Chapter XLV: The Story of Crithir (la, Vg)

On the consecrated Paschal fire, see Frazer, _Balder the Beautiful_, vol. i, p. 120 ff.

_Parallels._--Coemgen carried fire in his bosom (CS, 837, VSH, i, 236). Cadoc also carried fire in his cloak without injury (_Cambro-British Saints_, pp. 30, 319). Elsewhere we hear of flames which do not consume, as in the burning bush of Moses, and probably in imitation of it (Exod. iii, 2). Thus the magic fire that delivered Samthann from a forced marriage appeared to ignite a whole town, which, however, suffered no injury (VSH, ii, 253). The fall of fire from heaven in answer to prayer is most likely imitated from 1 Kings xviii, 38.

The verse extracts at the end of LB (which see) contain a form of this story incompatible with the prose narratives.

The boy slain but not torn by wolves is, of course, imitated from the Prophet whose story is told in 1 Kings xiii, which is directly quoted in LA.

The mutual blessings of the two saints may be compared with the prophecy said to have been uttered by Ciaran of Saints Cronan and Molan who visited him at Clonmacnois (CS, 542). The one (Cronan) took away with him the remains of his repast for distribution to the poor, the other left them behind in the monastery; whereupon Ciaran said that the monastery of the one should be rich in wealth and in charity, that of the other should always maintain the rule (of poverty). Such tales as this, of compacts between saints, are probably based on mutual arrangements of one kind or another between the monasteries which claimed the saints as founders; we have already seen leagues established between Clonard and Aran on one side and Clonmacnois on the other, expressed as leagues made by Ciaran with Findian and Enda respectively. Contrariwise, we read of the disagreement of saints when their monasteries were at feud with one another. Ciaran was not always so successful in making treaties with his ecclesiastical brethren. Thus, he is said to have made overtures to Colman mac Luachain of Lann (now Lynn, Co. Westmeath)--a remarkable feat in itself, as Colman died about a century after his time--but not only did Colman refuse, but he sent a swarm of demons in the shape of wasps to repel Ciaran and his followers, who were journeying towards him. Ciaran then made a more moderate offer, which Colman again refused.[26] Lann was in the territory of the Delbna, who, although friendly to Clonmacnois in the middle of the eleventh century, plundered it towards its close (_Chronicon Scotorum_, 1058, 1090; _Annals of Four Masters_, 1060).

The chronology of Ciaran the Elder is entirely uncertain. He is said to have been one of the pre-Patrician saints, in which case he could hardly have been a contemporary of Ciaran the Younger, unless we believe in the portentous length of life with which the hagiographers credit him (over three centuries, according to the _Martyrology of Donegal_, though others are content with a more moderate estimate).

The story of Crithir is told again in the Lives of Ciaran the Elder (see _Silua Gadelica_, vol. i, p. 14, and corresponding translation). The culprit is there called Crithid, and the version adds that the event took place in a time of snow.

_The Geographical Names in LA._--Saigyr, properly Saigir, is now Seir-Kieran in King's Co. Hele, properly Eile, was a region comprising the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybrit in King's Co., and Eliogarty and Ikerrin in Tipperary.