_How Forkernus and his Parents were Converted and Baptized._
And Saint Lumanus having landed at the aforementioned town of Athtrym,
he converted unto the faith of Christ first Forkernus, the son of a
certain great man who there ruled, then his mother, a Britoness by
nation, and lastly his father, Fethleminus, and in a fountain which by
his prayers he produced out of the earth, even before their eyes, did
he baptize them and many others. And these things being done, the holy
prelate, in the twenty-fifth year before the foundation of Ardmachia,
there builded a church, to the endowment and the enrichment whereof
Fethleminus, that faithful servant of Christ, gave by solemn gift
Athtrym and Midia, with many farms, and then crossing the river, he
builded a habitation for himself and for his people, and there did he
piously finish his days. And Lumanus, being consecrated the bishop of
this church, sent his novice, Forkernus, to be instructed in letters,
and, when he was sufficiently learned, advanced him to the priesthood.
And as the day of his death approached, he went with Forkernus unto his
brother Brocadius, and commanded Forkernus on his obedience that he
should, after his decease, take on himself the government of the church
over which he presided. But he, refusing and protesting that it
accorded neither to reason nor to justice that he should in the church
of his father take on himself the guidance of souls, lest he should
seem to hold in heritage the sanctuary of the Lord, his father and
pastor bound him thereto by his iterated commands. Why need we many
words? Lumanus would not bless him until he had promised to undertake
this office. And at length Lumanus, having departed from this light
unto the mansion of eternal light, Forkernus, as enjoined, took on
himself the care of his church; and after he had presided over it only
three days, he committed it unto a certain stranger, by birth a Briton,
named Cathladius. Thus did the man of God fulfil the command of his
father, and thus he took care that he should not set the example of
selling the rights of the church or the heritage of his parents. But
all the revenues of this church were by Lumanus transferred to Saint
Patrick and his successors, and for ever after given unto the church of
Ardmachia.