Chapter XXXVII: Ciaran Departs From Isel (la, Vg)

_Parallels._--The nuns of Brigit made a similar complaint against the excessive charity of their abbess (LL, 1598). For the stag compare incident XXI; also the tale of how Brenainn was on one occasion guided by a hound (CS, 116). Ruadan, having given in alms his chariot-horses to lepers, found two stags to take their place (CS, 328).

_The Stanza in VG._--The metre is one of the numerous forms of _debide_, seven-syllable lines with echo-rhymes in which the rhyme-syllable is stressed in the first line, unstressed in the second (as _mén_, _táken_). The stanza before us is in _debide scáilte_, where the two couplets of the stanza are not linked by any form of sound assonance. The literal translation is: "Although it be low it would have been high / had not the murmuring come // the murmuring, had it not come / it would have been high though it be low."

_The Geographical Names in LA._--Loch Rii (properly Loch Rib) is Loch Ree on the Shannon, above Athlone. The island called Inis Aingin has now the name of Hare Island; it is at the south end of the lake near the outlet of the river. There are some scanty remains of a monastic establishment to be seen upon it.