ships of the parish of Llanymawddwy, Merionethshire, so called from the brook Cewydd. Cewydd is the Welsh Rain-Saint, and used to be credited with determining the weather for the period of forty days, according as it rained or otherwise on his festival. The Rainy Saint in England is S. Swithun, July 15; in France, S. Médard, June 8, and SS. Gervais and Protais, June 19; in Belgium, S. Godeliève, July 6 ; in Germany, the Seven Sleepers, June 27; and in the Tyrol the sainted Queen Margaret of Scotland, called "Wetter Frau," June 10. Cewydd is to-day superseded in Wales by S. Swithun, but he is still sometimes popularly alluded to in Glamorganshire as " Hên Gewydd y Gwlaw" (Old Cewydd of the Rain). No tradition remains to tell us how he became the Welsh S. Swithun. The idea is probably derived from some general pre-Christian belief regarding the meteorologically prophetic character of some day about that period of the year. The festival of S. Cewydd occurs as July 1 in the Calendar in the Iolo MSS. (“Cewydd y Glaw"); as the 2nd (the day on which S. Swithun died) in the Calendars in Additional MS. 14,912 (“Gwyl Gewe”) and Jesus College MS. 22 (“ Gwyl y Glaw "); and as the 15th (Translation of S. Swithun) in the Calendar in Peniarth MS. 40. At Disserth his Wake was held on the first Sunday after S. Swithun's Day,1 and at Aberedw in the second week in July.2 Chancellor Silvan Evans, in an article in Y Brython for 1859,3 says that in many parts of South Wales July 15 was popularly called Dygwyl Gewydd (or rather, Dygwyl Gawe, as uttered), and that it was generally believed that if it rained on that day it would rain for forty days in succession. Generally throughout North Wales that distinction belonged rather to S. Peter's Day. He adds that it was the popular belief in Dyfed, or South-west Wales, that the Deluge began on July 15, lasting for forty days. Lewis Glyn Cothi (fifteenth century), in an elegy on Morgan the son of Sir David Gam,1 says that at his death Breconshire would shed tears, which, for profusion, would be like the rainfall on S. Cewydd's Festival, which lasted for forty successive days. Among the proverbial triplets, the "Sayings of the Wise," occurs one attributed to S. Cewydd-5 Hast thou heard the saying of S. Cewydd To his numerous relatives? There is no true friend but the Lord." (Nid car cywir ond Dofydd.) 1 Arch. Camb., 1858, p. 603. 2 Ibid., 1888, p. 271. 3 Pp. 153-4. 5 Iolo MSS., p. 254. . 4 Gwaith L. G. C., Oxford, 1837, p. 5. S. CIAN, Confessor LLANGIAN CHURCH, under Llanbedrog, in Carnarvonshire, was founded by S. Peris, in conjunction with S. Cian, his servant. They are both commemorated on December 11.1 Browne Willis gives Llangian as well as Llanberis as dedicated to S. Peris, with festival on that day.2 A Cian is mentioned incidentally in the Black Book of Carmarthen, the Book of Aneurin, and the Book of Taliessin, from which it may be gathered that he was a warrior and bard 3 ; but the name was at that time rather a common one, especially in Irish. As a common noun the name means a puppy." S. CIANAN (KENAN), Priest, Confessor CIANAN was a disciple of S. Jaoua (Joevin), nephew of Paul of Léon, and probably accompanied him from Morganwg to Armorica. He was with him for some years at Landevenec under the Abbot Judual.4 He is not, however, named among the disciples of S. Paul in the list given in the Life of that Saint by Wormonoc.5 When, about 567, Jaoua was raised to the episcopate on the retirement of his uncle, he summoned his friend Cianan to him, and ordained him priest. He sent him to reside at Plou-cernau, now Plouguerneau, a plebs of Cornish settlers. After a while Jaoua was entreated to return to a monastery, over which for a while he had been head at Daoulas, to remove a blight that had fallen on the crops after his departure, and he probably took his friend with him. On his way back, Jaoua sickened and died, and was ministered to in his last moments by his disciple. According to the legend of S. Jaoua, Cianan was at Plou-cernau, but knew by revelation that his friend and master was ill, and so went to him. It 1 Cambrian Register, 1818, iii, p. 225; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 302. Survey of Bangor, pp. 272, 275. " 3 Skene, Four Ancient Books, ii, pp. 32, 65, 101, 130. The author of the eighth century Genealogia, attributed to Nennius, mentions Cian, a bard distinguished in poemate Britannico (see Stephens, Gododin, pp. 159-60, and Literature of the Kymry, p. 201). The Cian of Nant Nimer, now Nevern, whose death is recorded in the Annales Cambriæ, s.a. 865, is too late. A cleric of the name occurs as witness to a grant in the Book of Llan Dáv, p. 174, during the episcopate of Bishop Berthwyn. 4 Colgan, Acta SS. Hib., p. 413. 5 Vita S. Pauli Leonensis, ed. Plaine, p. 28. is more probable that he accompanied Jaoua to Daoulas, and was with him on his return journey when he sickened.1 We know nothing more about him. Canon O'Hanlon, in reference to him, quotes Thomas de Hibernia, who says that Cianan resembled Ruth, who, having no field of her own, was content to glean in those of Boaz the ears which the reapers left behind them.2 Cianan is to be distinguished from Cianan of Duleek, and Kenan or S. Kea, the latter of whom worked in Armorica. He does not seem to have received any cult in Brittany. Colgan supposed that he was the same as a namesake found in the Irish Martyrologies on February 25, without any particulars as to where he lived. In the Llanthony Abbey Calendar (Corpus Christi Coll., Oxford, cod. 197) Kynan, Confessor, is entered on November 24; but this is Cianan of Duleek. (See further under S. Kenan.) S. CIARAN (PIRAN), Abbot, Bishop, Confessor THE authorities for the Life of Ciaran of Saighir are A Latin Life in the Salamanca Codex of the Lives of the Irish Saints, Acta SS. Hibern., Edinburgh, 1888, pp. 805-18; the same in Acta SS. Boll., Mart. i, pp. 394-9. Another from the Codex Kilkeniensis, in Colgan, Acta SS. Hibern., i, p. 458 et seq. The Latin Lives are derived from, and are condensations of an early, probably Irish, Life. This early Life is supposed to have been composed either before the devastation of Saighir by the Northmen in 842, or that by the men of Munster in 952; after which latter it remained desolate for twenty years. In one of these plunderings of Saighir, Ciaran's bell, called Barcon Ciaran, was cracked, and thenceforth was called Bearnan Ciaran. In the Irish Lives, the bell bears its first name, and moreover in them is no mention of the destruction of the monastery, either by the Norse or by the men of Munster. In 846 Cormac the Scribe became Abbot of Saighir, and it has been supposed that he had composed the Life before the Northmen raided and plundered the Abbey. 1 Acta SS. Boll., S. Jaoua, 2 March, i, p. 138; after the lections in the Breviary of Léon. Also the Life of S. Jaoua from the same lections in Albert le Grand, new ed., 1901, PP. 52–6. 2 Lives of the Irish Saints, ii, p. 699. A fragmentary Irish Life is in Egerton MS. 91. Another, a transcript made in 1758 by John Murphy of Carrignaver, in Cork, is among the MSS. of the Royal Irish Academy; and another in the Egerton MS. 112. It has been printed in the Silva Gadhelica, 1891; also by Mulcahy, Life of S. Kiaran the Elder of Seir, Dublin, 1895. A Latin Life by John of Tynemouth is in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Angliæ, as Vita Sti. Pirani. The original basis of all these Lives was probably The Migrations of Ciaran, attributed to his scribe, Cairnech the Bald, a book long preserved at Saighir. The glossator on the Félire of Oengus says that it existed in his day, and that it was a book of wondrous writing, with many gressa (illuminations ?) and with the colophon-" Let everyone who shall read it give a blessing to the soul of Cairnech the Bald.” 1 A work on S. Ciaran by John Hogan, S. Ciaran, Patron of Ossory, Kilkenny, 1876, deserves notice. It is an ingenious attempt to show that Ciaran preceded S. Patrick in Ireland. His calculations are based mainly on the early genealogies. By allowing thirty years for a generation and taking Ciaran as tenth in descent from Oengus Osraighe, he gives 375 as the date of Ciaran's birth. But in order to arrive at this, some serious assumptions have to be made; as that A.D. 105 was the true date of Oengus Osraighe, and next that the pedigree is complete, and that there are no blanks in it. The period at which the saint lived has been confused by interested persons for a definite object. At the beginning of the eleventh century, perhaps as late as the twelfth, a desire manifested itself among the chieftains of Munster to have an archbishop of their own; and to give colour to a demand for one, it was pretended that there had been four bishops in the South of Ireland before the arrival of S. Patrick, and these were Ciaran, Ailbe, Declan and Ibar. Something to this effect was accordingly foisted into their Lives. This naturally produced anachronisms. According to the garbled Life, at the age of thirty he went to Rome, where he was ordained by Pope Celestine (422–30), after he had spent twenty years in Rome. This would throw his birth back to about 376 or 378. But Ciaran was allowed to make his foundations by Aengus MacNadfraich, who fell in battle 489. He was visited at Saighir by Lugaidh, son of Laogaire, who ruled from 483 to 506, and he was the associate of saints who belonged to the close of the fifth century. The Martyrologist of Donegal, confronted with these difficulties, extricated himself by fabling that Ciaran lived to the age Félire of Oengus, ed. Stokes, p. Ixii. |