original MS.[5]

The text of the Second Latin Life (LB) is contained in two MSS. in the
Bodleian Library (Rawl. B 485 and Rawl. B 505, here called R1 and R2).
Of these R2 is a direct copy of R1, as has been proved by Plummer, in
his description of these manuscripts.[6] As to their date, there is
no agreement; the estimate for R1 ranges from the first half of the
thirteenth to the fourteenth century, R2 being necessarily somewhat
later. The Life of Ciaran contained in these MSS. has been used
by Plummer in editing LA, and extracts from it are printed in his
footnotes. It has not, however, been previously printed in its
entirety, and a transcript made by myself is therefore added here, in
an Appendix.

The text of the Third Latin Life (LC) is contained in the well-known
Brussels MS., called _Codex Salmaticensis_ from its former sojourn
at Salamanca. It is of the fourteenth century. This was the only
continuous authority at the disposal of the compiler of the Bollandist
life of our saint; he speaks of it in the most contemptuous terms. The
life of Ciaran in this manuscript is a mere fragment, evidently copied
from an imperfect exemplar; there seems to have been a chasm in
the middle, and there is a lacuna at the end, which the scribe
has endeavoured to conceal by adding the words "Finit, Amen." The
translation here given has been prepared from the edition of the
Salamanca MS. by de Smedt and de Backer, cols. 155-160.

The Irish Life (here denoted VG, i.e. _Vita Goedelica_) was edited by
Whitley Stokes from the late fifteenth-century MS. called the _Book of
Lismore._[7] The numerous errors in the Lismore text may be to some
extent corrected by collation with another Brussels MS., written in