Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Legends of the Celtic Saints. 341
The dwellers under Mount Leinster, who have had no
personal experience of the matter, are, or were some
time ago, firmly persuaded that the bells in Ferns
Cathedral could not be heard across the neighbouring
stream. We ourselves have seen the statue of St. Mogue
lying as described, and believe that the care of the Bishop
in having it restored has been in the main correctly
reported. There is a strong desire through the neigh-
bouring country for interment in the cemetery of Ferns,
owing to a supposed promise of the saint, on his death-
bed, that he would take five hundred times the full of the
churchyard to Paradise along with himself.
A LEGEND OF ST. MOGUE* OF FERNS,
When St. Mogue was Bishop of Ferns, he had a wild
brother that gave him a great deal of trouble, and at last
ran away from him altogether. Well, the saint wasn't to
be daunted. After waiting for a long time to see if he
would come back, he took a short stick in his fist, and
searched the European world all over for him, and at last
found him playing ball again' the walls o' Jerusalem. So
he over-persuaded him to return, and lielp him to build his
cathedral ; but a figary took the young fellow again, and,
instead of assisting the saint, he took it into his head to
make a church for himself the other side of the river
Bann. St. Mogue was mighty incensed at this, and says
he to his brother, " The bells I'll put up in my steeple,"
* Mogue, erroneously supposed an equivalent to Moses, is an
abridgment of Mo-Aodh-Oge, " My Lord, young Hugh." St.
INIogue, otherwise Aidan, spent some time with St. David of Wales,
He died a.d. 632,