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Fintanus or Fintan

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the founder of the monastery of Rheinau (q.v.), in the canton of Zurich. He descended from a. noble family in the province of Leinster, Ireland, In a war between two chieftains, one chieftain killed Fintan's brother, and, fearing that Fintan would avenge the brother's death, caused him insidiously to be carried off by the Normans. Having changed his master several times within a few days, Fintan was to be taken to Scotland, but escaped when the vessel landed at one of the Orkney Islands. He had to spend three days on this uninhabited island, after which he swam, miraculously supported, to Scotland. He remained for two years with a bishop who had studied in Ireland then, in compliance with a vow, he journeyed, through Gallia, Alemannia, and Lombardy, to Rome. After his return he first went to the monastery of Pffaffers, and from there to Rheinau, where he completed, conjointly with Wolfen, a scion of the house of the Welfs, the monastery which the grandfather and father of Wolfen had begun. After working at Rheinau for five years as a priest, he entered thee monastery ins 851, remained there five years?, and thereupon became a hermit, leading for 22 years, from 856 to 878, the year of his death, a life of extreme asceticism. Thus he came to be venerated as a saint, even during his lifetime, throughout the whole region. When his friend Wolfen, who in the mean time had become abbot of Rheinau, returned from Rome with the relics of St. Blasius, Fimntan took a portion of them to a cell in the Black Forest, which subsequently was called St. Blasien.-Herzog, Real- Encyk1opadie 19:491.