THE CHRONICLES OF IONA
Cradle Of Saints
From the Chronicles of Iona series, volume 4
by Paula de Fougerolles
A monk and an upstart king take on a tyrant in De Fougerolles’ latest historical novel in a series.
Columba, a long-exiled abbot and prince, has returned to his native Ireland. For years, he has lived on the Scottish isle of Iona, building a monastery; now he’s come back home, where he’s at the side of his old friend, Aedan mac Gabran, who reigns as the new king of the united Dal Riatas, a small state that spans the channel between Scotland and Ireland. Aedan’s come to make war on an old enemy—the overking of Ulaid, Baetan mac Cairell, who currently holds both of Aedan’s wives and one of his sons hostage. Aedan’s grip on the fractious Dal Riata is tenuous: “As I see it, you seek to unite, if you can, rather than to divide,” Columba advises Aedan. “That is a noble pursuit, a virtue in anyone….Whether you can unite here, we can only wait and see. But you must act; you know you must.” In order to win allies to their cause, Columba and Aedan must install a teenager, imprisoned by Baetan mac Cairell, on the throne of a nearby kingdom.At the same time, they’re desperate to learn the fate of Eogan mac Gabran, Aedan’s brother who was recently kidnapped by rogue monks. The two quests will take the friends through the petty kingdoms of northern Ireland, negotiating a complex political system involving warlords, abbots, and kings. At the same time, a plague has arrived from the continent and is slowly creeping north across the island. Can Aedan and Columba hold their weakened federation together long enough to defeat a tyrant? It will take all their bravery and cunning—and perhaps a bit of help from Columba’s God.
Historian de Fougerolles displays a deep understanding of the nuances of ancient Irish society, offering readers a blend of Gaelic cultural practices and insular Christian theology. Here, for example, Columba explains in detail how a petty king might beneficially cultivate a monastery on his lands: “Being dicenn—being kinless, or ‘headless’, as they say—the exiled Christian may apply to the lord of the strange land in which they find themselves, to petition that he take them under his protection….For, in law, as you know, the king of a tuath is responsible—can choose to be responsible—for a kinless man.” This loving attention to history is offset, though, by a relative lack of development when it comes to characters’ psychology. There’s plenty of scheming and oath-swearing, but readers may have trouble finding very much to care about in these men and women, in part because so many of their motivations are rooted in their cultural moment. The author does her best to make the material accessible—there are plenty of maps, a glossary, a timeline, and a guide to pronouncing the many unintuitive proper names—but the biggest barrier that readers will face is the lack of relatable stakes.An intricately detailed but emotionally flat novel set in early medieval Ireland.