co ná rabar dá adaig i n-áeninad
co ná rabar dá adaig i n-áeninad
(so that * not * I might be * two * nights * in * one place)
lest I be two nights in the same place = so that I never stop traveling
In a short anecdote edited by Kuno Meyer as “Mochuta und der Teufel” in ZCP 3.32-3, St. Mochuta says “Ragad isin luing fil oc himtecht a Herinn, co na rabar da hadaig a n-aeninad ac oilithre ar fud in domain moir.” (I will get on the ship that is leaving Ireland, so that I’ll never be two nights in the same place pilgrimaging throughout the wide world.) It turns out that his shoes have been infested by a demon of travel, whom St. Comgall exorcises. Once evicted from the shoes, the demon admits “ni leicfinn-si do beth da oidche a n-aeninad.” (I would not have allowed him to be two nights in one place.) So Mochuta stays put after all. The image of never staying two nights in one place is a common one in Irish literature. A more recent stanza, edited by J. G. O’Keefe in “A Miscellany Presented to Kuno Meyer” (p. 248), begins
Ná hiarr anos ’s anuraidh
dá oidhche é ar aontulaigh
Don’t seek him now or last year
two nights on the same hilltop