Albion

Saint Kenelm of Mercia, died c.821

Feast Day: 17th July

Illustration from the Brief Abridgement of the Chronicles of England by Matthew Paris

The Legend of St Kenelm

Kenelm was the son of King Cenwulf of Mercia, to whose throne he succeeded as a boy of seven years. His sister Cwenthryth (Quendreda) instigated his tutor Æscberht to kill him. While hunting with the child in a wood on 17 July, Æscberht beheaded and buried him at Clent in Worcestershire.

Meanwhile, the soul of the murdered Kenelm flew in the form of a white dove to the Pope in Rome, throwing a scroll onto the altar. The message in the scroll said that the young prince Kenelm of Mercia had been treacherously slain, and the site where his relics were hidden was indicated. The monks transported his relics to Winchcombe Abbey, where they were kept for several hundred years.

His sister, Cwenthryth, on hearing the commotion as the monks processed into Winchcombe, swore that if it be true that her brother had been found then may her eyes fall out of her head — and apparently they did, dropping onto the Bible she had been reading, while reciting a psalm backwards (presumably for magical purposes).

The cocks have now the morn foretold,

The sun again begins to peep,

The shepherd, whistling to his fold,

Unpens and frees the captive sheep.

O'er pathless plains at early hours

The sleepy rustic sloomy goes;

The dews, brushed off from grass and flowers,

Bemoistening sop his hardened shoes

While every leaf that forms a shade,

And every floweret's silken top,

And every shivering bent and blade,

Stoops, bowing with a diamond drop.

But soon shall fly those diamond drops,

The red round sun advances higher,

And, stretching o'er the mountain tops,

Is gilding sweet the village-spire.

'Tis sweet to meet the morning breeze,

Or list the gurgling of the brook;

Or, stretched beneath the shade of trees,

Peruse and pause on Nature's book,

When Nature every sweet prepares

To entertain our wished delay,

The images which morning wears,

The wakening charms of early day!

Now let me tread the meadow paths

While glittering dew the ground illumes,

As, sprinkled o'er the withering swaths,

Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes;

And hear the beetle sound his horn;

And hear the skylark whistling nigh,

Sprung from his bed of tufted corn,

A haling minstrel from the sky.

by John Clare, born 13th July, 1793

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) II, i, 1

Keith Thomas, Religion and The Decline of Magic

St Swithun, Benedictional of Æthelwold

British Library, London

Swithun (or Swithin) was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July 863

He is also known for the proverb:

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

St John's Gate, Clerkenwell, 1842

John Wykeham Archer

Watercolour

British Museum

From The Folklore And Witchcraft of Herefordshire by Ella Mary Leather,

English folklorist (1874-1928)

Shedding the light of grace on all our ways.

Born of a noble and a royal line,

She brings to Christ her King a life more fine.

-- The Venerable Bede

St. Etheldreda, Queen of Northumbria, Abbess of Ely's Double Monastery aka Audrey, Athelthryth, Ethelreda, Edilthride, Ediltrudis, Edeltrude

Feast Day: 23 June

Saint Aethelthryth of Ely from the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold depicted in an illuminated manuscript

Sea Form (Porthmeor), 1958

Barbara Hepworth

Bronze

Seen at Barbara Hepworth in Colour at The Courtauld Gallery, London

Working in bronze marked a turning point in Hepworth's sculptural practice.

It allowed her to immerse herself in colour after a gap of about eight years. Her close collaboration with the Morris Singer Foundry led to the development of a variety of innovative patinas encompassing a wide range of colours, especially greens, and her favourite, a blue-green close to the colour of oxidised copper.

Sea Form (Porthmeor), named after a beach in St Ives, in Cornwall, has a mottled green patina with flecks of white. Its surface has been described as though 'salted from long immersion in seawater'.

Dented beaker, 300/400

England

Ceramics

The shrine of Walburga

This reliquary contains the skulls of the English nun St. Walburga (ca. 710-779, Crediton, Wessex ) and her two brothers, Willibald and Winibald.

Jug, 13th century

English red earthenware

Detail of a decorated jug from Scarborough, end of 13th century-early 14th century

terracotta

Dudzele, collectie Jan Tilleman, seen at WIDESCREEN

St Dunstan Medal

The large medal on a chain is inscribed with an image of St Dunstan himself (born in 909 and died in 988), an Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, a Bishop of Worcester, a Bishop of London, and an Archbishop of Canterbury.

An accomplished musician, jeweler, painter, blacksmith and statesman, he was canonised as a saint in 1029 and is amongst England's most popular saints.

The image shows the devil peeping over his shoulder, a reference to one of the legends about him. The story goes that one day at Glastonbury, he was in his forge working on some metalwork and the devil came up behind him and began to tempt him into evil ways.

Dunstan whipped around and caught the devil's nose with the blacksmithing tongs and held him tightly as he roared and raged. Eventually Dunstan got the devil to promise that he would never come to tempt him or any other monks again.

Another version of the legend is that Dunstan shod the devil in iron so that he would always be heard creeping up behind people. Because of these stories, the smithing tongs are St Dunstan's symbol.

Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1740

William Hogarth

Oil on canvas