Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrologies. Authority:—A fragmentary life published by the Bollandists, based on tradition.

The legend of this saint comes under the same category as so many of the other Irish legends. It exists only in fragments, and was written several hundreds of years after the death of S. Lactean, from oral tradition. It shall be given without any attempt at sifting truth from fable, as a specimen of these Irish biographies.

An angel appeared to S. Molua (d. about 608), monk of Banchor, in Ireland, when he was wondering who would become his pupil, and announced to him that after the lapse of fifteen years a child would be born, who would become his disciple. And for those fifteen years Molua did not laugh, being instant in expectation. Now there was a man in Munster named Torphur, who had a wife named Senecha, and she was with child. And before the child was born, her breasts filled with milk. An old man, named Mohemath, passed by, and he was blind. Then Senecha struck his eyes with her milk, and his eyes opened, and he saw so plain that the city of Rome, bathed in clear light, was visible instantly to his so long darkened orbs.

Now when Lactean was born, Mohemath was near at hand. And the place was without water. So Mohemath took the finger of the new-born babe, and with it signed a cross on the earth. Then instantly a fountain burst forth, and therein Lactean was baptized. And when Lactean was a month old, he was taken to S. Alpheus, to be rebaptized, but when he saw the child full of the grace of God, he knew that he had already been bathed in the laver of regeneration, and, therefore, he refused to repeat the sacrament. Also there was in that country a grain, which acted on whomsoever ate thereof as an emetic, but the infant Lactean was fed thereon, and was none the worse, for indeed nothing injured him. Now a grievous murrain broke out amongst the cattle of his father, and they died. But there was a white cow with a red face, on whose milk Lactean was nourished, and this cow died. Then the child was carried in his mother's arms to the dead cow, and it recovered, and her milk was distributed amongst the other cows, and they recovered of their disorder.

Now when Lactean was aged fifteen, the angel Muriel, who was commissioned to be his guardian, led him to Banchor, and S. Comgal gave him to be the pupil and companion of S. Molua, who instructed him in letters and the reading of the Divine Scriptures.

Afterwards Lactean went to S. Mochuda, and as he drew nigh, he sent and asked Mochuda for milk. Then Mochuda filled a vessel with pure water, and signed it, and it became milk, but Lactean took it, and signed it again, and it was reconverted into water. Afterwards Lactean founded the abbey of Clonfert, and he died in the odour of sanctity.

It is evident that his name was the occasion of so many milky legends attaching themselves to it.

Colgan has confounded this S. Lactean with another of the same name, a contemporary of S. Senan of Iniscatthy, from whom the church of Lis-lachtin, in Kerry, took its name, and who died about the year 560. The S. Lactean of Clonfert belonged to the house of Corpre Muse, of Muskerry, Cork, and was a friend of S. Mochoemog (Pulcherius), abbot of Achadur (Aghour), in Kilkenny.