Note 41 — XXXII. SAINT COLUMKILLE: Part II.

This simple and beautiful narrative of the last days of St. Columkille, including the two pleasing little stories about the crane and the old white horse, with the affecting account of the saint's death, is taken altogether from Adamnan's Life. The circumstances of Columkille's death are, in some respects, very like those attending the death of the Venerable Bede, as recorded in the tender and loving letter of his pupil, the monk Cuthbert. But Adamnan's narrative was written more than forty years before that of Cuthbert.

Baithen was St. Columkille's first cousin and his most beloved disciple, and succeeded him as abbot of Iona.