[150-1] 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.
It has been already stated (p. 47) that in early ages great numbers of foreigners came to Ireland to study in the colleges. Among those was Aldfrid or Alfred,[150-2] Prince of Northumbria, one of the Kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy. His history is interesting to us as exhibiting an example of the class of persons who came to Ireland for education in those days, and as showing the close relations existing between many of the royal families of England and Ireland.
[150-2] This Alfred must be distinguished from Alfred the Great who lived two centuries later.
In the year 670, on the death of his father Oswy, who was king of Northumbria, the throne was seized unjustly by Alfred's younger brother, Egfrid: whereupon Alfred fled to Ireland. He was all the more ready to choose this as his place of exile, inasmuch as he was fond of learning, and he knew well that there were more learned and skilful teachers and better opportunities for study in Ireland than elsewhere. But he had another good reason; for his mother Fina [Feena] was an Irish princess of the family of the kings of Meath. The Irish knew him by the name "Flann," or more commonly Flann Fina, from his mother. He remained many years in Ireland, studying with great diligence in various colleges, till he had mastered most of the branches of learning then taught. He became specially skilled in the Holy Scriptures, and he also learned to speak and write the Irish language.
While he was in Ireland he was for a time under the instruction of St. Adamnan, the writer of the life of St. Columkille (see p. 140, note); and so close and affectionate was the intimacy between them, that the ancient Irish writers often call Alfred Adamnan's foster-son.