This chapel has a well-preserved and good carved oak roof, which the
present rector has saved from destruction by damp. Here is the base of
the shrine of S. Elian. It is of wood, and the panels were formerly
carved, but the tracery is gone. Into this people crawled, and if they
succeeded in turning themselves about within, believed that they would
get cured of any disease they might have, or, according to another
version, would have their lives extended by five years.
A painting of S. Elian by an Italian artist of the seventeenth
century is kept in the church, but it is devoid of merit and is in
bad preservation. There is also a pair of wooden _gefail gwn_, or
dog-tongs, bearing the date 1748.
Above Llaneilian rises the hill on which was Caswallon’s _llys_, or
court. The story goes that Caswallon promised to Elian as much land
as a stag he was hunting could run round in the day, and the deer’s
spring, a leap over a rent in the rocks, is shown to this day, but it
is not any longer in the parish of the saint.
[Illustration: BASE OF SHRINE, LLANEILIAN]
A late rector of Llaneilian, John Jones, who died in 1870, and had
been curate of the parish for twenty years and after that rector for
thirty-three, kept his harper and also a pack of hounds.
To the west of Amlwch, in a bold situation, is Llanbadrig. The church
was founded, not by the Apostle of the Irish, but by a namesake who
lived later and was a member of S. Cybi’s monastery at Holyhead.
According to legend, when he was on his way back from Iona, where he
had visited S. Columba, his frail boat was wrecked on Ynys Badrig, or
the Middle Mouse, an islet off the coast. Patrick succeeded in making
his way to the land, drank of a fountain near the shore, and scrambled
up the rock, in which the marks of his feet are still to be seen, to
where is the church which he planted on the edge of the precipice in
commemoration of his providential escape.
Within the church is a very rude cross that may well date from the
time of S. Patrick. The niche at the east end of the chancel that now
contains a representation of “Salvator Mundi” has twisted serpents on
the pedestal, and formerly contained a figure of the patron saint, who
was confounded with the Apostle of Ireland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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