Disappearance of Caenchomrac
Acertain noble bishop that was in Clonmacnoise:
Caenchoinrac was his name, which at first had been Mochta.
He was a son of purity, a 'coarb' of God; and on a
pilgrimage it was that he came to Cluain, where the
reverence and consideration paid to him were great: for in
the case of all such as died from time to time he would
learn of God whether the same should have reward or should
have torment. Also to any [that desired it] he would in the
preceding year's last quarter announce the year in which he
should die. But the deference shown to him in Cluain he
by-and-by deemed to be excessive; and he came to inis
aendaimh [angl. 'Devenish'] in loch Ree, there to perform
his pilgrimage; for he took it to be suitably lonely for
performance of canonical order, for Mass and for orisons.
Along with him in the isle was a prayerful body of monks,
that to gather alms and firstfruits in Teffia used to
wander abroad over the mainland; for the men of Teffia were
in great subservience to him: one hundred piglings, a
hundred calves, a hundred lambs, a cake of bread for every
kneading trough, and for every cathair a screpall, they
yielded him on condition that (they being thus subject to a
screpall payable to him) the number of their slain at any
one time should never exceed nine: as he said [once after a
battle] "My King I thank that the men of Teffia are for
their land [i.e. likely to endure therein]: not one of them
is killed. I affirm to you (and no false profession of
amity it is) that if ye but invoke me nine only shall be
your loss in battle."
He added: "moreover, though they that attempt you be many,
and ye but few, if ye but think on me ye shall come whole
away:--
"Nine men in Teffia's land opposed to a hundred thousand
thousands: let them only meditate on Caenchomrac, and to
their own countries they shall go back safe and sound. Of
this world's hosts whole bands shall not have the victory
over them—if they but render me their service, my service
too being to Godward."
For a while then he had been thus in both Cluain and inis
aendaimh [i.e. first in one, then in the other], and of a
time when he was in the island his monks went forth as
above. Eoghan and Ecertach, two sons of Aedhacan of
Hy-Many, and bosom disciples of the cleric both, proceeded
to Slieveleitrim in Hy-Many. There the clan-Fannan were:
hunting in the mountain; they had killed a goodly number of
wild swine, a pigling of which they bestowed on the
clerics. These carried him off to their house and, having
imposed him on a forked stick, put him to the fire. But as
the cleric chanted his psalms he saw towards him a tall man
that emerged out of the loch: from the bottom of the water
that is to say. He saluted the cleric, and this latter him.
He said: "well would he that on a forked stick is at the
fire have rendered thee the responses and sung psalms with
thee." "What is this at all?" Caenchomrac asked. The other
answered: "soon told-a monastery that we have down under
this loch (now that there should be subaqueous inhabiting
of men is with God no harder than that they should dwell in
any other place), and the monastery's young men mutinied:
for which they were expelled in form of swine. These now it
is that to-day are slaughtered in Slieveleitrim, and one of
the same is he at the fire on a forked stick. I am his
father according to the flesh; here in my hand is his
psalter, and on thee I confer it" ('the Swine's Psalter' it
was called, and for a length of time subsisted in
Clonmacnoise; but the name given to Eoghan was an banbh, or
'the Pigling,' which indeed was an application of the term
to one with a boar's mouth). Caenchomrac licensed the
father to take him away and bury him, and he said to the
bishop: "what hinders thee, cleric, that thou comest not
with me to inspect the monastery that is under this loch ?"
Caenchomrac answered: "I will go." They both dive into the
loch and enter the monastery, where from the one canonical
hour to the same of the following day Caenchomrac tarried.
On the morrow he returns to his house, and he all covered
with lacustrine wrack. He made a frequent practice of
resorting to the parts beneath the loch; nor from that time
forth, and so long as he lived, was the monastery in any
way veiled from him.
On every Easter Thursday the various clerics used to resort
to inis aendaimh, to Caenchomrac, that he might consecrate
oil for them. He on the other hand would perform canonical
service for them, give them Mass, consecrate their oil, and
preach to them. After service and Mass on which day it was
customary to have a banquet; and [on this particular
occasion of ours] ale and meat, as the habit was, is served
out to the clerics. Caenchomrac left them, went out, and
the greater part of that day spent away from them. Later he
came back to the house where they dined, saluted them, and
after like fashion they greeted him. He sees them have
their dishes full of fat pork, and falls to chide them for
eating such in Lent. He gave them great objurgation-anger
and prodigious indignation seized him to the extent that
for the godliness flashing in his visage they might not
look him in the face. The clerics fled before him. Away
from them Caenchomrac rushed abroad, and from that time to
this has not been seen nor is it known whether it were
under the loch he went to dwell in the monastery, with
serving of God, or whether it were angels that carried his
soul to Heaven. After this the sages of the Gael never have
eaten flesh on Maunday Thursday.
SOURCE
Silva
Gadelica. ed.
and trans. Standish Hayes O'Grady. 1892. reprint: NY: C.
Lemma Publishing Corporation, 1970.