CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 165 



His Ibiographer, to adapt a simple story to the perverted 

 taste of the times, made the beast fall dead, instead of being 

 dead-beat, and so without much difficulty twisted a natural 

 incident into a miracle. 



S. Germoo, King-, Confessor. 



Grermoc is said by Leland, quoting from the Legend of S. 

 Breaca, to have been a King, probably a princeling from Ireland 

 and leader of the band that descended on Penwith like a flight 

 of locusts. Tradition says that Breaca was nurse or foster-mother 

 of S. Grermoc. 



According to William of Worcester — who says he was a 

 Bishop — his festival was on S. John the Baptist's Day ; but at 

 Grermoe it is now observed on the Sunday after the fii-st Saturday 

 in May. 



No little difficulty is found in determining his history. The 

 name at once reveals itself as a diminutive of Germ, that might 

 be either GerTnan or Germoo?, and doubtless he was called 

 indiscriminately one or the other. But which German was he ? 

 There were two, apart from the Bishop of Auxerre, one became 

 Bishop of the Isle of Man, and was a companion and disciple of 

 S. Patrick. He would almost certainly have been from the North 

 of Ireland, whence Man was colonised. The other German is 

 also called Gemman and Mo-Garman, the Mo being a term of 

 affection. The Eev. J. F. Shearman thinks they were the same* 

 But this can hardly be. German or Gemman, was a bard of 

 Leinster near the confines of Neath. He was a disciple of S. 

 Kieran abbot of Saighir, and this wiU account for his making one 

 of the migration to Cornwall. He had a son named Enan, of 

 Eosmore, in Gorey, Co. Wexford, who was the earliest to write 

 the Lives of the Saints. 



S. Columba after having been ordained deacon in the 

 Monastery of S. Finnian of MoviUe, set out for Leinster, and 

 became a pupil of German, then advanced in years, and after 

 spending some time with him, entered the Monastic school of 



* Loea Patriciana, p. 298. 



