CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 363 



again to Ibar, who cominended to her charge a girl of whom he 

 had formed a high opinion. Monynna, however, with a woman's 

 eye, saw through her at once, and said to the bishop, " I have a 

 shrewd notion that this young woman and I will never agree, 

 and that in the end one of us will have to go." And, in fact, 

 after some years this girl headed a faction in the convent against 

 Monynna, that led to the expulsion of the abbess with fifty of 

 her nuns who clave to her. 



AVhen thus turned out of her own house, Monynna went back 

 to S. Bridget. As Bridget died in 525, this took place at the 

 beginning of the 6th century. Thus this Monynna was 

 beginning her monastic education when the other Monynna of 

 the North of Ireland was drawing to the end of her days. 



An odd characteristic story is given in the Life by Galfredus 

 of Burton, taken from some Irish Life that came into his 

 hands relative to Monynna of Leinster. Some bishops were on 

 their way to visit her when they were waylaid by a band of 

 freebooters and robbed and murdered. The chief of the robbers 

 was one Glunsealach. Monynna heard of this, and went with her 

 nuns to recover the bodies, and encountering the robbers, she 

 reprimanded their captain with such severity that he was 

 frightened. That night he had a dream. He thought he saw 

 Heaven opened, and that Monynna pointed out to him a throne 

 set in a flowering meadow, and told him that it might be his if 

 he repented. Next day Glunsealach and his nephew, Alfin, went 

 to Monynna, and begged to be instructed in the way of God. She 

 accordingly took them both into her nunneiy for instruction — 

 rather a risky proceeding one would have thought {liter as 

 discentes et cum virginilus cohabitcmtes). 



Now the story of this conversion and of the throne in heaven 

 reached the ears of S. Coemgen, or Kevin, of Glendalough, 

 perverted by some spiteful people into this form: — "that 

 Monynna has promised to Glunsealach to take from Coemgen 

 the throne ordained for him in Heaven and give it to her convert." 

 Coemgen was furious. "AVhat is the good," he exclaimed, "of 

 my seven years in the desert, my vigils and prayers, my eating 

 nettles and mallows, wild fruit, the bark of trees and roots, if 

 my mansion in the skies is to be taken from me and given to a 



