9. Once he was tending kine. A miserable wolf came to him. Now this was a habitual expression with him, "Mercy on us." [He said to the wolf in compassion][13] "Rise and devour the calf and break or eat not its bones." The wolf went and did so. When the cow lowed a-seeking the calf, his mother spake thus to him: "Tell me, Ciaran, where is the calf of this cow? Let the calf be restored by thee, whatsoever death it has died." Ciaran went to the place where the wolf had devoured the calf, and collected the bones of the calf, and brought them before the cow, and the calf arose and stood up. Ut dixit—
One day when, assiduously
Ciaran the kine was havening,
He a calf for charity
Gave to a wolf ravening.[14]
X. HOW CIARAN WAS DELIVERED FROM ROBBERS
10. A certain day there came robbers from Ui Failge to slay people [in the land][15] of Cenel Fiachach, and they found Saint Ciaran a-reading with his herds; and they went forward to slay him. But they were smitten with blindness, and could stir neither foot nor hand, till they wrought repentance, and were loosed by the word of God and of Ciaran.
XIV. HOW CIARAN GAVE THE KING'S CAULDRON TO
BEGGARS AND WAS ENSLAVED
11. Another time his father sent him to present a cauldron to the king, even to Furban. There met him poor men on the way, and [Ciaran][16] gifts the king's cauldron to them. So he was put in bonds then, and slavery was imposed on him at the king's hands; and this was the labour put upon him, to grind at the quern. Then great marvels came to pass, for when he went to grind at the quern, it would turn of itself, and did so continually. They were the angels of the Lord who used to grind for his sake. Not long thereafter there came smiths from the lands of Muma, with three cauldrons for Ciaran as an alms, and thus was Ciaran delivered from servitude to the king.
XVII. HOW CIARAN WENT WITH HIS COW TO THE SCHOOL OF FINDIAN
12. Now after those things Ciaran thought it time to go a-schooling to Findian of Cluain Iraird, to learn wisdom. He begged a cow of his mother and of his father, to take it with him to serve him.[17] His mother said that she would not give it him. He blessed one of the kine, to wit the Dun Cow of Ciaran, as she was called thenceforward, and she went with her calf after Ciaran thence to Cluain Iraird. Afterwards he drew a line with his staff between them, for between them there was no fence, and the cow used to lick the calf and neither of them transgressed the mark. Now the milk of that cow used to be divided between the twelve bishops with their folk and their guests, and it was sufficient for them; ut dixit,
Ciaran's Dun was wont to feed,
three times fifty men in all;
Guests and sick folk in their need,
in soller and in dining-hall.
The hide of the Dun is in Clonmacnois, and whatsoever soul parteth from its body from that hide [hath no portion in hell, and][18] dwelleth in eternal life.