Chapter XVII: How Ciaran Went with His Cow to the School of Findian (la, Lb,

LC, VG)

_The blessing of the Cow._--In this story we again note the prominence of the _materfamilias_: it is she who in most of the versions withholds the desired boon. Note how LB endeavours to tone down the disobedience of the saint by making the cow follow him of her own accord, or, rather, upon a direct divine command. The _Annals of Clonmacnois_ presents the story in a similar form: "He earnestly entreated his parents that they would please to give him the cow [which had been stolen and recovered; _ante_, p. 108], that he might go to school to Clonard to Bishop Finnan, where Saint Colum Cille ... and divers others were at school: which his parents denied: whereupon he resolved to go thither as poor as he was, without any maintenance in the world. The cow followed him thither with her calf; and being more given to the cause of his learning than to the keeping of the cows, having none to keep the calf from the cow, [he] did but draw a strick of his bat between the calf and cow. The cow could not thenceforth come no nearer [_sic_] the calf than to the strick, nor the calf to the cow, so as there needed no servant to keep them one from another but the strick." A totally different version of the story of the cow is recorded in the glosses to the _Martyrology of Oengus_ (9th September). Here Ciaran applied to his _father_, who, so far from refusing his request, bade him go through the herd and take whatever beast would follow him. "The Dun Cow of Ciaran" yielded to the test. Further, the same cow followed him when he left Clonard, instead of remaining with Ninned as in the _Lives_ before us.

Note how the author of LA has been unable to keep a very human touch out of his arid record: _matri displicebat, uolebat enim eum secum semper habere_. This is our last glimpse of poor Darerca, and it does much to soften the rather lurid limelight in which our homilists place her.

_The Division of Kine and Calves._--This miracle is one of the most threadbare commonplaces of Irish hagiographical literature; it is most frequently, as here, performed by drawing a line on the ground between the animals with the saint's wonder-working staff. It is attributed, _inter alia_, to Senan (LL, 1958), Fintan (CS, 229), Ailbe (with swine, CS, 240), and Finan (CS, 305).

_A miraculous abundance of milk_ was also given by kine belonging to Brigit (CS, 44) and to Samthann (VSH, ii, 255).

_The Hide of the Cow._--Plummer quotes other illustrations of such mechanical passports to the Land of the Blessed (VSH, i, p. xciii). The main purpose of this whole incident is doubtless to explain the origin of a precious relic, preserved at Clonmacnois. Its history is involved in some doubt: it is complicated by the fact that there exists a well-known manuscript, now preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, written at Clonmacnois about A.D. 1100, and called the _Book of the Dun Cow_, from the animal of whose hide the vellum is said to have been made. But whether this book has any connexion with the Dun Cow of Ciaran may be considered doubtful. For down to the comparatively late date at which our homilies were put together, the hide of Ciaran's Dun was evidently preserved _as a hide_, on or under which a dying man could lie: therefore it cannot have been made into a book. Yet _Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe_ (p. 124 of the printed text) tells us, for what it may be worth, that Ciaran wrote the great epic tale called _Táin Bó Cúalnge_ upon the hide of the Dun Cow. There is actually a copy of this tale in the existing book; but the book was written not long after the time when our homilists were describing the relic as an unbroken hide. Either there were two dun cows, or the name of the Manuscript has arisen from a misunderstanding.

_The stanza in VG_ is another example of _ae freslige_ metre. The literal translation is "Fifty over a hundred complete / the Dun of Ciaran used to feed, // guests and lepers / people of the refectory and of the parlour."

_The School of Findian._--Findian was born in the fifth century. He went to Tours for study, and afterwards to Britain; he then felt a desire to continue his studies in Rome, but an angel bade him return to Ireland and there continue the work begun by Patrick. After spending some time with Brigit at Kildare, and establishing various religious houses, he settled at Cluain Iraird, in the territory of Ui Neill: now called Clonard, in Co. Meath. His establishment there became the chief centre of instruction in Ireland in the early part of the sixth century. He died in 549, at an advanced age: indeed, he is traditionally said to have lived 140 years. Nothing now remains of the monastery, though there were some ruins a hundred years ago.