his physicians declared that an
attempt to extract it would prove fatal. Conor was carried home; he soon
recovered, but he was strictly forbidden to use any violent exercise,
and required to avoid all excitement or anger. The king enjoyed his
usual health by observing those directions, until the very day of the
Crucifixion. But the fearful phenomena which then occurred diverted his
attention, and he inquired if _Bacrach_, his druid, could divine the
cause.

The druid consulted his oracles, and informed the king that Jesus
Christ, the Son of the living God, was, even at that moment, suffering
death at the hands of the Jews. "What crime has He committed?" said
Conor. "None," replied the druid. "Then are they slaying Him
innocently?" said Conor. "They are," replied the druid.

It was too great a sorrow for the noble prince; he could not bear that
his God should die unmourned; and rushing wildly from where he sat to a
neighbouring forest, he began to hew the young trees down, exclaiming:
"Thus would I destroy those who were around my King at putting Him to
death." The excitement proved fatal; and the brave and good King Conor
Mac Nessa died[135] avenging, in his own wild pagan fashion, the death
of his Creator.

The secular history of Ireland, during the mission of St. Patrick,
affords but few events of interest or importance. King Laeghaire died,
according to the Four Masters, A.D. 458. The popular opinion attributed
his demise to the violation of his oath to the Leinster men. It is
doubtful whether he died a Christian, but the account of his burial[136]
has been taken to prove the contrary. It is much to be regretted that
persons entirely ignorant of the Catholic faith, whether that ignorance
be wilful or invincible, should attempt to write lives of Catholic
saints, or histories of Catholic countries. Such persons, no doubt
unintentionally, make the most serious mistakes, which a well-educated
Catholic child could easily rectify. We find a remarkable instance of
this in the following passage, taken from a work already mentioned:
"Perhaps this [King Laeghaire's oath] may not be considered an absolute
proof of the king's paganism. To swear by the sun and moon was
apparently, no doubt, paganism. But is it not also paganism to represent
the rain and wind as taking vengeance? ... for this is the language
copied by all the monastic annalists, and even by the Four Masters,
Franciscan friars, writing in the seventeenth centur