In the Country of Neyll, a King Echu allowed St. Patrick to receive his beloved daughter Cynnia as a nun, though he bewailed the fact that his royal line would thereby end without issue. The King exacted a promise from Patrick not to insist that he be baptized, yet to promise him the heavenly kingdom. Patrick agreed, and left the matter in the hands of God.
Sometime later King Echu lay dying. He sent a messenger to St. Patrick to tell him that he desired Baptism and the heavenly kingdom. To those around him the King gave an order that he be not buried until Patrick came. Patrick, then in the monastery of Saballum, two days' journey away, knew of the situation through the Holy Spirit before the messenger even arrived. He left to go to the King, but arrived to find Echu dead. St. Patrick revived the King, instructed him, and baptized him. He asked Echu to relate what he had seen of the joys of the just and the pains of the wicked, so that his account could be used for the proving of Patrick's preaching. Echu told of many other-world wonders and how, in the heavenly country, he had seen the place Patrick had promised him. But the King could not enter in because he was unbaptized. ...Then having received the Eucharist, he fell asleep in the Lord.
[Story related in "Saints who raised the Dead", by Fr. Albert J. Hebert, S.M., pp. 195-196]
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