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It is clear that Cairnech was associated with Patrick in the famous revision of the Brehon Laws which became known as the Senchus Mor. It was natural that, in Cornish, his name should become Crannog, Latinised into Carantocus; in Wales it seems to have become Caranog.
An ancient Irish tract, which forms part of the Senchus Mor, and is supposed to be a portion of the Brehon code, and traceable to the time of St. Patrick, speaks of land in a poetically symbolic, but actually realistic manner, and says, "Land is perpetual man." All the ingredients of our physical frame come from the soil.
Up to recently, however, only vague notions could be given of that code. But at this moment antiquarians are revising and studying it preparatory to publishing the "Senchus Mor" in which the Irish law is contained.
It is curious that the most distinct ancient rules concerning the excessive extortion of rent are, as has been shown by Sir Henry Maine, to be found in the "Senchus Mor." Under its regulations three rents are enumerated namely, the rack rent to be extorted from one of a strange tribe; the fair rent from one of the same tribe; and the stipulated rent to be paid equally to either.
Secondly, we see in the Celtic race a rare and unique outburst of fancy, so well expressed in the "Senchus Mor," their great law compilation, wherein it is related, that when St. Patrick had completed the digest of the laws of the Gael in Ireland, Dubtach, who was a bard as well as a brehon, "put a thread of poetry round it."
Nothing can be more indicative of it than the criminal code of a people. The law of England at that time compares poorly with the Irish compilation known as the "Senchus Mor," which scholars have only recently been able to study, and which is being printed as we write, and to be illustrated with learned notes.
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