_The Four Versions._--This incident is told in all four lives, and it
is instructive to note the differences of detail which they display.
In LA Oengus goes to fetch Ciaran, after consulting with his friends.
In LB he sends for him. In LC he goes to him, and in VG Ciaran comes
without being fetched. The stanza interpolated in the preceding
section of VG introduces us to another variant of the tradition, in
which Ciaran was a swaddled infant when the miracle was wrought. In LB
the incident is given a homiletic turn, by being told to illustrate
the saint's care for animals.
_Parallels._--A similar but not identical miracle is attributed to
Saint Patrick (VTP, 228; LL, 565). Here the saint resuscitates horses
with holy water; but in this case the saint's own curse had originally
caused the horses' deaths, because they grazed in his churchyard.
Saint Lasrian also restored a horse to life (CS, 796).
_Tir na Gabrai_ ("the land of the horse") is unknown, though it
presumably was near Raith Cremthainn. The story was probably told to
account for the name of the field. It has been noticed that the Latin
Lives are less rich in details as to names of places and people than
the Irish Life. This is an indication of a later tradition, when the
recollection of names had become vague, or, rather, when names which
had been of interest to their contemporaries had ceased to rouse such
feelings.