pains. Shortly after he was born, an unmarked pure white cow came to Cóemlog’s door and tamely let itself be milked; and it was from this milk that the infant saint was fed. The saint had something of a temper as a youth, but his parents recognised that he was good with animals. He also had pity on the needy. When he was still only a young child living with his parents, several beggars passed him by on the road. They were hungry, and asked Cóemgen for something to eat. Of course Cóemgen had nothing but his father’s flock, and so he gave the beggars four sheep. He expected to be beaten for losing four of Cóemlog’s sheep, but when he returned to his father’s house, he found to his amazement that he had exactly the same number of animals in his flock as he had left with.
By this same tradition, he was given at a young age to be raised and educated by the great Cornish hermit, Saint Pedrog. It was from Pedrog that Cóemgen obtained the reverence for Christ and learned of the Desert form of eremeticism – as well as, apparently, a gentle reverence for nature and a gift with wild animals. He was already living with monks at the age of twelve.
It was said that while he lived with Saint Pedrog, a young Cóemgen knelt in prayer at the start of the Lenten Fast. He held his hands outstretched, and so still, that a wild blackbird which was nesting that spring chose Saint Cóemgen’s hand as the perch on which to build it! Cóemgen held himself as still as a tree branch, such that the blackbird could build her nest, lay her eggs, warm them and hatch them all throughout that Lent, without in the slightest being disturbed. Throughout Lent the blackbird fed not only her chicks, but also the saint who sheltered them, with berries and nuts that she flew out and found. By the time Lent was over, the blackbird’s chicks were grown large enough to fly for themselves, and the nest was left empty. It was only when the blackbirds had no more use for the nest that Saint Cóemgen went to rejoin Pedrog to celebrate the Lord’s Pascha.
On another occasion, several hungry vagrants came to Saint Pedrog’s monastery and asked Cóemgen – who was then in the kitchen preparing a meal for the lay-brothers in the field – for food. Cóemgen gave them everything they asked for. When the brothers came back from the field and found no food waiting for them, the elder monks rebuked Cóemgen for his profligacy. But the young boy merely told the brothers working in the kitchen to fill all the empty pitchers with water and gather together the bones left by the vagrants. Cóemgen then went off by himself to pray. As he did so, the hungry field workers found that the water in the pitchers had turned to ale, and the bones were now full of meat as though they had never been touched.
He was ordained a priest by Éogan mac Cainneach; and he was led by an angel over the Wicklow Mountains to Glendalough, a place which is marked by two lakes, with one feeding into the other. He settled on the south side of the upper lake, in an early artificial cave called ‘St Kevin’s Bed’. He made this into his hermit’s cell, and spent seven years inside in solitary prayer and isolation. He wore rough clothes, went barefoot, and ate mostly wild worts and roots, with some occasional fruit and fish as well – the last of which were brought to him by a wild otter that lived in the lakes. In the winter, he would submerge himself naked in the ice-cold water and recite the Psalms. It happened that one day he dropped his Psalter in the lake, but it was retrieved for him by the otter, who fetched it out of the water unstained and unblotted.
On another occasion, a wild boar which was being hunted broke out of the woods and hid behind Saint Cóemgen as he prayed. The hounds came after the boar, but upon seeing the saint they at once became docile and lay harmless on the ground. The hunters saw all this, but they still wanted to kill the boar. As Saint Cóemgen continued to pray, a flock of blackbirds lit on the tree above him. The hunters took this as a sign that Cóemgen was a holy man, and left the boar alone. (Variants of this story appear in the hagiographies of a number of British and Irish saints.)
He gained a certain amount of respect from the local people. One poor neatherd living nearby was surprised to find that one of his cows started to give prodigious amounts of milk, a full fifty times as much as any of his others. He began to observe the animal to see if it was behaving any differently than the others. He followed it when it began to stray – apparently by habit – toward the Upper Lake of Glendalough. It went into St Kevin’s Bed, and lay at the feet of the hermit as he prayed to Christ, and licked his feet. The poor neatherd observed all this in trembling awe, and came before the mouth of the cave and knelt before the hermit, thinking him in heathen superstition to be a god or a færie. Saint Cóemgen saw this, and at once rushed out to the neatherd and raised him to his feet, showing him that he was every bit as human as he. He then taught the neatherd about Christ. The neatherd and his wife and children agreed to be baptised, and he sent his son to live with Saint Cóemgen as a disciple. Soon the word spread about this holy hermit who lived at Glendalough, and many men and women gathered to hear the Holy Gospel.
Soon Cóemgen began to realise that he could no longer sustain a solitary hermit’s life, and set about trying to found a monastery. He could not, however, get permission from the King of Leinster – by tradition, the forebearer of the Uí Tuathaill – who was then still a heathen. The King of Leinster had, however, a tame pet goose which would fly and dive and catch fish for the king’s entertainment. This goose was much stricken with age, however, and infirm in the wings, and could no longer fly. It so happened that Cóemgen went to visit the King of Leinster in disguise as a poor itinerant tradesman, and offered to make the goose young again as long as the king would live. In exchange, though, Cóemgen asked for as much land as the goose would fly over.
The incredulous king, who didn’t believe this silly tinker could do such a thing as make his lame old goose young again, agreed on the spot. Saint Cóemgen took the goose in his arms, and made her spread her wings out. He made the Sign of the Cross on the bird’s breast, and at once her wings became whole again, and she flew up high and gaily just as if she were but newly-moulted. The goose flew out over the two lakes of Glendalough and circled round them both, then flew back into Saint Cóemgen’s arms. The gobsmacked King of Leinster could do no other than give Saint Cóemgen what he asked for, which was indeed the valley of Glendalough, such that he could build his monastery.
The construction was plagued with setbacks. The workers that Cóemgen hired to help him build agreed to pick stones from the construction site and haul masonry to the upper lake. And they agreed to work from when the larks began to sing until when the lambs slept. However, the quality of the masonry from the workmen began to suffer. Indeed, one of them was hit in the eye by a stone and was stricken blind. Cóemgen found him, and made the sign of the Cross over his injured eye, and his sight was restored. On further investigation, Saint Cóemgen found that the workers were fatigued because the larks began singing far too early in the morning. So he scolded the larks and told them to allow the workers to sleep in. From that day forward, it is said, no lark has been heard to sing in Glendalough.
Glendalough Abbey became a thriving school and centre for monastic life. Saint Cóemgen welcomed all who came with an earnest desire to learn and to work; young men from both rich and poor families were welcome there and received the same treatment. Cóemgen would not refuse to see anyone who came to him for help, and they all left healed and edified. One young boy living nearby was wracked with seizures, and he was told that only an apple from Glendalough Abbey would heal him. Of course, Glendalough had no apple trees whatever. So when Saint Cóemgen heard this, he went to a stand of willows on the grounds and bade them bear forth fruit. The willows produced sound, ripe apples, and Cóemgen had one of these apples sent to the young boy, who on eating it was cured of his seizures.
One late source on Cóemgen’s life has it that he went to Rome on pilgrimage, for the purposes of obtaining relics which he brought back for the monks at Glendalough to venerate. He returned to Glendalough, but soon felt the desire to again go wandering in pilgrimage in his old age. First, however, he took counsel with his close friend, Saint Ciarán the Younger of Clonmacnoise, whose wisdom Cóemgen had come to respect. Indeed, Cóemgen was the one who would attend Ciarán at his deathbed, and administer to him the Gifts before his blessed repose. On this occasion, though, Saint Ciarán spoke to Cóemgen and told him: ‘Birds cannot hatch their eggs while they are flying.’ Saint Cóemgen took this as meaning that if he went on pilgrimage, his pupils and monks would suffer in their spiritual life. God was calling him to watch over his monastery.
And watch over it he did. Saint Cóemgen lived to the age of one hundred and twenty, being born in the year 498 and dying in June of the year 618. He reposed peacefully in the Lord, and to the last he continued to work and to teach and to hold to the ascetic disciplines he’d kept his whole life. Holy father Cóemgen of Glendalough, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
With hymns of praise let us all bless the noble Cóemgen,
Who by his godly love poureth divine grace
Into the hearts of those who honour him;
For he dwelleth now with the saints and angels in heaven,
Where he standeth before the throne of the Most High,
Praying unceasingly for us all.
Glendalough Abbey, Ireland
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