Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/286

220 The Rev. C. Collins Trelawny, soon after the discovery, wrote an account in a book entitled Perranzabulo, the Lost Church Found, which went through seven editions (1837-72).

In 1844 Mr. Haslam published another book on the subject, and again another in 1888, From Death unto Life, in which he assumed to himself the credit of Mr. Mitchell's discovery. The church has not the extreme antiquity attributed to it. The fact of there being a chancel is sufficient evidence that it does not belong to the sixth century, as none of the earliest Irish churches possess this feature. It is about two centuries later, though doubtless a reconstruction of the old materials, and perhaps on the old lines. Judging from Irish examples, in one point only is Mr. Haslam more correct than Mr. Mitchell. He considered the niche over the altar to have been a walled-up window, and in this was right.

The story of S. Piran, or Kieran, as he is called in Ireland, is of sufficient interest to be given.

He was born in Clear Island, in the county of Cork, the extreme south point of Ireland. He established a monastery at Saighir, in the extreme north of Munster. The legend is that his first disciples were a boar, a fox, a badger, a wolf, and a doe. And in this we have an instance of the manner in which simple facts assume a fabulous character in the hands of late writers. The district was that of the clan of Hy Sinnach, i.e. the foxes;