13. At another time, when blessed Keranus had been in an island
situated in Loch Eirne, in the school of a holy man; and it was a
custom with the saints that three men should go out with an elder to
bring in timber; it was the lot of Saint Keranus to go to the forest
with three monks to cut timber. And when he was praying apart and the
others were cutting wood, robbers came and slew those three monks, and
cut off and carried away their heads with them. Saint Keranus, not
hearing the sound of those who were hacking and hewing timber,
returned from the place of prayer and found his three companions slain
and decapitated. But the man of God, though first he grieved sorely
over this deed, yet, recovering his power from Him Who deserteth not
His own in their necessity, hastened after the murderers, and found
them sweating to drag a little boat down to the water. But it was
wondrously contrived that the skiff should weigh most heavily, like
a ship, and with this their bodily strength wholly failed them. Then
they turned themselves to the holy man, and begging pardon of him,
they obtained it in mercy. And when as a price for their restored
strength he obtained the heads of his companions from the robbers, he
ran with them to the place where the bodies of the martyrs were lying,
placed each of them respectively at the junction with its body, and
restored them to life from death in the Name of the Holy Trinity.
And as a sign of this unwonted miracle, so long as they lived there
remained a blood-marked circle round their necks, that thereby
the Faithful should be strengthened in the Faith and the infidels
confuted. It endeth; Amen.
[Footnote 1: _More humano_: but is this an error for _in quodam
loco_?]
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