Wednesday 9 October 2024

An Old Irish Prayer


When I saw a 1912 article entitled 'An Old Irish prayer'  in the The Sacred Heart Review I was expecting to find an early medieval text, but instead found the familiar bedtime prayer, 'Now I lay me down to sleep', known to generations of children but not, as far as I was aware, one with any particular Irish associations. But the anonymous writer claims that this prayer originated in Ireland, at 'the golden time when Eire was Eirie' no less. I haven't myself come across the 'wilder surmises' linking Saints Patrick, Colum Cille and Aidan with the spread of the prayer, but its survival is attributed to 'those conservators of tradition, the Irish peasants'. Having argued for the prayer's Irish roots we suddenly find ourselves at the court of the Norman king William Rufus, where a pious child recites the prayer as the wicked monarch lies ill. The author ends by giving us a modern English version followed by an alleged 'ancient Irish' version. I suspect that this prayer is part of a later medieval European-wide tradition in which Ireland was represented, but was not the original source. The collection of traditional prayers by An t-Athair Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire S.J., Ár bPaidreacha Dúchais, includes an Irish language version, as does the Abhráin diadha chúige Connacht, of Douglas Hyde. So, I will append one of the Irish versions (with updated modern spelling) from Hyde's 1906 Religious Songs of Connacht, along with his literal and poetic translations:

An Old Irish Prayer.

The universal night prayer of the children, beginning "Now I lay me down to sleep " is only one thousand years older than Protestantism, although many of the misinformed appear to believe that it is of Protestant origin, says the Dublin Irish Catholic. The old, old Catholic prayer runs back to the golden time when Eire was Eirie, and there have been wilder surmises than this: that St. Patrick taught it to the children of the High King at Tara, that St. Columbkille bore it to Iona, and that St. Aidan carried it from Iona to England when he founded Lindisfarne Abbey. In one form or other the little prayer has descended through the ages from mother to child among those conservators of tradition, the Irish peasants. In the days of that precursor of Henry VIII the irreligious, dissolute William Rufus -that is to say, in the eleventh century— the old baby prayer was suddenly presented at Court. It was at a time when the corrupt monarch lay dangerously ill. He had banished St. Anselm and Anselm's clergy, and in the hour of mortal need he was without spiritual help. Trembling for the salvation of his soul, he commanded his ungodly courtiers to kneel and pray for him. They knelt and muttered some jargon. The king would not be satisfied: he ordered them to pray audibly. But these, his chosen friends and flatterers, were of his own impious stripe; not one of them could say an intelligent prayer. At last they bethought them of a little page who had but lately come to Court, and who had been observed and mocked at his night prayers. The child was brought to the king's bedside; he knelt and prayed:—  

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John 
Bless the bed that I lie on. 
There be four corners on my bed; 
There be four angels overspread; 
Two at my head, two at my feet, 
To be my guardians while I sleep —
And if I die before I wake, 
Sweet Mary's Son, my soul pray take. 

The modern English form is very much shorter: — 

Now I lay me down to sleep; 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep, 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. 
Amen. 

One ancient Irish version runs thus: — 

Or ere I go this night to sleep. 
I give my Lord my soul to keep. 
There are four corners to my bed; 
Four angels round about my head— Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 
God bless the bed I rest upon. 
And if I die ere I awake, 
I give my Lord my soul to take.
Amen. 

The Sacred Heart Review, Volume 47, Number 14, 23 March 1912. 

Ceithre Phosta ar mo Leaba

Ceithre Phosta ar mo Leaba,
Ceithre aingeal orthu scartha
Mathú, Marcas, Lúc a's Seán
Agus Dia do mo chumhdach arís go lá.

FOUR POSTS. 
 
Four posts around my bed, 
Four angels have it spread, 
Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
Keep me, O God, till the day shall dawn.
 
Literally. — 
Four posts on my bed 
four angels on my spreading (?) 
Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John 
And God keep me again till day.

I have heard an English verse very like this. It ran thus if I remember right: — 
 
''Four corners to my bed
four angels round it spread 
Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John 
bless the bed that I lie on."

Douglas Hyde, Abhráin diadha chúige Connacht, -Religious Songs of Connacht II,  (London and Dublin, 1906), 216-7.

Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2024. All rights reserved.

No comments: