' So then speaks Columba:
'Langarad in Ossory,' quoth he, 'is just now dead.' 'Long may it be ere
that happens,' said Baithen. 'May the burden of that disbelief fall on
him and not on thee,' said Columba.
Another tradition relates to St. Finnen's book that caused a famous
battle; and that was because of a false judgment which King Diarmid gave
against Columba, when he copied St. Finnen's Psalter without leave. St.
Finnen claimed the copy as being the produce of his original, and on the
appeal to the court at Tara his claim was confirmed. King Diarmid decided
that to every mother-book belongs the child-book, as to the cow belongs
her calf; 'and so,' said the King, 'the book that you wrote, Columba,
belongs to Finnen by right.' 'That is an unjust judgment,' said Columba,
'and I will avenge it upon you.'
Not long afterwards the Saint was insulted by the seizure and execution
of an offender who had taken sanctuary and was clasped in his arms.
Columba went over the wild mountains and raised the tribes of Tyrconnell
and Tyrone, and defeated King Diarmid in battle. When the Saint went to
Iona he left the copy of Finnen's Psalter to the head of the chief tribe
in Tyrconnell. It was called the _Book of the Battle_, and if they
carried it three times round the enemy, in the sun's course, they were
sure to return victorious. The book was the property of the O'Donnells
till the dispersion of their clan. The gilt and jewelled case in which it
rests was made in the eleventh century: a frame round the inner shrine
was added by Daniel O'Donnell, who fought in the Battle of the Boyne.
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