These three churches, all dedicated to S. Padarn, form a large
territory once under his government. It was his Gwynedd, but whether so
called from its being open moorland or from its being exposed to the
winds--windblown (_Gwynt_)--I cannot say. Padarn was son of Pedredin
and Gwen Julitta, and was first cousin of S. Samson. He was born in
Brittany, but owing to a family revolution his father and uncles fled
to Wales, but Padarn remained as a babe with his mother. Finding her
often in tears, he asked her the reason, and she told him that she
mourned the loss of his father. So when Padarn had come to man's estate
he went in quest of him, and finally found him in Ireland, where, old
rascal, he had embraced the monastic life, entirely regardless of what
was due to the wife of his bosom. As Pedredin absolutely refused to
leave his newly-chosen mode of life, Padarn returned to his mother, and
they went together to Wales, passing through Cornwall. In Wales he
founded Llanbadarn Fawr in Cardiganshire, which became an episcopal
see; but he got across with Maelgwn, king of North Wales, as also with
King Arthur, who in the lives of the Welsh saints is always represented
as a bully, showing that they were written before that king had been
elevated into the position of a hero of romance by Geoffrey of Monmouth
in the twelfth century. His position now became untenable, and he left
Wales. It was then, I presume, that he made his great settlement in
East Cornwall.
According to one account he crossed into Brittany with Caradoc
Strong-i'-th'-Arm, but the expedition ended in no results, and he
returned. Now after a while Cousin Samson arrived in Padstow harbour,
and resolved on making a Cornish tour before he crossed into Brittany,
whither he much desired to go and see what could be done towards the
recovery of his paternal acres. At Padstow he visited S. Petrock. Then
he went along the north-east, and as he approached Gwynedd, or Padarn's
Venedotia, he sent word that he was coming. Now Padarn was getting out
of bed when the tidings reached him, and he had pulled on one stocking
and shoe; but so delighted was he to hear that his cousin was at hand,
that he ran to meet him with one leg shod and the other bare.
The dates of his life are approximately these. He came to Wales in 525,
remained there till 547, when he migrated to Devon and Cornwall, where
he remained to his death in 560.[6] When the Saxons obtained the
mastery, North Petherwin and Werrington were given to the abbey of
Tavistock, and the old Celtic foundation of Padarn ceased--monastically.
[Illustration: TREWORTHA MARSH]
A pleasant excursion may be made from Launceston to Trewartha Marsh.
This occupies the site of a lake, but it has been filled by detritus
from the granite tors around, and this rubble has been turned over and
over by tin-streamers, who not only extracted the baser metal, but also
gold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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