ui 
293 
quibus unus Miliuc erat; ubi fideliter servivit. Illic Quad- 
rigé nomen accepit, quia equorum quatuor domibus servivit.” 
—cap. 12. 
It appears from Colgan’s note on this passage, that some 
of the MSS. he used read Quotirche, and Cotirche, which 
he explains as a compound of ceathair, four, and tigh, a house, 
telling us that the true latinized form of the name is Quad- 
ritigius, not Quadriga, which he pronounces to be corrupt; 
and this may have been also the meaning of the author of the 
Tripartite Life, when he tells us that Cothraige means four 
Jamilies. 
It is evident, however, that the author of the second life 
supposed the name to have contained an element which sig- 
nified horses, for he says “‘nomen accepit, quia eguorum qua- 
tuor domibus servivit.” It is probable, therefore, that this 
ancient writer explained the g, by supposing the name Coth- 
raighe to be a compound of ceathair, four, and each, a horse ; 
and for ‘“‘equorum quatuor domibus,” perhaps, we ought to 
read, “ equorum quatuor dominis.”* 
Colgan’s explanation is wholly inadmissible; for it intro- 
duces a é which does not occur in the original form of the 
name as given by St. Fiech. To justify Colgan’s etymology 
the name ought to be Cothratighe, not Cothraighe. 
The other lives throw no additional light on the subject, 
although all agree in deriving the name from ceathair, four, 
* The third Life says (c. 13), ‘Tune datum est ei illud nomen, quod 
dicitur Coithrige; eo quod quatuor Dominis serviebat.’’ The fourth Life, 
attributed by Colgan to St. Eleran, has the same story, but makes the four 
to be brothers: ‘* Ductus ergo in Hiberniam, in septentrionali plaga, vendi- 
tus quatuor fratribus...... quapropter eum Quadrigam appellarunt.”— 
(c. 15.) And the Tripartite Life gives the story thus :—‘‘Erant autem et 
alii tres, qui cum Milchone societatis commercio Patricium coémerunt et , 
hine debuit quatuor inservire dominis: unde Cothraige, quod quatuor fami- 
lias denotat, appellatus est, quia quatuor familiis debebat inservire.”— 
(Part i. c.17.) Probus and Jocelin make no mention of the name. And it 
is evident that none of the biographers, except the author of the second Life, 
make any attempt to explain the g. 
