Chapter CXII: Section IV: Columba

Columba is one of the sweetest and most gentle of all words in sound and sense, yet it has not been in such universal use as might have been expected from its reference to the dove of peace.

A virgin martyr in Gaul, and another in Spain, were both called Columba; and Columbina must at one time have prevailed in Italy, as a peasant name, since from the waiting damsel in the impromptu comedies that the poetical Italians loved to act, it passed to the light-footed maiden of modern farce, and now is seldom used save for her and the columbine, the dove-flower, so called from the resemblance of the curled spurs of its four purple petals to doves drinking.

It was from his gentle character that Crimthan, the great and admirable son of the House of Neill, was called Columba, a fitting name for him who was truly a dove of peace to the wild Hebrides. In Ireland this good man is generally called St. Columkill, St. Columb of the cell, or monastery, because of the numbers of these centres of Christian instruction founded by him, and he is thus distinguished from a second Columb, called after him. He has, indeed, left strong traces on the nomenclature of the country that he evangelized. Colin, so frequent among the Scots of all ranks, is the direct descendant of Columba, though it is often confounded with the French Colin, from Nicolas, who is the chief Colin of modern Arcadia, and perhaps has the best right to the feminine invention of Colinette. Besides this, it was the frequent custom to be called Gillie-colum and Maol-colm, the disciple, or shaveling, of Columb, from whence arose Malcolm, one of the most national of Scottish names. Colan, probably called after the patron saint of the place, was married at St. Columb Magna, in Cornwall, in 1752; but earlier it was Columb for men, Columba for women, both now disused.

Columbanus, another great Irish missionary saint, was probably called, after old Latin custom, by the adoptive formed from Columba. His influence on the Continent, newly broken and almost heathenized by the Teutonic invasions, was so extensive, reaching as it did from Brittany to Switzerland, and still marked by the relics of Irish art in the books of the monasteries of his foundation, that we wonder not to find more traces of his name. His day, November 1st, is called by the Germans St. Colman’s, and it is thought that the surnames Kohl and Kohlmann are remains of his name, as well as the French Coulon. So, too, the Genoese Colon was by historians identified with Columbus, when they Latinized the mariner who “gave a new world to Spain.” Two spots in that new world bear his name, that in Terra Firma, where he landed on his third voyage, and the bishopric newly founded in Vancouver’s Isle.

The Slavonian dove is Golubica, a cognate word to this and sometimes used as a name.[77]