3. Moreover it fell out on a certain day that the mother of Keranus
himself found fault with him, for that he did not bring wild honey
such as the other boys were wont to carry to their parents. When the
beloved of God and men heard this, he raised his thoughts to the Boy
who was subject to His parents, and blessed water, brought from a
neighbouring spring, in His Name who is able to draw honey from the
rock, and oil from the hardest stone; and presently that water is
changed, with the help of God, into the sweetest honey, and so it is
brought to his mother. This honey his parents sent to Saint Dermicius
the deacon, surnamed Iustus, who baptized him.


XVII. HOW CIARAN WENT WITH HIS COW TO THE SCHOOL OF FINDIAN

4. Now when the rudiments of letters had been read [with him] by the
saint aforesaid, he proposed to go to the blessed abbey of Cluayn
Hirard for instruction. And as he wished to fulfil in deed what he had
begun to conceive of in his mind, he asked a cow of his parents for
his sustenance. But when his mother would not grant his petition, the
Heavenly Father, Who loveth those whom He regardeth as a mother her
son, did not tarry to fulfil the desire of his beloved. For a milch
cow, together with her calf, followed him as though she had been
driven after him by her herdsman.

When he had come to the sacred college of Saint Fynnianus, they all
had no small joy at his arrival. But the cow, which had followed him,
was pastured along with her calf, nor did it [the calf] attempt
to touch the udders of its mother without permission. Keranus so
separated and divided its pastures, that the mother would only lick
the calf, and would not offer to suckle it. Now the milk of that cow