364 CORXISH DEDICATIONS, 



•wretclied outlaw?" He armed his monks and retainers and 

 marched to where Monynna's convent was, with intent to burn it 

 down, drive the nuns away, and kill Glunsealach. Monynna 

 heard that they were approaching, and went with her nuns to 

 meet the irate saint. He was with difficulty pacified, but only 

 when she had promised to surrender to him the highway-man 

 and his nephew, that he might have the credit of finishing them 

 off as saints. Then she conducted Coemgen to a tank she had 

 made for tepid water from a spring, and said: "There, strip, 

 and in with you, and wash off your nasty temper."* 



One night, when the sisters had risen to mattins, and were 

 about to commence the psalms, Monynna stopped them. ' 'Know," 

 said she, "that our prayers hover about in the roof and can not 

 rise through it. That is due to one of you having committed a 

 fault." In fact it had been whispered in her ear that one of the 

 nuns had adopted a luxury without asking permission. After 

 a long silence one of them rose, a widow, and said : — ' It is I who 

 am to blame. I suffer from cold feet, and a gentleman of my 

 acquaintance, to whom I had mentioned the matter, gave me a 

 pair of woollen stockings (sotulares), and I am wearing them 

 without having spoken of them to the abbess." Monynna 

 ordered her, there and then, to strip them off, and gave them to 

 Brig, a nun, to throw into the river. After which, the prayers 

 were able to get away and soar upward. 



Now the story of Grlunsealach certainly belongs to Monynna 

 of Leinster, for S. Coemgen lived at no great distance off, at 

 Glendalough, and, moreover, he died in 610 or 619, a century 

 after the Monynna of Fochard, which is in Louth. 



Glunsealach and Alfin finished their religious education 

 under Coemgen, and the former became a bishop. Both are 

 numbered with the saints, and are commemorated on June 3, on 

 the same day as the peppery Coemgen, their master. 



Whether the Brig or Brignait, who was the faithful pupil 

 of Monynna, be the Breaca of Cornwall, we cannot say, but 

 probably she was not, as the Life of S. Monynna says that she 



*" In hoc balneo fecit Modwenna intrare episcopum, dicens ad eum : sieut 



in hoc balneo lavaris extrinsecus a sordibus corporis, sic te deus omnipotens emundet 

 intrinsecus a maculis cordis.'' 



