276 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. VII.—S. CRANTOCK. 
fled from his home, and sought refuge with St. Patrick, instead of 
leading his father’s warriors against the Irish invaders. There is 
still extant an epistle written by St. Patrick to the soldiers of a 
chieftain called Coroticus, who was nominally a professor of 
Christianity, but who is said to have landed in Ireland at the 
head of a band of pirates, and, after committing every kind of 
outrage, to have carried off a number of baptized believers for 
the purpose of selling them as slaves to the heathen Picts. It is 
conjectured by Dr. Todd in his life of St. Patrick, that this chief- 
tain was Ceredig or Cereticus, as the name is commonly given by 
Latin writers, the father of our saint; and the conjecture is 
strengthened by a statement in the life of Crantock, that Ceredig’s 
territory was in his old age devastated by hordes of Irish. What 
else could have been expected but that fierce retribution would be 
sought by the half-civilized people whom he had so grievously 
wronged? And seeing that the great Irish apostle had terrified 
the soldiers of Ceredig by denouncing God’s judgments upon them 
and their chief, stigmatizing them as “fellow-citizens of devils, 
and murderers of the brethren of the Lord,” what more likely 
to have happened than that Crantock, being fully aware of the 
enormity of the crimes committed by his father’s troops, and of 
the terror which the saint’s scathing denunciation had struck 
into their hearts, should have fled for mercy to St. Patrick, rather 
than lead the guilty soldiers against the avenging host ? 
On his return from Ireland to his own country, he is said to 
have taken up his abode with many companions in a cave; and 
there is on the coast of Cardiganshire a church still hearing the 
name of Llangrannog, or the church of Carannog, which was 
founded by him. There is also, near a small harbour in the 
parish, a rock that bears some resemblance to a large chair, and 
is called by the native peasantry, Histeddfu Carannog.* 
Concerning his subsequent career, we are told that, after 
crossing the Severn sea, he obtained a grant of land from king 
Arthur, near the port of Guellit, and built there a Church, which 
was called Carrun or Carrow. That Church was, no doubt, the 
building of which Leland} speaks when he says :—‘“ Karantoc con- 
+ Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, p. 398. 
+ Itin. iii, 196. 
