the king. Afterwards, when S. Patrick saw the
wound and the blood, he was shocked, and said,
"Why the dickens did you not tell me of it?" "I
thought it was part of the ceremony," replied
Aengus.
However, to return to Buriena, his granddaughter. She was so pretty and so graceful, that although she was at school with Liadhain, the mother of S. Piran, as her spiritual child, a chieftain named Dimma carried her off to his own castle. Liadhain came in a fume to S. Piran and told him of the outrage. At once the old man seized his staff and went after Dimma, who was head of the clan Hy Fiachta. It was midwinter, and the snow was on the ground. When Piran arrived at the gates of the cashel he was refused admittance. He would not return, but maintained his place, and next morning there he was still. He had stood there all night in the snow, waiting to insist on the restoration of the girl. Dimma now was alarmed. He saw that the saint was determined to "fast against him," a legal process, as has been described already, and he returned the damsel.
However, some days afterwards, feeling his passion still strong, he went at the head of a body of men to reclaim her. Buriena fainted when she saw his approach; but Piran had time to call out all his ecclesiastical tribe, and they surrounded the place where Liadhain and Buriena were, and he had sent a detachment to make a circuit and set fire to Dimma's cashel, so that the chief was compelled to beat a precipitate retreat. It was probably in con-
