Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Throughout history, the Isle of Eigg has had many names. One of these historical names is the ‘Island of the Big Women’, or in Gaelic, ‘Eilean nam Ban Mora’. This name is derived from the story or legend of the big women warriors who served the Queen of Moidart. Her kingdom included Eigg and the Small Isles. This post shares the different accounts of how Queen Moidart and her big women have murdered Saint Donnan and his monks.

In 617 AD, the Queen dispatched her female Amazon forces to defend the island against a newly arrived group of monks. The monks had travelled from Ireland to convert the islanders from their Pictish beliefs to Christianity. The Queen perhaps did not like the unwelcomed incursion into her domain by the monks, occupying grazing grounds for her cattle or other livestock.

To get more to the point, the women warriors arrived at Donnan’s monastery when Donnan and the monks were at Mass singing on the 17th of April 617. Donnan asked them to wait until they had finished their prayers before they should be murdered. As the monks left the church after the mass, they were beheaded one by one; their bodies were piled up and then burnt. 

The women took no prisoners, as mentioned above; they beheaded Donnan and his monks, and then burnt the bodies. However, this was not the end of the story. It is said that, at midnight, lights appeared where the monks’ bodies had lain. Unearthly voices could be heard, bewitching the women warriors. They followed the lights walking to their watery deaths into the loch below the Sgurr, now known as Loch nam Ban Mora (the Loch of the Big Women).

Red martyrdom

I will briefly summarize some of the more interesting points Camille Dressler makes in her book, Eigg – The Story of an Island (2007). Saint Donnan is accredited with converting the people of Eigg to Christianity. However, the legend of the ‘Big Women of Eigg’ suggests that the Eigg people still held superstitious beliefs. In other words, the Christianization of Eigg was probably a slow process. 

Camille Dressler makes an interesting observation when she writes about the ‘white martyrdom’ and ‘red martyrdom’. These are concepts used in Christian texts regarding the different kinds of martyrs. Donnan’s superior, Columba, predicted that Donnan would suffer a ‘red martyrdom’: 

“A believer was bestowed the title of red martyr due to either torture or violent death by religious persecution. The term ‘white martyrdom’ was used by the Church Father Jerome; for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism.”

Predicting that Donnan would suffer a ‘red martyrdom’ was hardly prophetic, as the plan was to ship Donnan off to the ‘hornets’ nest’ of Eigg. He was to live like an uninvited ‘squatter’, sustaining himself on the land of Queen Moidart. Thus, it wasn’t so much a spiritually-inspired prophecy, but rather a rational bygone conclusion!

One is tempted to think that Columba, like a latter day unscrupulous Cardinal Richelieu, was more than willing to sacrifice a ‘pawn’ to reach his goals. But this is just so much surmising. The point here is that Donnan’s martyrdom fitted into the scheme of things. Camille Dressler even goes as far as to imply that Columba viewed Donnan as a rival and sent him to his death on Eigg (2007: 5). 

Book of Leinster

One tradition states that a pagan Pictish queen, Queen Moidart, had Donnan and his monks beheaded and burnt. The Latin account in the Book of Leinster reports the following: 

“Eigg is the name of a spring in Aldasain. And there Donnán and his community suffered martyrdom. This is how it came about. A rich woman used to dwell there before the coming of Donnán, and her flocks grazed there. On account of the ill-feeling she had towards Donnán and his community, she persuaded a number of bandits to kill him. When these bandits arrived in Eigg, they found them chanting their psalms in the oratory; they could not kill them there.

Donnán however said to his community: Let us go into the refectory so that these men may be able to kill us there where we do our living according to the demands of the body; since, as long as we remain where we have done our all to please God, we cannot die; but where we have served the body, we may pay the price of the body. In this way, therefore, they were killed in their refectory on the eve of Easter. Fifty-four others died together alongside Donnán.”

My Comment to the Story

Of course, it is almost impossible for an amateur historian like myself to disentangle the above account. But even an ‘amateur’ can try and point out some ‘weaknesses’ in the account. First of all, that the execution of Donnan and his monks took place on the ‘eve of Easter’; in other words, this seems an obvious reference to the crucifixion of Christ, and is perhaps not a ‘specific’ date that can be depended on. (This is similar to the birth of Christ at Christmas). Ironically, the birth of Christ and his death are related to pagan rituals, that is, the equinoxes and solstices, that are associated with the pagan worship of the sun.

To take this logic one step further – there is not so much a ‘single God’ but a ‘single sun’. Of course, the idea of the ‘single sun’ doesn’t appeal to the human mind, as it seems arbitrary, whereas, the ‘single God’ is associated with some kind of design that focuses on the importance of humans. The arrogance of humans! 

The queen’s ‘flocks’ are also mentioned. In other words, the queen had an economic interest in removing Donnan. Of course, the ‘ill feeling’ may also be related to ‘ideology and power’. That is, Donnan and his monks were attempting to undermine the rule of the queen, and her Pictish beliefs. 

In other words, according to the above account it says a rich woman used to live there with her flocks before Donnan arrived on the island. That is to say, the ‘rich’ woman was no more than a rich farmer and probably kept sheep or cattle on the island. The ‘ill feeling’ towards Donnan and his monks may have been that they were squatting on her land.

That is, these squatters were living off her land for ‘free’; how else could all these monks feed themselves? That is, they were probably disturbing the grazing of her sheep or cattle in some way or other, or even worse, eating her livestock! This wouldn’t be the last time on the island that eating someone else’s cow would result in mass slaughter – but this is another story described below (“Genocide on Eigg – the Cave Massacre”).

To know more about Saint Donnan, read Saint Donnan and the Kildonnan Farm.