S. BERACH, B., AB. (ABOUT A.D. 615.) [Irish Kalendar. Two lives of this saint exist, but both are late, collected from oral tradition, and full of fable.] The lives of the Irish saints were, for the most part, written from popular tradition, many centuries after their decease. They are characterised by a love of the marvellous and the grotesque, diminishing their historical value. The same quaint legends re-appear in almost all, or with slender modifications. It seems that every Irish saint yoked stags to his plough, and made bells come to him over the water. If some of these fanciful stories are here inserted, it is not that we desire a ready credence to be yielded to them, but rather because it is all that there is to be told about these saints, and some of them possess a strange beauty or are characteristically grotesque. Berach is said to have been the son of Nemnald, descendant of Brian, Prince of Connaught, by his wife, Finmaith, who took him to be baptized by his uncle, S. Froech. And here follows a strange tale. When Berach was taken from the font, the mother wished to resume her charge of him, but "No," said the bishop, "let me have the bringing up of this little one; God will provide for his sustenance." So S. Froech took him, and when the babe cried for the breast of his mother, his uncle gave him the lobe of his ear to suck, and thence flowed a copious supply of honey. Now, when the boy was grown up, guided by an angel, he went to Glendalough, and there he settled, leading a monastic life under S. Coemgen. One day a wolf fell on a calf, belonging to the monks, and devoured it, then the cow ran lowing painfully about, and Berach, pitying her, bade the wolf come and suck her, and be to her in place of the calf he had eaten. Now there was in the charge of S. Coemgen, a lad, the son of Duke Colman, who was very ill, and consumed with fever. As the boy fretted in his bed, and cried for apples and sorrel to quench his burning thirst, S. Coemgen said to Berach, "Go forth, my son, taking my staff, and bring me what the sick boy needs." So Berach went forth. And it was midwinter. Then he prayed to God, with whom nothing is impossible, for he was stirred with pity for the fevered child, and he went to a willow, and blessed it; then it thrust forth its little silky flowers, and these swelled and ripened into red apples, and beneath the willow the snow dissolved, and green sorrel thrust up its shoots and spread its delicate leaves; so he gathered of the apples a lap-full, and picked a large bunch of sorrel, and came with them to his master.[43]