Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrologies, he and Abban of Kill-Abban being confounded together. Authority: — A worthless Life, late, and full of fable.] No reliance can be placed on any statement in the following Life. Probably Abban was a son of Mella, sister of S. Coemgen, by Cormac of the family of Dalcorb, in Leinster.1 He ran away from home, and placed himself in a monastery school. One day he was out looking after some cows with their young calves, when a hungry wolf and her cubs came up and looked beseechingly at Abban. He, pitying the hungry creatures, permitted them to kill and devour one of the calves. They ate it greedily, leaving only a few large bones. When the cowherd came to the spot he was very distressed, and exclaimed that the poor cow would be sure to die at having lost her calf. Abban was distressed, and praying over the gnawed bones, they clothed themselves with flesh and skin, and the calf jumping up ran bleating after its mother.

He became disciple of S. Ibar,2 and when that saint was going to Rome, Abban besought him to be allowed to attend him. But Ibar refused him admission into his ship, as he wished Abban to rule his diocese during his absence. When Ibar was about to enter the ship, Abban, again weeping, 1 The Life seems to hare been made up out of Irish ballads; the author introduces fragments of Irish verse, a conversation between Mella and her brother. besought the bishop to let him be with him. Ibar reluctantly refused, but he bade Abban lay his head in his lap and go to sleep. When Abban was asleep, Ibar softly rose, laid his disciple’s head on a heap of sand, ran to his ship, sprang in, hoisted sail, and sped from shore with a prosperous breeze: and the ship was soon nought but a white speck on the blue horizon. Abban awoke before the vessel had disappeared. Then uttering a cry, he ran to the shore, and out over the waves, pursuing the ship till he overtook her; jumped in, and continued his passage to the coast of Britain with his master Ibar.

S. Ibar went on with S. Abban to Abingdon, where the king and all the people were heathens, and preached to the monarch. “ I will not believe without a miracle,” said the prince. “ Breathe on a candle and light it, and I will become a Christian.” S. Ibar tried and failed, but S. Abban was successful. There was in the neighbourhood a wild beast like a lion, which devastated Berkshire. The king had marched an army against it, but had not succeeded in destroying the lion. Abban went forth alone, spoke, and the beast fell dead at his feet. Near there was a marsh full of horrible monsters. Abban waded into it, and drove the monsters into one pool, and bade them remain there till the end of time, and not infest the marsh any more. They obeyed. A certain wriggling and churning of the water in the pool once every seven years, even unto this day, gives token that the monsters writhe under Abban’s ban, but cannot break it He went on to Rome, and was ordained priest by S. Gregory the Great. On his return to Ireland, as the ship entered Loch Carman in Wexford, a sea monster appeared, having a hundred heads, two hundred eyes, and as many ears, and reaching to the clouds; he spouted the water from one of his mouths high into the firmament of heaven, and nearly drowned the ship. S. Abban slew it with the sign of the cross. 5*. Abban.

An old man once brought his little girl to S. Abban to be baptized, and told him with tears in his eyes that the desire of his life had been denied him — to have a son to succeed to his family name and honours.

“ Wait a little,” said S. Abban; he baptized the child, and when he returned it to the parents, the little girl had become a little boy.1 S. Abban was going a night journey with some monks. It was dark and rainy, and they doubted which was their way. Then suddenly an angel came down from heaven with a golden candlestick and burning light on it, and put it in the hand of S. Abban. The candle threw a blaze of light over the whole neighbourhood, and was unaffected by wind or rain. On reaching home he wanted to put the candle on the altar of the church, but the angel reappeared and reclaimed it. He was reading the Gospels out of doors one winter’s day, when, being summoned within, he left the book open on a stone and forgot it till next day. It snowed all night; but on the following morning not a flake of snow was found on the book or stone.

He is said to have founded a number of monasteries in Wexford and Cork, and two nunneries, Kill-ailbhe in East Meath, and Ballyvoumey in Cork. But Abban’s chief foundation was at Maghamoidhe, in Wexford, the exact site not now known; and there he spent the latter years of his life. Now when the time drew near that he must depart out of this world, he confided to the provost of the monastery the day and hour of his death. The provost was a native of Kill- Abban, and he at once sent to this place to advise the citizens and monks there of a scheme he had for stealing the body of the saint, and enriching with it his native town. They were to be ready on a certain night specified, with a 1 Colgan labours to show that this miracle is credible. The Bollandist, De Buck asks for better evidence, but says “ nolim tamen inter fabulas amandarc.* roct**.

cart drawn by two oxen, and a body of armed men and monks. On that night, when the brethren in Maghamoidhe were unprepared, Abban died as he had predicted. As soon as the breath was out of his body, and before he was cold, the provost threw him over his shoulder and decamped with him to the spot where the men of Kill-Abban were waiting with the cart The dead saint was placed thereon, the oxen were goaded forward, and the party started at a trot over the hills to get to Kill-Abban before the theft was discovered.

But early next morning some monks went to the cell of the abbot, and found him gone. Every comer of the abbey was ransacked, but he was nowhere to be seen, and when it was ascertained that the provost had vanished also, the horrible suspicion forced itself on the minds of the monks that they had been robbed of a treasure — the corpse of their founder.

The inhabitants of the town were roused, and there was more lamentation over the loss of the body than over the death of the saint. An armed band started at once in pursuit, and came up with the party from Kill- Abban. A fight would have ensued, and much blood would have been shed, had not the provost and monks of Kill-Abban interposed and begged that the matter might be referred to the saint himself. They fell to prayer. Then suddenly two oxen drawing a cart on which lay the body of S. Abban, issued from the throng of the Kill-Abbanites and turned their heads towards Maghamoidhe. The band from that place wTere exultant, and they returned with their prize to the abbey where Abban had died. But the wonderful thing was that those of Kill-Abban also had the cart and oxen and body of S. Abban, and conducted that in triumph to their town. In fact, the dead body had developed into two, with two carts to contain it and four oxen to draw it. Was not that a miracle ? And thus both Kill-Abban and Moghamoide were in possession of genuine entire bodies of the same saint.1