Pangur Ban has a minion!

Luch the Fliter

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.


Reichenau Abbey, 879 A.D.
Domhnall had been writing so long, his hand was beginning to cramp. He wasn't even close to finishing this collection of hymns though; copying manuscripts by hand is long, tedious work. The scriptorum was a dark but sizable room housing the abbey's collection of manuscripts, two desks, and a wooden frame on which brother Heinricus would prepare the vellum to be used in the next manuscript. The room was dimly lit; often Domhnall had only the flickering light of his candle to illuminate both the exemplar, the manuscript which he was copying, and the vellum on which he had to copy the text. Even worse, the cellar below had the nasty effect of attracting mice and rats, which could easily devastate the manuscripts he cared so much about. He still had several manuscripts to copy onto fresh vellum because they had been too badly nibbled on to be useful.

Domhnall didn't mind working in the scriptorum though. He was trying to learn all he could from the texts he had available here; religious texts, astronomy, herbology, Latin and Greek grammar, and whatever else he could find to sharpen his mind. His concentration was quickly broken, however, noticing a white cat sneaking up to a chest filled with books, unblinking eyes staring with utter concentration at the gap between the wall and the wooden furniture. Amused, Domhnall watched the cat laying flat on the floor, completely silent and still but for the swishing of his long tail, focused on a mouse hiding somewhere behind the chest.

As brother Domhnall yawned and stretched, flexing his hand, a flurry of white fur flew past him, crashed into the wall, and began scratching furiously at the gap between the chest and the old stones. "Too fast for you again, Pangur? They say I give you too much scraps from the kitchen," said the young monk, "The abbot says you are getting lazy hunting mice because I feed you too much." The white cat gave a soft meow and paddled over to his master, climbing onto his lap. "But who could deny such pretty eyes?" Domhnall scratched the tomcat softly underneath his chin, with a loud purrrr as a result. Sighing, the monk turned his gaze back to his manuscript. Adjusting his candle to light the exemplar better, the next thing he wanted to copy was a text about grammar. If he wrote steadily, he might even finish it before Vespers. Domhnall considered starting the transcript on a fresh page, but that would leave an empty space on the bottom of the previous one. He'd look for a small text to insert there later.

Although, actually...

Glancing down at the white cat, he dipped his quill into the ink, set it to the top left of the blank space, and out flowed these words:

Messe ocus Pangur Bán,
cechtar nathar fria saindán:
bíth a menmasam fri seilgg,
mu menma céin im saincheirdd...



Reichenau Abbey, present day
The scriptorum has been unused for ages, and pious chanting no longer echoes through the hallways of the abbey. The building itself is well-cared for, being declared an UNESCO World Heritage site, with the old halls welcoming visitors from around the globe to teach them about the history and significance of the place as a center of knowledge. Tourists claim they can still hear the pitter-patter of cat paws from time to time, with a white tail and a swish of brown robes disappearing around a corner...

The Netherlands, 2009 A.D.
Two students are sitting at a table in the restaurant of their university, frowning at the text before them. Sipping her tea, one of them looks through the beginning of her translation.
"Okay, so far we've got 'I and white Pangur', 'each' followed by something... have you found 'nathar' yet?"
The other flicks through the pages of the dictionary, looking for the meaning of the word.
"Here... It's a genitive dual of the first person pronoun, so that would be 'of us', 'each of us', wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Putting down her tea, she quickly jots it down lest she'd forget it later on. They have to have the poem translated by Tuesday, and this being the first real Old Irish text they'd got, she wants to do it well.

---

Note by Celt
Messe ocus Pangur Bán is a poem written in Old Irish, found in a medieval manuscript called the Reichenau Primer. Although the exact date and place of origin cannot be established, it is assumed to be written in the 9th century in either Reichenau Abbey, St Gallen, or another monastery in those regions. During the early Middle Ages, quite a few Irish and Scottish monks branched out over Europe as scholars, joining abbeys or founding them. The anonymous author of Pangur Bán was such a monk, and after ending up in Switzerland wrote down this poem in his own language (Old Irish) in a small manuscript. The poem draws an analogy between the author and his cat, each of them with their own activities: the monk pursuing his scholarly ambitions, the cat pursuing mice. The text holds a special place in my heart, as it is the first Old Irish I translated doing Celtic Studies (while being distracted by my own cats, naturally). With all those tribute pets to Harry Potter, singers and what not, why not one to a medieval Irish poem about a monk and his cat?

Five mice have been hiding from Pangur! Did you find them all?
One is looking at your face,
Two have found a safe high place,
The fourth is getting some fresh air,
The fifth is fleeing a ghostly scare!

---

Translation by Robin Flower.
You can find the Old Irish text here side by side with a more literal translation than the poetic one used above.
Story, profile and overlay edit by Celt.
Running Pangur by Sawyl.
Domhnall and Pangur by Jana.
Sitting Pangur by hunaja.
Background from Pexels.com.