into Ireland, and whence Scotland, Cornwall, and
Wales were supplied with evangelists.[1]
His establishment was a double one, of female disciples as well as of males, and the consequences were not always satisfactory.
A British king named Drust (523-28) sent his daughter to Ty Gwyn to be educated. In the college were at the time Finnian, afterwards of Clonard, and two other Irishmen, Rioc and Talmage. Rioc fell in love with the girl, and bribed Finnian to be his go-between and get her for him as wife by the promise of a copy of all Mawgan's books that he undertook to make. Finnian agreed, but by treachery, or as a joke, did the courting for Talmage in place of Rioc. When the circumstances came to the ears of Mawgan he was very angry, and he gave his boy a hatchet, and told him to hide behind the chapel, and when Finnian came to matins to hew at him from behind. But instead of Finnian, the first to arrive was Mawgan himself, and he received the blow destined for Finnian. Happily, either because the boy missed his aim in the dark, or more probably because the order had been given to beat Finnian and not kill him, Mawgan was not mortally wounded.
Non, the mother of S. David, was brought up in the same house, and was there when it was visited by Gildas the historian, whose works we have.
It does not at all appear that the rule of celibacy was required of clergy, even of abbots, in the early
- ↑ Not Witherne in Galway, nor Ty Gwyn ar Daf. See Mrs. Dawson's article in Archæol. Cambr., 1898.
