The Farmer beseeches and begs him—giving him large offerings on the head of it—to go with his son to the presence of the Bishop of Clonmacnois. They set forth all three, side by side, on that journey, the farmer, the hermit, and the farmer's son, together with a great congregation of their friends and cousins, and of the Farmer's acquaintance accompanying him to the strand and harbour of that island of Clonmacnois.
It was then a gentleman who was in the assembly asked the Farmer with prophesying truly-wise words whether he knew if his lad of a son were wise [educated] enough to receive the grade of priesthood on that occasion. He answered that he knew, himself, that he was, without any doubt, because he had been for seven years clerk of salt and water [i.e., acolyte] to the blessed godly Father who departed to heaven from us but now, and moreover, that he was plentiful with his Amens at time of mass or marriage, and that in this respect he had generally too much rather than too little. "Oh, I am satisfied," said the gentleman, turning his back on him, bursting into a fit of laughing.
However, upon the Farmer thus satisfying the gentleman's question, they were all silent, until the hermit's lad the "Shouting Attendant" (?) gave a shout at the beach, asking for a curach and means of transport to row to the island. After that comes to them a broad-wombed, long-timbered boat, with eight loutish, big-biting, lumpish (?), dawdling (?), raw-nosed (?), great-sleeping spalpeens of the parish on the left hand of the Farmer's son. They enjoin on the Farmer with his people to wait on the beach of the harbour until they themselves should come back. This they do.
In the meantime, on the above-mentioned couple going into the bishop's presence, the hermit discloses the reason and meaning of his journey. The bishop consents, at the request of the hermit, to confer the degrees of priesthood on the Farmer's son, and makes some of the clergy who were along with him put scholarly questions to the youth, so that they might have some knowledge of the amount of his learning to give the bishop. However, they found nothing either great or small of any kind of learning whatsoever in him. After that they report to the bishop about the youth's ability.
The bishop is angry at the clergy on hearing their report, and 'twas what he said that it was shame or fright (?) they put on the youth, and he himself calls him with him far apart, to the brink and very margin of the lake, in solitude, so that they came within the view of the Farmer and his people on the opposite side, and he addresses him in Latin with courteous truly-friendly words, and 'twas what he said—
Quid est sacramentum in nomine Domini?
Qui fecit cœlum et terram, says the fellow.
Numquam accedes ad altare Dei, says the bishop.
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam, says the lad.