usly restored to save him from the indignation of his maternal
aunt (VSH, ii, 296). It is obvious, but hypercritical, to complain
that in these artless tales the kindness shown to the beasts is
illogically one-sided!

_The Process of Resuscitation._--The important point in the tale,
though the versions do not all recognise this, is the collection of
the bones of the calf. VG preserves the essential command to the wolf
not to break these. Colum Cille reconstituted an ox from its bones
(LL, 1055). Coemgen gave away to wayfarers the dinner prepared for
the monastic harvestmen, and when the latter naturally protested, he
collected the bones and re-clothed them with flesh, at the same time
turning water to wine (VSH, i, 238). Aed performed a similar miracle
in the nunnery at Clonmacnois, replacing Ciaran's dinner which he
himself had eaten (VSH, i, 39). There is here no mention of the bones,
but very likely this has become lost in the process of transmission.
By all these tales we are reminded of the boar Saehrimnir, on whose
flesh the blessed ones in Valhalla feast daily--sodden every evening
and reconstituted from its bones every morning.[13] In a Breton
folk-tale, _La princesse Troiol_, the hero has been burnt by the wiles
of his enemy, but his sorceress fiancee seeks among the ashes till
at last she finds a tiny splinter of bone. With this she is able to
restore her betrothed; without it she would have been powerless.[14]

Very probably the practice of "secondary interment" of human bones,
which we find so far back as the later stages of the Palaeolithic age,
is based upon the same belief; that if the bones are preserved, their
owner has a chance of a fresh lease of life.

There is a curious variant of the story in the Life of Coemgen.
Here the cow is driven home, and Coemgen, called upon to soothe its
lamentations, fetches, not the bones of the eaten calf, but the
culprit wolf, which comes and plays the part of the calf to the
satisfaction of all concerned (VSH, i, 239). It is evident that
in this case there is another element of belief indicated: the
personality of the calf has passed into the wolf which has devoured
it--in fact, the wolf _is_ the calf re-incarnate.

_Resurrection of Beasts._--Calling dead animals back to life is a not
infrequent incident in the lives of Irish saints. We have already seen
Ciaran resuscitating a horse. Mo-Chua restored twelve stags (VSH, ii,
188); but perhaps the most remarkable fea