_Parallels._--As Ciaran recognised Oenna by his voice, so Colman
picked out by his voice one of a number of soldiers destined for a
religious life (VSH, i, 261). With the incident of the consecration,
as successor, of an unprepossessing intruder, compare the tale of
Findian consecrating for the same purpose a raider whom he caught
hiding in the furnace-chamber of his kiln (LL, 2628 ff.; CS, 198).
The version in LB conveys the impression that Oenna's learning was
imparted to him miraculously, as Oengus the Culdee inspired an idle
boy with a miraculous knowledge of his neglected lesson.[22]
The story of Oenna is told rather differently in the glosses to the
_Martyrology of Oengus_ (Bradshaw edn., pp. 48 ff.). Oenna with two
companions was going for military service to the King of Connacht.
They came to the embarking-place, not of Inis Aingin, but the larger
Inis Clothrann (now sometimes called Quaker Island), where there are
extensive ancient monastic remains. Ciaran was at the time in Inis
Clothrann. He summoned Oenna to him, and asked him whither he was
faring. "To the King of Connacht," answered Oenna. "Were it not better
rather to contract with the King of Heaven and earth?" asked Ciaran.
"It were better," said Oenna, "if it be right to do so." "It is
right," answered Ciaran. Then Oenna was tonsured and began his
studies. Here the miraculous insight which recognised in the warrior
youth the future abbot is ignored. The tract _De Arreis_[23] tells us
of the penance which Ciaran imposed upon Oenna: briefly stated it was
as follows. He was to remain three days and three nights in a darkened
room, not breaking his fast save with three sips of water each day.
Every day he was to sing the whole Psalter, standing, without a
staff to support him, making a genuflexion at the end of each Psalm,
reciting _Beati_ after each fifty, and _Hymnum dicat_ after every
_Beati_ in cross-vigil (_i.e._, standing upright with his arms
stretched out sideways horizontally). He was not to lie down but only
to sit, was to observe the canonical hours, and was to meditate on the
Passion of Christ and upon his own sins.
The author of LA betrays his Irish personality by a phrase which he
uses of Oenna. Ciaran bids his followers to fetch _materiam abbatis
uestri_--"the makings of your abbot." This is a regular idiom for
an heir-apparent, and it shows that if the writer be not actually
translating from an Irish document, he is at least thinking in Irish
as he writes in Latin.