 The kern of the title is an otherworldly trickster figure who performs a series of miracles; after inducing twenty armed men to kill each other, he produces herbs from his bag and instructs his host's gatekeeper to place them within the jaws of each dead man to bring him back to life.At the end of the tale, the mysterious visitor is revealed as Manannán mac Lir, the Irish god known in other stories for his herd of pigs that offer eternal feasting from their self-renewing flesh.Scholars have frequently suggested that the use of a viaticum in the Christian rite for the dying reflected preexisting religious practice, with Charon’s obol replaced by a more acceptably Christian sacrament.