This Arian does and is healed, and in consequence converted. Then Dioclesian, hearing of his conversion, sends four officers to judge him, and these in turn are converted, and finally Arian and the four officers are sewn up in sacks and flung into the sea. All this may safely be rejected as fabulous. S. SENAN OF INISCATTHY, AB. B. (ABOUT A.D. 546.) [Irish Martyrologies. He died on March 1st, but was buried on the 8th, on which day his festival is kept. His name occurs in the Festology of S. Ængus. Authorities:--A life written by S. Colman, versified by a later hand, and full of fables, also an Irish life written in the 12th cent.] Senan was a native of Corco-baskin, a district in the western part of Thomond.[35] His parents were Christians and noble. Ercan, his father, is said to have been of the royal blood of Conary I., king of Ireland. Coemgalla, his mother, was likewise of an illustrious Munster family. An odd legend of his childhood is told. His parents were moving house, and Senan remained immersed in prayer, lending no hand to the work. Then his mother, provoked, threw some water over him to wake him up, and scolded him soundly. Senan resumed his devotions, and instantly the pots and pans of the domestic establishment came flying through the air from the kitchen of the old house into the kitchen of the new one. [35] In the county Clare. When arrived at a certain age, he was forced by the prince of Corco-baskin to join in an expedition undertaken against the territory of Corcomroe, for the purpose of carrying off plunder. This did not suit the disposition of young Senan, and accordingly he contrived to avoid taking any share in the devastation of the country. He was rewarded for this, for, when the party to which he belonged was routed with great loss, and he had fallen into the hands of their opponents, he was allowed to depart without injury, and go whithersoever he pleased. He therefore placed himself under the abbot Cassidan, and having received from him the monastic habit, became a proficient in piety and learning. Next he repaired to the monastery of S. Natalis, or Naal, with whom he spent some years. Several legends are connected with this period. He had to keep cows, and one day seeing the calves sucking them, and dreading lest there should be a deficiency of milk for the brethren, he put his stick between them, and neither could approach the other. Another story is to the effect that he read at night using the fingers of his left hand as candles,--a story told also of S. Columba, S. Kentigern, and other Irish and Scottish saints. A monk observed him; then Senan said, "For peeping and prying, a stork shall peck out your eye." And as the monk left the place, a stork rushed at him, and had one of his eye balls out in a trice. But when S. Natalis heard of this, he ordered Senan to replace the eye, and cure it instantly, and this he did. After Senan had left the monastery of S.