#lanark

An illustrated manuscript page from Alasdair Gray’s novel Lanark. From the Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department.

St David’s Day

Source: Welsh Saints from Welsh Churches by Martin Crampin/ Mae Ffydd Yn Cyrif website

Today is St David’s Day. The patron saint of Wales, David died on 1st March 589. He was founder and Abbot of Glyn Rhosyn monastery in Dyfed (now the town of St Davids). The construction of David’s monastic seat was not trouble free and his builders were assailed by a local pagan known as Boia who wanted to prevent the work going ahead. David, who was a great preacher and proselytiser, spoke to Boia and converted him to Christianity on the spot. Although Boia’s wife then sent her handmaidens naked to distract David’s labourers, such was the saint’s oratorical power, not a man wavered and the monastery was completed.

David’s fame spread when he began miraculously to make wells appear, but his patron sainthood really owes itself to his spirit appearing to King Cadwallon of Gwynedd on the eve of the Battle of Hatfield Moors in South Yorkshire against King Edwin of Northumbria. He advised the Britons to place leeks in their helmets, the better to distinguish themselves from their English foes in the heat of battle. This they did and triumphed on the field. Although this visitation confirmed David as the patron saint of Wales and the leek as its national vegetable, Cadwallon himself did not consider himself Welsh (an English term for “foreigner”): as far as he was concerned, he was leading a Celtic attempt to evict the invading Angles from northern Britain, and he nearly succeeded. Nonetheless, from the British victory at Hatfield, it became traditional for the Welsh to wear leeks on St David’s Day, although these days a discreet daffodil lapel pin is more likely to be seen.

GOODBYE