A friend suggested to me recently that I should put a short character synopsis on each of the elements of the story so that it’s easier to jump back in when there is a new section. I thought that was brilliant and so useful. So first I have created this character guide to give a larger overview on all of the people we’ve met so far.
I’ll update it as new faces join us and put an abridged line or two at the beginning of ensuing chapters.
The Medieval story.
Colmcille/Colm/St Columba. The grandson of the Irish King Niall who left Ireland after creating a war and mess over the theft of a book. His obsession with books will play a big role in his life and the story. He didn’t leave initially to serve as missionary, but as penance. He took 12 monks with him to settle on Iona, build a monastery and eventually work to convert Scotland. Each of his companions are tasked with creating and supporting Iona as well as creating sub monastic settlements around Scotland.
He is a very savvy politician, not opposed to using force to get his way, but never again making war. He perpetuates the “small violences” not the overt slaughter of war. He believes they are justifiable as the individual could avoid them by capitulating to a better way (his way). He’s very asexual, tolerates but doesn’t encourage the sexual life of his followers, but often chooses to leave out the bodily bits brought forth by the teachings of Christ and the Magdalene in his books as unimportant. Another St Paul, but not with the overt hate of women or sex, just complete disinterest and annoyance. He will eventually expel women from being resident on Iona.
Colmcille believes he is under God’s protection at all times and that miracles abound. He has the sight, where he gets images and imaginings of future events and warnings.
Every month all who can regather on Iona for when he talks about his visions and they decide what to do about them and how to use them in service to their goal to christianize Scotland.
He seeks out other seers and converts them specifically to increase the collective opportunities the Iona community have to act on their goals through the dispersed population.
Hernan. One of the monks who made the first pilgrimage mission to Iona with Colmcille. He is Erna’s father. Colmcille’s uncle. He is sent to Hinba to start a missionary there. He is a gentle disciple of the teachings without much ambition. He believes he shares a message of love that will ease the burdens of the people of the world and free them from tyranny. He sees tyranny forming in Columba’s plans and tries to talk him back. Often. Until his death.
Baodáin The bossy paternalistic Monk. He’s incredibly ambitious. Is totally in on Colmcille’s plans. Wants a big cut for himself. Head of the Scriptorium he is tasked with completing Comcille’s translation of the Bible in the Book of Kells. Becomes the Abbot of Iona and Hernan’s settlement Hinba. Takes Erna’s work for himself often. Thinks that when she wants to set up a scriptorium school on Hinba that it serves him very well. He can oversee it as Abbot and attribute all glory to himself. He actually steals manuscript pages from Erna for the Book of Kells.
Erna. Eventually St Marnoch. Ma’erna oc. My little Erna. Daughter of Hernan. She is apprenticed in the scriptorium at Iona. A magical encounter as a young girl makes her very interested in the people on the other side of the loch. She creates a relationship with them that allows her to do her hermitage there and eventually she has children with one of the tribesmen. She sets up her monastic settlement and scriptorium on the island of Hinba, later Inchmarnock.
Her children are divided between staying with their father’s people and apprenticing at the Scriptorium on Hinba.
Erna’s Partner from the grave tending people. The one we don’t have a name for yet. What is his name??? I haven’t met it yet. How do you imagine the lost words? The two chambered cairn that remains on Ardmarnoch has a relationship to him. Erna is also a wild thing that he tends. He laughs that she thinks the only way to touch god is to sit quietly without talking and little to eat and drink. He lets her do it alone. But then comes to see her in the evening or brings her to something in the wider community up at the fort. He asks her if she met god today yet? Then takes her and shows her god in the landscape over and over. They have yet to be named children together.
Hinba. A lost island where Hernan was sent by Columba to establish a monastery. It falls under the direct control of the Abbot of Iona. For our story we are making it the island of Inchmarnock lying to the west of the Island of Bute. The name Hinba we will give to the woman known as the Queen of the Inch who was discovered buried on Inchmarnock with the richest Whitby Jet necklace ever found. In my version the early people would have named the island after her and it would eventually be renamed after our Erna, Ma’erna oc, St Marnoch.
Eogan. A servant in Iona. Approximately the same age as Erna.
The Dal Riadan. An unnamed tribesman of the Kingdom of Dal Riada. He was sent by King Conall to assist the monks as they settled into Iona and began making their way around Argyll.
The Modern Story
Tilly. A writer who tries to retreat to a cottage on the lands of Ardmarnoch. She begins to have a relationship with the landscape that cause her to question what she knows about history, the sovereignty of the landscape and the spirits that linger long after their names are lost. Tilly’s name is from the Gaelic word Tilleadh meaning returning (and in Old Irish an act of increasing).
Eileen. Tilly’s neighbour whose family has lived on or near Ardmarnoch for generations. She invites Tilly into the story telling of the place as she knows it and is a good friend for her as Tilly has more and more intense experiences on the landscape. She provides context and oral history to help fill in the gaps between what has been written and what Tilly is finding out. Inspired by the lovely storyteller and podcaster Eileen Budd who joined us for a story telling session in the post archives.