Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [113]
Like many holy men, Kevin the hermit monk had attracted followers; and so it was that the mountain refuge had been arranged in two parts. Beside the upper lake, which lay deeper in the narrow valley, was the hermit’s cell, overlooked by a tiny cave in the steep hillside, known as Kevin’s Bed. A short walk down the valley, past the lower lake and where the stream from the lakes was joined by another, lay the main monastic community with its various buildings stoutly constructed, nowadays, of stone.
When they reached the entrance, Osgar had received his first surprise. Isolated the monastery might be, but small it was not. Its huge, impressive gateway proclaimed its power. “Don’t forget,” his companions reminded him, “the bishop has a house up here as well as the abbot.” The bishop, Osgar knew, oversaw most of the churches in the Liffey valley.
And yet, as soon as they had passed through the impressive gateway into the great, walled enclosure, Osgar felt as though he had entered another world. Resting on the grassy meadow between the two streams as they joined each other below the smaller lake, the monastery’s grounds seemed like an enchanted island. After they had made themselves known to the prior, one of the novices was summoned to show him round.
There were a number of churches and chapels, a sign of Glendalough’s long standing and importance; nearly all were solidly built of well-dressed stone. As well as the big main church with its handsome doorway, there was a church dedicated to Saint Kevin and a chapel for another Celtic saint. They inspected the dormitory where many of the monks lived; though, in the usual Celtic manner, some of the senior monks had small, free-standing timber and wattle cells of their own on the grounds.
The most impressive building in the lower monastery was the huge tower. The two young men had gazed up at it solemnly. The tower was circular and very tall. Sixteen feet in diameter at its base, tapering gradually towards its conical top a hundred feet above, the sheer sides of the great stone tube seemed to dwarf everything else.
“We call it the bell tower,” the novice explained. Osgar thought wryly of the modest hand bell that summoned the monks to prayers at his family’s monastery. “But it’s a watchtower, too. There are four windows at the top, under the cone. You can see the approaches in every direction from up there.”
The round towers of Ireland were becoming a notable feature of the landscape in the last few generations, and that of Glendalough was one of the finest. These towers with their corbel-constructed cones had been invented by the Irish monks. They were mostly about a hundred feet high, the circumference of their base being almost exactly half their height. As long as the foundations were good, these proportions made for a very stable structure. The walls were sturdy—at Glendalough they were three and a half feet thick.
“If there’s an attack, we put the valuables inside,” his guide explained. “And most of us can get in, too. It has six floors.” He pointed to the doorway. It was twelve feet off the ground, reached by a narrow wooden ladder. “Once the door’s barred, it’s almost impossible to break in.”
“Is Glendalough attacked much?” Osgar asked.
“By Vikings? Only once in the last hundred years, I believe. There have been other troubles. The lands around here have been disputed by several of the lesser kings. A few years ago they came and made a terrible mess of the mills down the valley. But you won’t see any sign of it today. We’re mostly pretty quiet up here.” He smiled. “We don’t seek a martyr’s death.” He turned. “Come and see the scriptorium.”
This was a long, low building in which half a dozen monks were at work copying texts. Some, Osgar noticed, were written in Latin, others in Irish. His uncle, of course, had several books, but though Osgar and one of the old monks could write a fair hand, they did not make any new books. He observed the expert calligraphy with