Oran Searches for Manannan (Not Here)

Saint Columba, having buried his friend Oran in the footers of the Iona abbey to appease some disturbed water-spirit, longs to look on the face of his friend again. It is also said that he wanted to know how his friend had fared in the Celtic underworld. It may also be that he knew he was burying his Celtic past, and longed for one last look at it.

Columba's curiosity about his past is weirdly echoed in a tale in which a chalice used by the Iona abbey is broken. It is taken by one of the monks to the sea-god Manannan, who magically restores the chalice by blowing on it. He sends it back to Columba with a question: would he achieve Christian immortality? "Alas," says the ungrateful saint, "there is no forgiveness for a man who does such works as this!" The message is returned to Manannan, who breaks out into an indignant lament. "Woe is me, Mannan-mac Lir! For years I’ve helped the Catholics of Ireland, but I’ll do it no more, till they’re weak as water. I’ll go to the gray waves in the Highlands of Scotland."

(surface note: who buries who in this tale?)

In one further variant of the tale, Oran travels in search of Manannan, heading down from the chapel footers into the watery Celtic hell (infrann), a cold region of ice either beneath this world or in the arctic regions of the north. He travels from island to island (questing in the style of St. Brendan), but each time he is given the message, in some form or another, "not here." Arriving at some high-cliffed island, he searches the beach, when a note is lowered down the cliff face. Not here.