Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had a dark-haired man come down and walk on the deck. In the village of Glendalough, three miles west of Dublin, the ancient Celtic kings built a monastic center. According to tradition, on Sunday, September 13, 1167, a beautiful woman stood before the king of Connaught, and told him that his son, Aed mac Conchobair, would be a king. She told the king the prophecy should be kept secret for twenty years. That’s when a prophecy appeared in a well-known booklet, named “The Sick Spell of the Druid,” which predicted the coming of the messiah. The prophecy was brought to Glendalough, but the king, fearing the men would mutiny, would have it kept secret from everyone. The prophecy was discovered when the church was burned to the ground in 1407. It was preserved by monks, who later used it as the subject for a famous painting by Peter Paul Rubens. The prophecy tells of a young son of Aed mac Conchobair, called Muircheartach, who will come from the western seas. There is a woman who foretells the coming of this boy, called the Flame of the West, or Cinnidh. A girl of three called Cuchulainn will also marry the king of Ulster. Aed, like all early kings, would rule as both a king and a god. Cinnidh will appear on the back of a white horse. An old man will rise from the waters and come to Ireland. The old man will be a descendant of the prophet Enoch, who was taken up in a chariot into heaven by angels. The old man will say, “The time of my kingdom has come,” to announce the birth of Cinnidh. And then the old man will speak the prophecy: When the two witnesses, who were killed as gods, appear again on earth, there will be great prosperity, and they will be the sons of one father. One of them will be red and the other black. After this the great tribulation will begin. There will be plagues, earthquakes, and plagues of fire, and pestilence. Then a king from the western sea will come, and he will raise up the people and make them great again. Aed will make sacrifices to God, but there will be war against God, and God will hide his face from Aed. The angels will rise against them, and the red and black sons of one father will be destroyed. They will take seven vats of gold and silver. The sun will be darkened by a great eclipse. Three crowns, two gold and one silver, will be on the head of the king. A great battle will break out and there will be victory for Cinnidh. But after this will come a final battle, during which Cinnidh will die, so that he may never see his homeland again. Then a man of supernatural wisdom and understanding, who speaks in Latin, will arise. He is known as Judas Mac Carthag, or Judas the Carthaginian. He is the man who was beheaded in Jerusalem, and was named by the Irish as the “Red Comely” of God, or Lugh the Red-Armed. The Carthaginians were a people from Africa who controlled the Mediterranean. They were great traders. The name is used by the Irish to denote a wise man. An old man will come to the shores of Ireland and claim that Cinnidh is his son. There will be a great feast at which Aed will be reconciled to God, and the world will be reconciled to God. After this will come a kingdom of justice and wisdom. The first kingdom will be destroyed and another will be built in its place, and the people of this kingdom will be wise. After this there will be a great battle, during which an army from the west will take two vats of gold. There will then be a great feast. There will be a famine, with many sick people and many sick animals. There will be two men, a red and a black man, who will be judges of the people. The black man will judge the people according to the word of God and the red man will judge the people according to equity and justice. There will be a time of great learning. Men of God will come from the north to share their learning with the people. But after this, when the people begin to grow tired of the judgments of the judges, God will allow the two sons of Cinnidh to appear and destroy the judgments of the judges, so that the people will be without protection from the sons of Cinnidh. The judges of the sons of Cinnidh will kill the judges of the people. The red and black sons of one father will be destroyed. Then the old men of the world will arise to make war on the people of the universe. The people will seek a leader to save them from the scourge of death, but he will be a god. One of these gods will come and say that he is the real Aed mac Conchobair, and will bring about the final battle. At the end of this battle, a son of one father will rise to battle and will be killed. A god will arise to judge the people, and the judgment will be given to the black and red sons of one father. They will be destroyed, and Ireland will be left without a king. Then there will come four times as much rain as before, and the earth will give forth a great fruitfulness. Then the sea will rise and flood the earth, and all the people will die except the sons of the one father, and their number will be as many as the drops of rain. After this, God will cause the sea to rise again, and it will wash away everything but one mountain in the east. In the rock of this mountain there will be a lake. The rock will then be hidden, and the son of Cinnidh will be able to find a well in the rock and drink its water. After he drinks the water from the rock, the son of Cinnidh will cause the rock to be removed and a man will be made immortal. And then the son of Cinnidh will go to the mountain, and he and the other people of Ireland will live in bliss. This was a prophecy of the coming of St. Patrick. He was born around 490 A.D., in the village of Kil Patrick, which is now called Ballyvourney, outside Cork. His grandfather was named Conchobhar, and his father Cailin. His mother, named Dub, was a local druidess who belonged to the Aillen Clan of Ireland. St. Cinnidh was born in the reign of King Crimthann of Munster. Aed mac Conchobair was still a king, and the prophecy of Cinnidh was written down by the saint himself. His uncle was Maelseachlainn mac Tornae, who took Cinnidh in when he became a wandering philosopher. Maelseachlainn was a druid, and the son of the Druid Oillill. He was also the uncle of Conchobhar mac Tornae, king of Aileach. Maelseachlainn had his own prophecy, and in it he named his grandson Conchobhar mac Tornae, as the rightful king of Ireland, and said that a son of Conchobhar would rule the world for three years. When he died in A.D. 560, the prophecy was passed on to his grandson. This prophecy predicts the coming of St. Patrick, who would eventually convert Ireland to Christianity. But it would take a century to go from the prophecy to the conversion. On October 16, A.D. 563, Conchobhar mac Tornae was murdered in Aileach by the kings of Leinster and Connacht. His army was defeated, and his head was cut off. Ireland was left without a king. During the next century there were wars and battles among the remaining kings. In one battle at Carnconnell, in Leinster, the king of Connacht, Niall mac Cinnsealad, defeated the kings of Ulster, Connacht, and Leinster. Eventually, the descendants of Conchobhar became the High Kings of Ireland. But their power was not the same as that of their predecessors. They didn’t have the title of King of Ireland. It was around this time that St. Patrick began to preach to the people of Ireland. It is not known exactly how long it took from the time of Cinnidh’s prophecy to Patrick’s conversion. The conversion of St. Patrick to Christianity is the most famous part of the legend, and is the reason why the anniversary of his death is marked. We’ll leave it there for now. The story is a good depiction of the idea that the ancient Celts had their own beliefs about Christianity that differ from what we know about it. You may think of the Druids as the ancestors of the medieval clergy and monks, but in fact the Celts were pagan, and their religion involved the practice of ceremonies, sacrifices, and traditions. The Druids did not consider Jesus Christ as divine.