Benignus was a mere boy of some sixteen years of age when Patrick stayed for a night at the mouth of the Nanny River near Duleek, and being weary from his journey the Saint fell asleep on the green sward. Then the boy gathered sweet-smelling flowers and tenderly laid them in the Saint's bosom as he slept. "Stop doing that lest thou awake Patrick," said the others; and thereupon Patrick awoke, and blessed the boy, and foretold that he was to be the heir of his kingdom. So the boy was baptized and ever afterwards followed the Saint, who appointed him his Coadjutor Bishop in the See of Armagh, so early as A.D. 450. Benignus being young and carefully trained by St. Patrick, and also learned in the Irish tongue, in all probability acted as Secretary to the Commission, and drafted with his own hands the laws that were sanctioned by the Seniors. According to O'Donovan he was also the original author of the famous Chronicle called the _Psalter of Cashel_, which gives a full account of the laws, rights and prerogatives of the Monarchs of Ireland, and especially of the Kings of Cashel. He seems also to have been the original author of the _Book of Rights_, although in its present form it gives manifest proof of considerable changes, and much later emendations. Daire, the only remaining member of whom it is necessary to make any remark, seems to have been the same who granted Armagh to St. Patrick as a site for his Cathedral, and whose daughter was one of the first, if not the very first of the Irish maidens, who took the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and with her companions, some the daughters of kings, spent her life of utter purity in working vestments for the priests, and altar-cloths for the service of the Cathedral. Yet romance was mingled with her name, for she:-- "The best and fairest, King Daire's daughter, Erenait by name, Had loved Benignus in her Pagan years. He knew it not; full sweet to her his voice, Chanting in choir. One day through grief of love The maiden lay as dead; Benignus shook Dews from the font above her, and she woke, With heart emancipate that out-soared the lark, Lost in the blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of Souls."[68] Such was the Commission of Nine selected by St. Patrick to purify the ancient pagan Code. We have still in existence the fruit of their labours substantially unchanged, although as we might expect, a vast mass of accretions, in the shape of commentaries and glosses, has gathered round the original text. The Nine were, however, the real authors of the _Senchus Mor_, which still furnishes the most abundant and authentic materials for the study of our national history. It is a very large work, and the archaic text was so obscure that even O'Donovan and O'Curry were sometimes unable to explain its meaning. It is certainly the greatest monument in existence of the learning and civilization of the ancient Gaedhlic race in Erin.