A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County)
Just one advantage to Cornwall did this invasion afford; by it we know
the histories of the founders of churches in West Cornwall; because the
Irish had the wit to preserve their records and biographies, whereas
of the home-grown saints, princes of blood royal, the Cornish have not
kept a single history. Consequently, if we desire to know about the
early kings and saints of the peninsula, we have to ask the Irish, the
Welsh, and even go hat in hand to the Bretons. It is a sorry truth, but
truth it is.
How thoroughly occupied by the Irish this district was may be judged
when we come to look at who the saints were.
Let us take them in order from Newquay.
First we have Carantock, the fellow-worker with S. Patrick, who
assisted him on the commission to draw up the laws of Ireland. Then we
have Perranzabuloe, the settlement of Kieran of Saighir. Across the
ridge, four miles off, is Ladock, where he planted his nurse as head
of a community of women. Some of Kieran’s young pupils found it not
too far to trip across and flirt with the girls at Ladock, and there
was a pretty to-do when this was discovered. He was wont, when he had
ploughed his own lands, to send over his oxen to plough the fields of
his nurse. At Redruth was S. Euny, whom the Irish called Eoghain, and
who later was Bishop of Ardstraw. He was brother of S. Erc of Erth, as
it was said in later times, but earlier writers frankly call Erc his
father.
Illogan was son of Cormac, King of Leinster. Piety ran in the family.
Cormac abdicated and assumed the monk’s cowl in 535. The sisters of
Illogan were Derwe and Ethnea, who accompanied him to Cornwall, and
are numbered with its saints. He was father of S. Credan of Sancreed.
Phillack is S. Piala, the sister of Gwynear (Fingar). S. Elwyn is but
another form of the name Illogan. Erth, as already said, was father of
S. Euny; he was a disciple of S. Brendan, the voyager, and was nursed
by S. Itha, who was a woman almost as famous in Ireland as S. Bridget,
and who has churches in Cornwall and Devon. S. Ives is really S. Hia,
an Irishwoman. Zennor is, perhaps, dedicated to a disciple of S. Sennen
of Land’s End, the very woman about whom Tom Moore wrote his song of
“The Saint and the Lady.” S. Just was the deacon of S. Patrick, and he
was S. Kieran’s tutor. Sennen is Senan of Inscathy, in the Shannon.
S. Levan was metal-worker for S. Patrick, but in holy orders also. S.
Burian was the female disciple of S. Kieran. Germoe was a bard, and an
intimate friend of Kieran, and so we see him planted near his friend,
who was at Perran-uthnoe. Breage was a disciple of S. Bridget and a
friend of S. Kieran. Crewenna was another Irishwoman. Sithney is Setna,
a disciple of S. Senan. S. Ruan, in the Lizard district, and S. Kea, on
the Fal--Irishmen as well--I have spoken of them elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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