._--This varies in the different versions. In
the Patrick story just quoted it was struck immovable, as a stone.
In LA it thrusts its head _in circo uituli_, which I have rendered
conjecturally as the context seems to require, but I can find
no information as to the exact nature of this adjunct to the
cattle-stall. Du Cange gives _arcus sellae equestris_ as one of the
meanings of _circus_.

LB and LC, which have many points of affinity, are in this incident
almost word for word identical. They agree in saying that the men
setting on the hound were spurred (_uexati_) by an evil spirit. The
misplacing of this incident in LB is probably due to a transposition
of the leaves of the exemplar from which it was copied.

VI. HOW CIARAN AND HIS INSTRUCTOR CONVERSED, THOUGH DISTANT FROM ONE
ANOTHER (LA, VG)

_Topography of the Story._--Assuming that Raith Cremthainn was
somewhere near Rathcroghan, the distance between this and Fuerty would
be about fourteen miles. There is no indication on the Ordnance map of
any rock that can be identified with the cross-bearing stone on which
Ciaran used to sit, though it clearly was a landmark well known to the
author of LA. (_Pace_ LA, Rathcroghan is _north_ of Fuerty.)

_Parallels._--The closest parallel is the story of Brigit, who heard
a Mass that was being celebrated in Rome, though unable to hear a
popular tumult close by (TT, 539). Something resembling the action of
a wireless telephone is contemplated, the voices being inaudible
to persons between the speakers. Thus the tales of saints with
preternaturally loud voices are not quite in point. Colum Cille was
heard to read his Psalms a mile and half away (LL, 828); Brenainn also
was heard at a long distance (LL, 3419). The burlesque _Vision of
MacConglinne_ parodies such voices (ed. Meyer, pp. 12, 13).

VII. CIARAN AND THE FOX (VG)

_Parallels._--There are endless tales of how saints pressed wild
animals into their service; indeed the first monastic establishment of
Ciaran's elder namesake, Ciaran of Saigir, consisted of wild animals
only: a boar, a badger, a wolf, and a stag (VSH, i, 219; _Silua
Gadelica_, i, p. 1 ff.). Moling also kept a number of wild and tame
animals round his monastery--among them a fox, which, as in the tale
before us, attempted to eat a book (VSH, ii, 201); otherwise, however,
the stories differ. Aed rescued a stag from hunters, and used its
horns as a book-rest (VSH, ii, 296); Coemgen similarly rescued