Chapter XIX: Ciaran and the King's Daughter (la, Vg)

_Parallels._--Maignenn never would look on a woman, "lest he should see her guardian devil" (_Silua Gadelica_, i, 37). The story has some affinity with the curious _Märchen_ of the Mill and the Bailiff's Daughter (incident XXIV). Cuimmin of Connor, in his poem on the characters of the different Irish saints, spoke thus of Ciaran, doubtless in reference to this incident: "Holy Ciaran of Clonmacnois loved humility that he did not abandon rashly; he never spoke a word that was untrue, he never looked at a woman from the time when he was born."

_The Stanza in VG._--Metre _ae freslige_. Literally thus: "With Ciaran read / a girl who was stately with treasures // and he saw not / her form or her shape or her make."

In LA the father of the maiden is king in Tara: in VG he is king of Cualu, the strip of territory between the mountains and the sea from Dublin southward to Arklow.