To “begin at the beginning” of Manx history, the precise date of the reign of Mannanen Beg Mac-y-Leir—which, being interpreted, is Little Mannanen, the son of Leir, and who is the mythic hero of Man—is somewhat difficult to determine, seeing that he is said to have reigned any time between thirteen centuries before Christ and four centuries after. As another name for him was Angus Oge, “The Immortal,” this Mannanen may have lived to a good old age; but seventeen centuries is a far cry. His parentage is further variously attributed to Scottish and to Irish kings; and he was the first law-maker of the island. Also, besides being a warrior, navigator, and trader, he was a skilful forger of weapons, and a mighty necromancer and magician, having the power to hide his dominions in mist at the approach of the enemy. If Mannanen was killed by St Patrick, and his subjects were driven by that apostle to the alternative of becoming Christians or of being exterminated—for, saith the chronicler, “of the seed of the conjurer, there were none but what the saint destroyed”—the founder of Man necessarily is a comparatively modern personage of sixth-century days. Something like an air of reality is spread over this tradition of Mannanen and St Patrick by the traditions of St Maughold, whose name appears in the English, Scotch, and Irish calendars, and who gives his name to the headland near Ramsey. This Maughold or Macguil appears to have been a wild Irish chieftain who designed to murder St Patrick. The saint however filled Maughold with awe by exercising a miracle, and restoring to life one of his band of ruffian followers. This deed, more marvellous than useful, converted Maughold on the spot to the Christian faith, and he offered to do any penance St Patrick thought fit to impose. The saint having considered awhile, bade the penitent to repair to the seashore, and there, entering a little coracle, have his hands and feet bound, and then let himself drift over the trackless waters till they should bring him to land once more; and so he was brought to the foot of the rocks eastward of the Isle of Man. Here he was welcomed by the Christian missionaries whom St Patrick had left in charge of the island; and after a long life spent in pious prayers and deeds and many austerities, and, in his turn, miracles, he died, and was buried in the church which afterwards bore his canonised name and stood in the midst of the city which he had founded on that rock. After all this, it is cruel to find that the most laborious and learned seekers into the lives of the saints and early apostles of Christianity can discover not the slightest evidence of this visit of St Patrick to the Isle of Man, nor of any episcopate left there by him. The monkish compilers of the “Chronicles of Man” give their summing-up of this tradition to the same effect, in the fourteenth century:—