Luan and Gelvan, and his day is given by Garaby as August 28. He confounds him with Elocan, a hermit, who was dispossessed of his cell by Morenia, wife of Judicael, 610-640, that she might give it to the more favoured S. Lery.

The feast of S. Elouan is kept at S. Guen on the last Sunday in August. But the Acts of the Saint published by the Bollandists show that he worked under S. Tugdual, and that he was an Irishman by birth, and that he lived an eremitical life in the dense forest of Brecilien that occupied the interior of the Armorican peninsula. Lobineau guessed that he was Molua of Clonfert, but had no better grounds to go on than a faint similarity of name. Molua's day is August 4.

Nicolas Roscarrock has an entry, "S. Elvitus or Elwin, Confessor at Lhan Hamelac in or about Brecknockshire.' That is to say, Llanhamlech, which is regarded as dedicated to SS. Illtyd and Peter.

S. ELPHIN

THE Iolo MSS.1 include Elphin or Elffin ab Gwyddno Garanhir, of the race of Maxen Wledig, among the Welsh Saints, and state that he was a saint, or monk, of Llantwit. The same documents also include his father among the saints. The name is the Latin Alpinus, and as Alpin occurs as the name of kings of the Scots and Picts.

There exists a prose tale, entitled Hanes Taliessin, which gives a weird-like account of the saving of Taliessin by Elphin from death in infancy, and of Taliessin's gratitude, which, among other things, prompted the composition of Dyhuddiant Elphin, or The Consolation of Elphin.2

1 Pp. 106, 138. For his pedigree see also Bonedd Gwyr y Gogledd. There are several persons of the name of Elfin mentioned in the Book of Llan Dáv, one of which (p. 174) was clerical witness to a grant made to Llandaff in the time of Bishop Grecielis. Atrium Elphin is given in the cartulary of Llancarfan among the possessions of its canons (Cambro-British Saints, p. 83). Urien Rheged had a son named Elphin, and others of the name occur.

2 Myv. Arch., pp. 22-6. For the Hanes, which occurs in more than one MS. of the sixteenth century (e.g., Llanover MS. B. 23), see the Mabinogion, ed. Guest, iii, pp. 321-55; Ward, Catalogue of Romances, i, pp. 421-2. Elphin is. mentioned in the Dream of Rhonabwy (Mabinogion, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 150) as a warrior. Peacock, by his Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), has familiarized English readers with the legend.

There is, however, not the slightest foundation for regarding him as one of the Welsh Saints.

Cadair Elphin, his Chair, was the name of a constellation,1 and Côr Elphin the title of an old Welsh air.

The parish church of S. Elphin, Warrington, has been conjectured to be dedicated to an unknown Irish saint of the name.2 The Welsh Elphin, S. Elgin of North Frodingham, and Prince Elfwin of Northumbria have also been suggested. The church is mentioned in Domesday,

3

S. ELYW, see S. ELLI

S. EMYR LLYDAW, Confessor

EMYR LLYDAW was, as the adjunct to his name implies, a native of Armorica. He came from Broweroc, and was probably obliged to fly before a masterful brother who seized on his patrimony. He was the son of Aldor, who was married to a sister of S. Germanus, not of Auxerre, but Germanus the Armorican. His wife was Anaumed, and he had a large family. His daughter, Gwen Teirbron, was married to Eneas Lydewig, and he was consequently uncle to S. Cadfan. A son Hywel did not enter religion, but had sons who are numbered with the saints. Another son was Amwn Ddu, father of S. Samson; another was Pedrwn, father of S. Padarn; another, Alan, was father of Lleuddad, Llonio, and Llyfab. Another again, Gwyndaf Hên, was the parent of SS. Meugant and Henwyn. He had three other sons who did not become ecclesiastics, Tewdwr Mawr, Gwyddno, and Difwg. Though not an ancestor of one of the Three Saintly Tribes, he had many descendants among the Welsh Saints, mainly commemorated in Central Wales.

4

Nothing, unhappily, is known of his history. He lived during the latter part of the fifth century. He is unknown to Breton records.

1 Barddas, Llandovery, 1862, i, p. 404.

2 Wm. Beaumont, Warrington Church Notes, 1878, p. 3. S. Elphin's School for Girls was transferred in 1904 from Warrington to Darley Dale.

3 The Iolo MSS., p. 147, state that he was sprung from Cynan Meiriadog, prince of Cornwall, and that his descendants became in the Island of Bardsey the original stock of the saints of Gwynedd, where many of their churches are.” 4 The grave of Beiddog the Ruddy, the son of Emyr Llydaw, is mentioned in Englynion y Beddau in the twelfth century Black Book of Carmarthen (ed. Evans, pp. 66-7).

No churches honour him as patron. He is said to have founded the church of Pendeulwyn or Pendoylan, in Glamorgan, but this is usually given as dedicated to S. Cadoc.

Geoffrey of Monmouth 2 tells us that on the murder of Constans by the Ffichtiaid (Picts), and the assumption of the sovereignty by Gwrtheyrn, the two brothers, Emrys and Uthyr Bendragon, were for fear of him taken away to Brittany, over which Emyr was then king, and he "cheerfully welcomed the youths, and caused them to be brought up as kings should be."

S. ENDDWYN

ENDDWYN, the patron of Llanenddwyn, Merionethshire, would appear to be the saint intended by Endwy ab Hywel Farchog ab Hywel Faig ab Emyr Llydaw, mentioned in one entry in the Iolo MSS. Sometimes the saint is said to have been a female. Browne Willis 4 gives the dedication of Llanenddwyn thus, "S. Damian (ut reor) May 14"; but there is no saint of the name commemorated on that day.

The Saint's Holy Well, Ffynnon Enddwyn, lies in a dingle about two miles from Llanenddwyn. Tradition says that Santes Enddwyn was afflicted with a sore disease, and one summer's day journeying past that spot, spied a small well, refreshed herself, and bathed in the water, with the result that she was made perfectly whole. The well became famous, and sick folk from all parts resorted to it to be cured of whatever ailments they might be troubled with. They left their crutches and sticks behind as tokens of their restoration, and, further, "threw pins into the well to ward off evil spirits and diseases in the future.” Hundreds of pins were, from time to time, taken out of it. The water possessed medicinal properties, and was efficacious, among others, in scrofulous cases, which were cured by drinking the water and applying some of the moss as a plaster.5

S. ENDELIENTA, Virgin

3 P. 143.

LELAND, in the list he gives of the children of Brychan 6 who settled in Cornwall, derived from the Legend of S. Nectan he saw in Hart1 Iolo MSS., p. 221. 2 Bruts, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 130. 4 Survey of Bangor, 1721, p. 277. Owen, in his Sanctorale Catholicum, 1880, pp. 233, 259, has fallen into the mistake of identifying Damian with Dyfan, companion of Ffagan, and making him patron of Llanddwywe.

5 Llen-gwerin Meirion in Transactions of the Blaenau Festiniog National Eisteddfod, 1898, p. 226. There is a saying of the parish, "Llwch Enddwyn sy'n llechu ynddo.”

6 Collect., iv, p. 153.

land Abbey, gives Endelient as one of these, the third in his list. William of Worcester copied the same list, but Nasmith, who printed from his MS., incorrectly rendered Endelient by Sudbrent. The original MS. is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. William of Worcester's writing is peculiarly crabbed, and the mistake was perhaps justifiable.

Nicolas Roscarrock, the friend of Camden, in his Lives of the Saints, still in MS. and recently acquired from the Brent-Eleigh collection by the University of Cambridge, considered Endelient as the same as Cenedlon in the Welsh pedigrees, and we had formed the same opinion without knowing that Nicolas Roscarrock had made the same suggestion something like three centuries before.

Roscarrock was a native of the parish of S. Endelion, and he has preserved in his collection some interesting traditions relative to the Saint. He says, deriving his authority from the same Life of S. Nectan already referred to, that she was a daughter of Brychan, and that she settled in Cornwall at a place called Trenkeny, "where, I remember, there stood a chapell dedicated (as I take it) to her, which at this day is decayed, and the place in which it stoode is yet called the Chappell Closse, and lyeth on the south west of the paroch church, which at this present is of her called S. Endelient, where she lived a verie austere course of life, that with the milk of a cowe only, which cowe the Lord of Trenteny kild as she strayed into his grounds. The olde people speaking by tradicion doe report she had a great man to her godfather, whom they also say was King Arthure, who toke the killing of the cowe in such sort, as he killed or caused this man to be slaine, whom she miraculously revived; and when she prceived the daye of her death drewe nye, she intreated her friends after her death to lay her dead bodye on a bed, and to bury her there where certain young stots, bullocks and calves of a daye old should of their own accord drawe her, which being done they brought her to a place which at that tyme was a myrye waste grounde, and a great quagmire on the topp of an hill, where in time after there was a church builded dedicated to her.

"I have heard it creditably repeated that the chapell on Lundy was likewise dedicated to her, yet Camden sayth S. Helen."

Roscarrock might well contest the dedication to S. Helen. Lundy was opposite Hartland, where was her brother Nectan's settlement, and it was most likely that she should have her place of retreat within reach of him and his ministrations.

He adds that there were two wells in Endelion that bare the name of the Saint. Her tomb had been destroyed by the Commissioners of Henry VIII, or in his reign, but it had been since restored, and

stood on the south side of "Chandules Ile." Then Roscarrock breaks forth into a hymn of praise to S. Endelion. In his Calendar he enters S. Endelienta on April 29.

The tomb of S. Endelienta still remains, but at the so-called “restoration of the church it was moved from its old site under the easternmost arch of the nave on the south side, and was placed altarwise at the end of the south aisle. It is of the beginning of the fifteenth century and is carved in Catacluse stone, in niches that are empty and show no traces of having had statues in them. A fine slab

covers it. Someone, quite recently, not knowing that this was the empty shrine of the patron saint, committed a wanton outrage, for he had cut on the slab the inscription "Richard Mathews of Tresunger, Esquire, ob. 1610," for which he had not the smallest justification, as the tomb is two centuries earlier. If the bones of the holy patroness remain, they probably lie under the floor where stood the shrine originally.

Endelienta is invariably represented in the Episcopal Registers as a female saint, and the church of Endelion was collegiate. It is improbable that the canons of Endelion should not have known the sex of the patron saint of the church in which they ministered. In a Provincial Council or Synod held in 1341, they signed as the Chapter of Sta Endelienta.