king had been _fasting_
against him--entering the field of asceticism with him, in short, and
not without success.

The biography of an Asiatic despot, so far as other persons are
concerned, is merely the history of his commands and their obedience. It
is only incidentally, therefore, that one is likely to acquire any
information from it about the people over whom he rules. In like manner,
the life of an Irish saint is the history of commanding and obeying; yet
a few glimpses of social life may be caught through occasional chinks.
The relation which the spiritual held towards the temporal powers is
sufficiently developed to give ground for considerable inquiry and
criticism. The more eminent of the saints had great influence in state
affairs, ruling in some measure the monarchs themselves. Some monarch is
occasionally mentioned as the friend of Columba, much as a bishop might
allude to this or that lay lord as among his personal friends. We find
him settling the succession of Aidan, the king of the Dalriadic Scots,
through an influence to which any opposition was utterly hopeless. Send
your sons to me, he says to Aidan, and God will show me who is to be
your successor. The sign falls on Eochoid Buidh, and the saint tells the
king that all his other sons will come to a premature end, and they drop
off accordingly, chiefly in battle. This power of fixing the evil eye,
of prophesying death, is found in perpetual use among the early saints.
It is their ultimate appeal in strife and contest, and their instrument
of vengeance when thwarted or affronted; and a terrible instrument it
must have been. Who could gainsay those believed to hold in their hands
the issues of life and death?

In our conception of the kings with whom these saints were familiar, it
may be well not to be misled by words. We shall realise them better at
the present day by looking to Madagascar or the Marquesas Islands than
among the states of Europe. The palace was a shanty of log or wattle,
protected, perhaps, by a rampart of earth or uncemented stones, and the
king had a stone chair with a few mystic decorations scratched on it,
which served for his throne on state occasions. The prospect of
acquiring a gold torque or a silver drinking-cup would have a material
influence over his imperial policy. Were we to believe the fabulous
historians, Ireland was for centuries a compact kingdom under one
imperial sovereign, who presided over subsidiary rulers in t