The full details of this narrative have evidently been offensive to
the author of LB, who has heroically bowdlerised it. It is obviously
an independent _Märchen_, which has become incorporated in the
traditions of Ciaran.
_The Famine._--Famines are frequently recorded in the Irish Annals:
and it is noteworthy that they were usually accompanied by an epidemic
of raids on monasteries. The wealth of the country was largely
concentrated in these establishments, so that they presented a strong
temptation to a starving community. The beginning of the story is thus
quite true to nature and to history, though I have found no record
of a famine at the time when we may suppose Ciaran to have been at
Clonard.
_Transformation of Oats to Wheat, and of other Food to Flour._--Such
transformations are common in the saints' Lives. We read of swine
turned to sheep (CS, 879), snow to curds (LL, 127), sweat to gold
(TT, 398) flesh to bread (CS, 368). The later peculiarities of the
food--bread or some other commonplace material having the taste of
more recondite dainties, and possessing curative properties--are not
infrequently met with in folk-lore. Saint Illtyd placed fish and water
before a king, who found therein the taste of bread and salt, wine and
mead, in addition to their proper savours (_Cambro-British Saints_,
pp. 165, 474).
_The Resistance of the Saint to amorous Advances._--The reader may be
referred to Whitley Stokes's note _ad loc._, in LL. We may recall the
well-known story of Coemgen (Kevin) at Glendaloch: though it must be
added that the version of the tale popularised by Moore, in which the
saint pushed his importunate pursuer into the lake and drowned her,
has no ancient authority. On the rather delicate subject of the
arrangement made between Ciaran and the maiden's family, consult
the article _Subintroductae_ in Smith and Cheetham's _Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities_. This feature of the story is enough to show
its unhistorical character, at least so far as Ciaran is concerned:
for Ciaran did not belong to the _Primus Ordo_ of Irish saints, who
_mulierum administrationem et consortia non respuebant, quia super
petram Christum fundati ventum temptationis non timebant_, but to
the _Secundus Ordo_, who _mulierum consortia et administrationes
fugiebant, atque a monasteriis suis eas excludebant_ (CS, 161, 162).
The description of Ciaran as transcending his contemporaries in beauty
is probably suggested by Ps. xlv, 2, and is another illustration of
the _Tendenz_ already referred to.
_The Eavesdropper and the Crane._--This incident reappears in the Life
of Flannan (CS, 647). Wonder-workers do not like to be spied upon by
unauthorised persons. This is especially true in the Fairy mythology
surviving to modern times. Compare a tale in the Life of Aed (VSH, ii,
308). A quantity of wood had been cut for building a church, but there
was no available labour. Angels undertook the work of transportation
on condition that no one should spy upon them. One man, however,
played the inevitable "Peeping Tom," and the work ceased immediately.
The reader may be referred for further instances to the essay on
"Fairy Births and Human Midwives" in E.S. Hartland's _Science of Fairy
Tales_.
There is a touch of intentional drollery at the end of the story where
the brethren are shown as having so thoroughly enjoyed the feast
miraculously provided for them that their observance of the canonical
hours was disjointed. For other instances of intoxication as resulting
from saints' miracles see VSH, i, p. ci.
_The Stanzas in VG._--These are in _ae freslige_ metre, so that they
are probably another fragment of the poem already met with. The
translation in the text reproduces the sense with sufficient
literalness.
On the whole the impression which this unusually long and very
confused incident makes on the reader is that originally it was an
_anti-Christian_ narrative concocted in a Pagan circle, which has
somehow become superficially Christianised.