7. Then there came a fox to Ciaran from out the wood, and behaved
tamely with him. It would often visit him, so that he bade it do him
a service, namely, to carry his book of Psalms between him and his
teacher, deacon Uis. For when he would say in Fidharta, "Say this
in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,"
Ciaran would hear in Raith Cremthainn, from that on to the end of the
lesson; and the fox would be awaiting the lesson obediently till its
writing on wax was completed, and thereafter he would carry it with
him to Ciaran.[11]
Once on a time his natural treacherousness broke forth in the fox, and
he began to eat the book: for he was greedy for the leather that was
bound around the book outside. While he was eating the book, there
came Oengus son of Cremthann with kernes and with hounds, so that they
chased him, and he found no sanctuary till he came under the cloak of
Ciaran. The name of God and Ciaran's were magnified by the rescue of
the book from the fox and by the rescue of the fox from the hounds.
The book is what is now called the "Tablet of Ciaran."
Most consonant with these things is it for evil men who are near to
the Church, and who profit by the advantages of the Church--communion,
and baptism, and food, and teaching--and withal stay not from
persecuting the Church, until there come upon themselves the
persecution of some king, or mortality, or a disease unknown: and then
they needs must flee under the protection of the Church, as the fox
went under the cloak of Ciaran![12]