Baring-Gould’s sources: Irish Martyrologies. Authority: — A late Life, full of fable.] ^Engus Macniss, or son of Nissa, is said to have been baptized by S. Patrick, and educated by S. Olcan (Feb. 5). One day when a boy he was set to watch cattle and went S. Macniss.

…to sleep. For his neglect the mother of S. Olcan took him up and slapped him as children are wont to be slapped. But the prospective virtue of Macniss resented the indignity, and the lady’s arm became rigid.

When grown a man he went a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and brought away with him, as relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor], some of the hair of the Blessed Virgin and the dresses of the apostles, and one of the chalices “ from the great altar at Jerusalem.” A man who had murdered his own father was condemned by his kinsmen to lose his son. Macniss interfered, and implored that the child might not be despatched till he had reached a cairn at the top of a hill some short way off. Macniss ran, and on ascending the cairn threw apart his arms in prayer. At the same moment the Irishmen, in execution of their rough justice, flung the child into the air, to receive him on the points of their spears, but a current of wind wafted him into the open arms of Macniss, who adopted the child, called him Colman, and he grew up to be bishop of Kill-ruaidh. TEngus Macniss is said to have held the Scriptures in such high reverence, that when he was on his way from one monastery to another, he would not strap the volume to his back, but laid it between his shoulders and walked on all fours, balancing it in its place with scrupulous care. The Annals of Innisfallen say that Macniss died in 506 (i.e. 507), but the Annals of the Four Masters say 513 (i.e.