Note 70 — WYCLIFFE TRANSLATES THE BIBLE INTO ENGLISH

The readers, as might be expected, often surreptitiously copied portions of special interest. One is reminded of the story in ancient Irish history of a curious decision arising out of an incident of this kind nearly a thousand years before, which seems to have influenced the history of Christianity in Britain. St. Columb, on a visit to the aged St. Finian in Ulster, had permission to read in the Psalter belonging to his host. But every night while the good old saint was sleeping, the young one was busy in the chapel writing by a miraculous light till he had completed a copy of the whole Psalter. The owner of the Psalter, discovering this, demanded that it should be given up, as it had been copied unlawfully from his book; while the copyist insisted that, the materials of labor being his, he was entitled to what he had written. The dispute was referred to Diarmad, the King at Tara, and his decision (genuinely Irish) was given in St. Finian's favor. "To every book," said he, "belongs its son-book [copy], as to every cow belongs her calf." Columb complained of the decision as unjust, and the dispute is said to have been one of the causes of his leaving Ireland for Iona.