Baring-Gould’s sources: Notker, and many German Martyrologies. Tamayus Salazar in his Spanish Martyrolcgy converts him into an abbot and bishop in Spain. " Risu dignus est Tamayus," says the Bollandist. In Suabiaalso March 21, the Translation of S Magnoald. The only authority for this Saint's life is unfortunately utterly untrustworthy. It is a Life which it is pretended was written by his companion and disciple Theodore, who laid it under the abbot's head when he buried him. The body was dug up in the 9th century, and on the stone coffin being opened, the book was taken out, and delivered to Ermenric of Elwangen, (d. a.d. 866), tore-edit, much of it being decayed by age. Thus the Life is pretended to be a composition of a contemporary in.the 7th cent., re-edited in the 9th. It is really a forgery of the 10th or 12th cent. “Nee Theodori nec Ermenrici illud est opusculum, sed cujusdam impostoris." — Basnage. The Life is made up of long extracts from Jonas of Bobbio, who wrote the Life of S. Columbanus, and of Walafrid Strabo (d. a.d. 849), and from the Life of S. Gall. Events narrated of others are transferred to Magnoald.1 For instance, the incident told of S. Cagnoald, related a few pages back (p. 90), is told verbatim of Magnoald, the forger having only to change one letter — C. into M. Where the composer of this Life had genuine Lives to manipulate and convert to a memoir of S. Magnoald his book is interesting, but directly he brings Magnoald to the ground where he founded his abbey, and on which the Lives of S. Columbanus and S. Gall turnished no data, he lapses into foolish legend,] From the circumstances mentioned in the head-note, it is impossible to place any reliance on the history of S. Magnoald, Mangold, or Magnus, as he is variously called. 1 See Kritische Prufung d. Lebensgesch. der Heil. Magnus, in Eenkert’s Athanasia, S. Magnoald.

He was a disciple of S. Columbanus [Irish monk (d. 615) who founded monasteries in France and Italy], and was probably a native of Suabia. After the departure of S. Columbanus to Italy he remained with S. Gall [Irish companion of Columbanus, founder of the Swiss monastery that bears his name] till his death, and then departed eastwards. He stayed a short while at Kempten, where he freed the neighbourhood of serpents, and then went on to Fiissen, where he founded an abbey. One day when he was in the mountains, he met a bear, who began gnawing at the roots of a tree.

“My good friend,” said Magnoald, “I have no spade or mattock with me.” Phen the bear set to work, and tore at the tree roots, dislodged the soil, and exposed a vein of iron ore. After this, the beast made signs as if it wished to show more further up the mountain. Magnoald rewarded bruin with a cake, and said, “ Return with me to the abbey, and I will send my servant with a pickaxe after thee, and see that thou do him no harm.” So the bear followed him like a dog, and Magnoald furnished his man with tools, and the beast led him into the mountains, and showed him several iron veins. And thus were discovered the iron mines worked long afterwards. In the church of Fiissen is preserved the staff of S. Magnoald, which is carried about the country to chase vermin from the fields. The abbey is sequestrated, and is the property, at present, of the Freiherr von Poniskau. S. Magnus or Magnoald is represented with a dragon transfixed by his pastoral staff, as he is said to have expelled such a monster from the neighbourhood of Fiissen, or with a bear at his side.