4.  Three lines in the same metre, but apparently with three instead of four lines in each rhyming stanza.  Refers to incident XVIII.

5.  Three lines in the same rhythm as extract 1, but with a different rhyme-scheme; apparently three lines from a quatrain rhyming abab.  Refers to incident XLI.

6.  Six lines in elegiac couplets.  This probably refers to XLVI, but without their original context the lines must remain obscure.  In any case the versifier has the story in a rather different form from the prose writers, and appears to regard it as an incident of the boyhood period.

7.  Eight lines from the hymn of Colum Cille, already commented upon.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON CIARAN’S BIRTHPLACE

Some place-names in the barony of Moycashel (S.  Co.  Westmeath), which lies in Cenel Fiachach, support the tradition that Ciaran’s birthplace is to be sought there, and not in Mag Ai at all.  I can find nothing in the local nomenclature to suggest Raith Cremthainn; but “Templemacateer” (Teampull mhic an tsaoir, the “Church of the Wright’s son”) may be compared with, and perhaps equated to the similarly named “house” (p. 111); “Ballynagore” (Baile na ngabhar, the “town of the goats,” or “horses”) perhaps echoes the “Tir na Gabrai” of VG 3.  About half a mile to the west is Tulach na crosain, the “Mound of the crosslet”—­possibly the missing cross of Ciaran (LA 4).  At the outflow of the Brosna from Loch Ennell is “Clonsingle,” which it is tempting to equate to the place-name corrupted to “Cluain Innsythe,” in LA 12.

An additional suggestion may here be made to the effect that the eldest son and daughter of Beoit were twins.  Their names, Lug-oll “big Lug,” and Lug-beg “little Lug,” are in correspondence, as twins’ names often are.

[Footnote 1:  For brevity we shall refer to certain books, frequently quoted in these Annotations, by the following symbols—­

  LL. Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed.  Stokes. 
  CS. Codex Salmaticensis (Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae), ed. de
  Smedt and de Backer. 
  VTP. Vita Tripartita Patricii, ed.  Stokes. 
  VSH.  Plummer’s Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae. 
  TT. Trias Thaumaturga (Colgan’s collection of the lives of
  SS.  Patrick, Brigid, and Colum Cille).]

[Footnote 2:  There is a different version, which need not be given here, in the Martyrology of Oengus (Henry Bradshaw Society edition, p. 204).]

[Footnote 3:  Mentioned in Annals of Ulster, anno 1166, Annals of Loch Ce, anno 1189, Annals of the Four Masters, annis 1121, 1166.]

[Footnote 4:  A collection (in Irish) of the traditions of this person will be found in Targaireacht Bhriain ruaidh ui Chearbhain, by Micheal o Tiomhanaidhe (Dublin, 1906).]

[Footnote 5:  The passage would then read thus—­Rothircan Bec mac De condebairt andsin—­