"When a sufficient mass of these combustible materials was heaped up all around the hut, Clotaire made a sign. The warrior who held the burning brand blew upon it, and soon as it was in flame held it to the heap of dry wood and weed. In an instant the hut disappeared behind a roaring sheet of fire. The cries of the unfortunate beings who were about to perish in the flames became heartrending. I turned my head away in involuntary horror, and, as my eyes fell upon the high sea, I saw the light vessel speeding away under full sail and vanishing in the distant horizon--it carried away Imnachair, together with the treasury of Chram.

"Clotaire has four sons left to him--Charibert, Gontran, Sigebert and Chilperik. It is said that the last of these seems to have inherited the ferocity of his father Clotaire and his grandfather Clovis!"

The Poniard's Hilt — Part 180

On the morning after the day when Ronan, my brother Karadeucq's son gave us this account, he left us. These were his last words:

The Poniard's Hilt — Part 180

"Kervan, I leave this house happy at having fulfilled the last wishes of my father and the orders of Joel."

The Poniard's Hilt — Part 180

Ronan the Vagre left, accordingly, early in the morning to return to his beloved Valley of Charolles. My nephew promised that, in the event of any matters of importance, he would inform us if he finds a traveler bound for Brittany. He would address any further narrative either to myself or my son Yvon, should I have left this world.

May Ronan, my brother's son, arrive safely in the Valley of Charolles and find his family happy and peaceful.

If before my death I should have nothing to add to these chronicles, I bequeath them, together with our family relics, to my son Yvon.

I, Yvon, son of Kervan and grandson of Jocelyn, enter at this place the date of my father's death in the month of June of the year 561.

From travelers we have learned that King Clotaire died this year at Compiegne in the fifty-first year of his reign, and was interred in the basilica of St. Medard at Soissons with the blessings of the bishops.

I have received no tidings from Ronan. May he still be alive and happy and free in the Valley of Charolles, as we are here in Brittany, which still remains free from the Frankish yoke. May it please Hesus never to allow our beloved province to experience such a calamity.