:--"So novel a thing I shall
not do, for it behoves not to raise so large a number of people before
the general resurrection." The monk asked--"Why then father, do you
leave us, though we have promised union with you in one place for ever?"
Mochuda answered:--"Brother, have you ever heard the proverb--necessity
is its own law [necessitas movet decretum et consilium]? Remain ye
therefore in your resting places and on the day of general resurrection
I shall come with all my brethren and we shall all assemble before the
great cross called 'Cross of the Angels' at the church door and go
together for judgement." When Mochuda had finished, the monk lay back in
his grave and the coffin closed.

Mochuda, with his following, next visited the cross already mentioned
and here, turning to the king, he thus addressed him:--"Behold the
heavens above you and the earth below." The king looked at them: then
Mochuda continued:--"Heaven may you not possess and even from your
earthly principality may you soon be driven and your brother whom you
have reproached, because he would not lay hands on me, shall possess it
instead of you, and in your lifetime. You shall be despised by all--so
much so that in your brother's house they shall forget to supply you
with food. Moreover yourself and your children shall come to an evil
end and in a little while there shall not be one of your seed
remaining." Then Mochuda cursed him and he rang his small bell against
him and against his race, whence the bell has since been known as "The
Bell of Blathmac's Extinguishing," or "The Bell of Blathmac's Drowning,"
because it drowned or extinguished Blathmac with his posterity.
Blathmac had a large family of sons and daughters but, owing to
Mochuda's curse, their race became extinct. Next to the prince of
Cluain Earaird who also had seized him by the hand, he said: "You shall
be a servant and a bondman ere you die and you shall lose your territory
and your race will be a servile one." To another of those who led him
by the hand he said:--"What moved you to drag me by the hand from my own
monastery?" The other replied:--"It pleased me not that a Munster man
should have such honour in Meath." "I wish," said Mochuda, "that the
hand you laid on me may be accursed and that the face you turned against
me to expel me from my home may be repulsive and scrofulous for the
remainder of your life." This curse was effective for the man's eye was
thereupon destroy