128 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



A considerable number of fabulous tales have been associated 

 with his name, but the main facts of his life are pretty firmly 

 established. It was a pagan Irish custom to baptise a new 

 weapon in the blood of an innocent child, and when Amalghaid, 

 a chieftain in his neighbourhood was about to thus treat a new 

 spear, Eoghain interfered first by prayer and then by offering a 

 bribe. But Amalghaid would not be dissuaded from following 

 " Old customs," and then Eoghain warned him that no good luck 

 would follow his using a spear, thus baptized, when he knew it 

 was a sin to so inaugurate its use. As Amalghaid was killed a few 

 days after, it was supposed that this was due to his having 

 refused the Saint's petition. 



An odd incident is related of his girdle, which was of leather. 

 One day returning from a pastoral visit he lost his belt. Next 

 day he returned on his traces in search of it, and found that a 

 fox had begun to gnaw it, but his teeth that had penetrated the 

 leather had stuck in it so that he could not withdraw them, and 

 he had died struggling vainly to disengage himself. 



On one occasion a number of his countrymen were enclosed 

 in a dun by a party of pirates who had landed on the coast, and 

 caught them unprepared. Hearing of this, Eoghain went to the 

 camp and managed unperceived in a dark night to evade the 

 watchmen and get into the dun. There he found about a 

 hundred persons, many of them women. He took occasion to 

 baptize them, and then, as further resistance was impossible, he 

 induced them in fog and darkness to attempt to escape, and he 

 managed successfully to elude the observation of the pirates and 

 get all clear from the dun. 



One story told of him as miraculous is easily explained. 



He was one day walking through a wood with a boy 

 attendant, and as he went he sang aloud the psalms. Then he 

 said the Lord's Prayer, and when the boy sang out Amen, to their 

 great astonishment they heard Amen repeated from the trees, as 

 echo. 



Once, when on a journey he came to a Cathair, where merry- 

 making and feasting were in progress, and he was refused 

 admission and a place at the feast. He was very angry, and 

 cursed the place, that no more revelry might take place therein to 



