Chapter XVII: How Ciaran Went with His Cow to the School of Findian

4. Now when the rudiments of letters had been read [with him] by the saint aforesaid, he proposed to go to the blessed abbey of Cluayn Hirard for instruction. And as he wished to fulfil in deed what he had begun to conceive of in his mind, he asked a cow of his parents for his sustenance. But when his mother would not grant his petition, the Heavenly Father, Who loveth those whom He regardeth as a mother her son, did not tarry to fulfil the desire of his beloved. For a milch cow, together with her calf, followed him as though she had been driven after him by her herdsman.

When he had come to the sacred college of Saint Fynnianus, they all had no small joy at his arrival. But the cow, which had followed him, was pastured along with her calf, nor did it [the calf] attempt to touch the udders of its mother without permission. Keranus so separated and divided its pastures, that the mother would only lick the calf, and would not offer to suckle it. Now the milk of that cow was rich in such abundance that, divided daily, it would supply a sufficiency of provision for twelve men.

But the holy youth Keranus, deeply occupied with the sacred Scripture, shone in holiness and wisdom among his fellow-students as a brilliant star among the other stars. For he was filled with the fragrance of perfect charity, with moral worth, with holiness of life, and with sweetness of humility, gracious, honourable, and admirable to present and to absent.

XXVI. HOW CIARAN FREED A WOMAN FROM SERVITUDE

5. One day he made his way to a king, Tuathlus by name, to intercede for the liberation of a certain bond-maid. When he besought the king fervently for her, and _he_ rejected the prayers of the servant of God as though they were ravings, he thought out a new method of liberating her, and determined that he himself should serve the king in her place. Now when he was coming to the house in which the girl was grinding, the doors which were shut opened to him. Entering, he showed himself a second Bishop Paulinus to her. Without delay the king freed her, and further presented his vesture to the servant of God. Receiving this, he forthwith distributed it to the poor.

XXIV. THE STORY OF THE MILL AND THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER _(abstract only)_

6. It fell out one night that the eminent doctor Finnianus sent him with grain of wheat to the mill. Now a certain kingling who lived near, learning that one of the disciples of the man of God had come thither, sent him flesh and ale by a servant. When they had presented the gift of such a man, he answered, "That it may be common," said he, "to the brethren, cast it all on the surface of the mill." When the messenger had done this, it was all turned into wheat. When he heard this, the king gave him the steading in which he was dwelling, with all his goods, in perpetuity: but Keranus made it over to his master, for a monastery was afterwards erected there. But the bread made of that grain tasted to the brethren like flesh and ale, and so it refreshed them.