The Executioner of John the Baptist

Below is a translation of a poem from a Scottish manuscript concerning the druid Mag Roth whom Irish popular tradition identified as the executioner of Saint John the Baptist. The tradition associates Mag Roth with Simon Magus, a figure known from the New Testament where he is identified as an opponent of the Apostles. The account of the execution of Saint John in the Irish sources owes nothing to the Biblical account, and is distinctive among apocryphal stories. Yet, as we have seen, this unlikely tale had the power to provoke real terror among the Irish as the anniversary of the beheading of Saint John approached.

THE EXECUTIONER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Professor Mackinnon

Askelon, the royal seat,
In which the great deed was done ;
There, not lasting was the fame,
John the noble was slain.

'What evil woman among you,
Will take in hand my beheading
Not one from east or west,
Of the blood of Foreigners or Gaels'.

'Thou handsome yellow-haired John,
Yonder is a Gael beyond all others ;
His abode is far away in the west,
In the lands of the western men.'

'I ask a boon from Christ who loves me,'
Said John the noble,
'That no comely Gael may get
Food nor raiment in any case.'

Said Mogh Ruith without grace,
'Give to me even his raiment,
And I shall cut off his head
For the weal of the men of Ireland.'

Then was John beheaded,
The Gael will suffer therefrom ;
Much silver and gold
Was put under the head east in Askelon.

The famous Gaelic wizard Mogh Ruith was, according to Irish genealogy, a descendant of the hero Fergus Mac-Roich and Queen Meave of Cruachan. He is said to have studied, with his daughter Tlachtga, under Simon Magus, and to have assisted that great Druid in his contention with the Apostles. The part assigned to Mogh Ruith as executioner of the Baptist accounts no doubt for the prophecies regarding the terrible disasters that were to overtake the Gael on the Festival of John the Baptist alluded to in the poem here printed, and more explicitly in that in the Book of Hui Maine.

THE CELTIC REVIEW, VOLUME VIII, MAY 1912 TO MAY 1913, 168-170