t was that of Moling, who,
having watched a wren eating a fly, and a kestrel eating the wren,
revived first the wren and then the fly (VSH, ii, 200). Saint
Brynach's cow having been slain by a tyrannical king, was restored to
life by the saint (_Cambro-British Saints_, pp. 11, 297).

_The Stanza in VG._--The metre is _ae freslige_. The rendering in the
text is close to the literal sense.

_The Ejaculation "Mercy on us"_--or, more literally, "mercy come to
us." The sentence recording this habitual ejaculation, in VG, breaks
so awkwardly into the sense of the passage in which it is found, that
it must be regarded as a marginal gloss which has become incorporated
with the text. It has dislodged a sentence that must have legitimately
belonged to the text, restored in the foregoing translation by
conjecture. Probably the lost sentence, like the intrusive one, ended
with the word _trocuire_, "mercy," which, indeed, may have suggested
the interpolation; this might easily have caused the scribe's eye
to wander. An habitual expletive is also attributed to St. Patrick
(_modebroth_, apparently "My God of Judgment!").

Here, again, the versions in LB and LC are very closely akin.

X. HOW CIARAN WAS DELIVERED FROM ROBBERS (LA, LC, VG)

_Parallels._--Robbers were smitten with blindness (cf. Genesis xix.
II) by Darerca (CS, 179) and restored on repentance. The same fate
befell a man who endeavoured to drive Findian from a place where he
had settled (CS, 198). Robbers who attempted to attack Cainnech (CS,
364, 389; VSH, i, 153), Colman (VSH, i, 264), and Flannan (CS, 669),
were struck motionless. The story before us is a conflation of the two
types of incident, blindness and paralysis being accumulated on the
robbers. The same accumulation befell a swineherd who attempted to
slay Saint Cadoc (_Cambro-British Saints_, pp. 31, 321).

Note that this incident, like No. VIII, belongs to the Cenel Fiachach
tradition. We have already seen that it was known to the compiler of
the _Annals of Clonmacnois_, though he ignores the miraculous element.

XI.-XIII. HOW CIARAN GAVE CERTAIN GIFTS (LA): XIV. HOW CIARAN GAVE THE
KING'S CAULDRON TO BEGGARS AND WAS ENSLAVED (LA, LC, VG)

These four incidents may be considered together: they are all variants
of one formula.

_Parallels_.--Brigit took "of her father's wealth and property,
whatsoever her hands would find, ... to give to the poor and needy"
(LL, 1308). A story is told in the Life o