Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/56

 and his seed. On the same day Auxilius and Eserninus, and others of Patrick's people, were ordained; and it was then, also, that the name Patricius&mdash;i.e., a name of power with the Romans&mdash;was given to him; i.e., a hostage-liberating man. It was he, moreover, who loosened the hostageship and bondage of the Gaeidhel to the devil. And when they were reading the grada (orders, degrees), the three choirs responded&mdash;viz., the choir of the men of heaven, and the choir of the Romans, and the choir of the children from the woods of Fochlud&mdash;all whom cried out, "Hibernienses omnes," etc. In illis diebus autem gesta sunt in predictis ita. In that time there was a fierce pagan king in Erinn&mdash;i.e., Laeghaire Mac Neill&mdash;and his seat and royal hold was in Tara. In the fifth year of the reign of Laeghaire Mac Neill Patrick came to Erinn. The eighth year of the reign of Lughaidh he died. The eighth year of the reign of Theodosius, the forty-fifth man from Augustus, Patrick came; eight years Celestine was then prince, as Gelasius said.

This valiant king, then&mdash;i.e., Laeghaire Mac Neill&mdash;possessed druids and enchanters, who used to foretell through their druidism and through their paganism what was in the future for them. Lochru and Luchat Mael were their chiefs; and these two were authors of that art of pseudo-prophecy. They prophesied, then, that a mighty, unprecedented prophet would come across the sea, with an unknown code of instructions, with a few companions, whom multitudes would obey, and who would obtain dignity and reverence from the men of Erinn; and that he would expel kings and princes from their governments, and would destroy all the idolatrous images; and that the faith which would arrive would live for ever in Erin. Two years, or three, before