treated in Welsh as a doublet, has yielded in the old Welsh period the form gwyl, and in the mediæval period mywyl. He is the patron of Llanfigel in Anglesey, which is under Llanfachraeth. The church is now in ruins. Maen Bigel is the name given to a rock standing in the sea in Holyhead Bay, and also to another in the Sound of Bardsey. The West Mouse, a little island off the north-west coast of Anglesey, is called in Welsh, Ynys Bigel.1 Browne Willis 2 gives the patron of Llanfigel as S. Vigilius, with festival November 1. There was formerly a church, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Merthyr Mawr in Glamorganshire, which is called in the Book of Llan Dâv3 Merthir Buceil. The Pembrokeshire parish-name Begelly seems to be a derivative from the name.

S. BLEIDDIAN, or LUPUS, Bishop, Confessor

STRICTLY speaking, the name Lupus should appear in Welsh as Blaidd. Bleiddian or Bleiddan means a young wolf, and is equivalent to Bleiddyn, which is common as a personal name. All that the Welsh authorities have to say about Bleiddian is to be found in the Iolo MSS. He is mentioned as a "saint and bishop, who came to this Island with S. Garmon in the time of Cystennin Fendigaid (or Llydaw) to renew Faith and Baptism." "4 One entry states that the "Cholirs of Llancarfan and S. Illtyd were founded by SS. Garmon and Beiddan, whilst another states that S. Garmon founded a choir near Caerworgorn (Llantwit Major), where he placed Illtyd principal and S. Bleiddan chief bishop." 5

But it must be remembered that the hagiological documents printed in the Iolo MSS. are late, being the compilations of Glamorgan antiquaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they have been "edited" by Iolo Morganwg, but to what extent it is now impossible to say, as the originals from which he made his transcripts have practically all disappeared. Statements they contain must therefore be accepted with caution.

It is more than doubtful that S. Lupus of Troyes ever was in Glamorgan, and it is probable that the Bleiddian commemorated was an entirely different saint, a member of the Society of S. Illtyd, and lived considerably later than did Lupus of Troyes.

1 Myv. Arch., p. 419; Lewis Morris, Celtic Remains, pp. 37, 435. 3 See the Index.

2 Survey of Bangor, 1721, p. 279.

4 P. 132. On p. 107 it is said that they came hither in the time of Gwrtheyrn Gwrtheneu (Vortigern). 5 Pp. 130-2.

Two churches in Glamorganshire are dedicated to him, viz., Llanfleiddian Fawr (Llanblethian), but now generally to S. John Baptist, and Llanfleiddian Fach known as S. Lythan's. The latter, in the Book of Llan Dâv, is called Ecclesia Elidon, and Hen Lotre Elidon and Luin Elidon occur therein also as place-names.1 In the Taxatio of 1291 it is given as Eccl'ia de S'co Lychano (for Lythano).2 These forms, however, point to a distinct saint.

One of the Triads in the third or latest series mentions "Hyfaidd Hir, the son of S. Bleiddan in Glamorgan"; 3 but the glosser's pen is very visible, for the reading in the two earlier series is "Bleiddig in South Wales." 4

One of "the Sayings of the Wise" stanzas runs

Hast thou heard the saying of S. Bleiddan

Of the land of Glamorgan ?

To possess reason is to possess everything." 5

(Meddu Pwyll meddu'r cyfan.)

His Festival is not given in any of the earlier Welsh Calendars. For S. Lupus of Troyes, see under S. LUPUS.

S. BLENWYD, or BLENWYDD

THIS Saint's name occurs in two lists of Caw's children, apparently as that of a son, given in the Iolo MSS., and there only. He is credited by some 7 with being the patron of Coedana, in Anglesey, but see under S. ANEF. Nothing seems to be known of him.

SS. BODA and BODFAN, Confessors

It is difficult to make out whether these names represent one or two persons, as the copyists appear to have got confused. The older lists give only Boda or Bodo.8 The two names occur among the sons of Helig ab Glannog. On the inundation of Tyno Helig, his territory, his twelve sons became saints, in the first instance, of the Bangor on Dee,

9

1 See Index to the book.

3 Myv. Arch., p. 403.

5 Iolo MSS., p. 256.

6 P. 142.

2 P. 279.

4 Ibid., pp. 393, 399.

7 Browne Willis, Bangor, p. 282; Lewis Morris, Celtic Remains, p. 39.

8 E.g., Peniarth MS. 16 (early thirteenth century); Hafod MS. 16 (c. 1400);

Cambro-British Saints, p. 268, where the name occurs as Bodo.

9 Myv. Arch., pp. 418-9, 426, 429; Iolo MSS., pp. 106, 124; Cambro-British Saints, p. 268.

and after its destruction, some of them-Bodfan among them-took refuge in the Bardsey Bangor. They were contemporaries of Rhun ab Maelgwn Gwynedd.1 Bodfan is the patron of Aber Gwyngregyn, in Carnarvonshire, now generally called Aber, which parish immediately adjoins the Lavan Sands. Leland calls it "the paroche of Aber otherwise Llan Boduan." 2 In Sir John Wynn of Gwydir's Ancient Survey of Penmaen Mawr," written in the time of Charles I, we are told that Helig had two sons, "Beda and Gwynn, who were both sainctes in Dwygyfylchi, and doe lye buried att the end of the Churche in a litle Chappell annexed to the west end of the Churche." 3 The Welsh Prymer of 1618 and Browne Willis 4 give Bodfan's Festival as January 2, and this date occurs also in many Welsh almanacks of the eighteenth century. Rees gives June 2, probably a misprint for January 2. A Boduan occurs as a witness to a grant to S. Cadoc.

5

A Bodian is invoked in the tenth century Litany of S. Vougay. He is thought to have given his name to S. Bedan, a parish in the ancient diocese of S. Brieuc.

S. BOTHMAEL, see S. BUDMAIL

S. BRÁN FENDIGAID

BRÂN FENDIGAID (the Blessed), the son of Llyr Llediaith, was a purely mythological personage, without the slightest claim to be reckoned a Welsh saint; but inasmuch as he has been so regarded we must deal with him. First of all we will give briefly what Welsh tradition has to say of him.

"Brân ab Llyr was a valiant King. After the death of his brothers, childless, he went to reside in Cornwall, leaving Essyllwg (Siluria) to his second son, Caradog. He effected much good in repelling his enemies, and was victorious over the Romans. He permitted the Armoricans to remain in Cornwall on condition that they assisted him against the Romans, which they did most manfully. This Brân

became Emperor of Britain." 1 He "was the biggest man that ever was seen. He was the kindest and most liberal in his gifts, and the most heroic in war and distress. He drove the Goidels out of his country, where they had remained from the time of Gwrgan Farfdrwch, and he made a fortress (caer) on the banks of the River Loughor, which he called Dinmorfael, after his most beloved daughter, who died there. He subsequently erected a church there called Llanmorfael, but now Castell Llychwr." 2 Two Triads in the Third Series speak of him as one of the three "consolidating " and "blessing-conferring " sovereigns of the Isle of Britain; another says that his stock or clan was one of the three saintly clans of Britain (ousting Caw from the genuine Triad); and another, that he "was the first who brought the Faith in Christ to the nation of the Welsh from Rome, where he had been seven years as hostage for his son Caradog, whom the Romans had taken prisoner." 3 He was "the first of the Welsh nation that was converted to the Faith in Christ," as well as the first to bring that Faith hither, "on which latter account he was called Brân the Blessed"; and with him came Ilid and Cyndaf," men of Israel," and Arwystli Hên, "a man of Italy." Llandaff was "his church," that is, he was its founder and patron. Of his stock or clan were SS. Eigen (daughter of Caradog), Lleurwg, Ffagan, Dyfan, Medwy, Elfan, Tudwal, and others.4

Among "the stanzas of the Achievements" occurs the followingThe achievement of Brân, the son of Llyr Llediaith,

Against the evil of perishing in the desert,

Was the planting of the Faith in Christ by a holy law.

And one of "the Sayings of the Wise" runs

Hast thou heard the saying of Brân

The Blessed to the renowned ?

"There is none good save God alone." "
(Nid da ond Duw ei hunan.)

A farmhouse in Glamorgan, called Tre Frân, is pointed out as having been the place where he resided, not far from which is Llanilid founded by the man of Israel."

the neighbourhood.

Bryn Caradog is also in

The whole story is one of the "fond things of vain imagining," without the slightest foundation in fact, and is a late forgery committed by somebody ignorant of Tacitus and Dion Cassius. Neither of these writers knew anything of the mythical Brân, whose equally mythical 2 Ibid., p. 38.

1 Iolo MSS., p. 8.

3 Myv. Arch., pp. 402, 404.

4 Iolo MSS., pp. 100, 115, 135, 147.

• Ibid., p. 256.

VOL. I.

s Ibid., p. 263

2

1

son, Caradog, has been assumed to be the Caractacus, or rather Caratacus (Caradog), the famous leader of the Silures and Ordovices against the Romans, who was taken captive to Rome by Ostorius Scapula in 51. Dion Cassius 1 tells us that Caratacus was a son of Cunobelinus (Cynfelyn), who had died before the war with the Romans had begun, and whose two sons, Caratacus and Togodumnus, had succeeded him on the throne. Tacitus,2 whilst particularizing the wife, daughter, and brothers of Caratacus, makes no reference whatever to his father, whom he could not have passed over had he been present.

The Third Series of the Triads, which is hardly earlier than the sixteenth century, and the Glamorgan hagiological documents (of no earlier date), printed in the Iolo MSS., are responsible for Brân's saintship and the figment of the evangelising of Britain through him and his family, as the result of Caradog's captivity at Rome. Lewis Morris, who, in 1760, compiled the alphabetical catalogue of the Welsh Saints in the Myvyrian Archaiology, from a large collection of saintly pedigrees, evidently knew nothing of him as a saint, for he is not mentioned therein at all.

The true Brân, however, is to be met with, figuring largely, in the Mabinogi of Branwen. He is there 3 called Bendigeidfran, "the Blessed Brân"; but he could not by any possibility be styled "Blessed" in the ordinary hagiological sense. He is clearly one of the old gods of the Celtic pantheon, and the epithet must be regarded as a survival therefrom. He was so big that "no house could ever contain" him, and “he was never known to be within a house." "There was no ship that could contain him in it," and so he wades across the sea from Wales to Ireland. He is wounded there with a poisoned dart, and he orders his followers to cut off his head and bear it as far as the White Mount, i.e. the Tower Hill, in London, and bury it there with the face towards France, as a charm against foreign invasion, but it was disinterred by King Arthur.

The Mabinogi gives him a son, Caradog, and this, coupled with the epithet "Blessed," led to the invention of the story that he was father of the historical Caradog, and "the first that brought the Faith in Christ to the nation of the Welsh."

Professor Rhys regards him as one of the dark divinities, the counterpart of the Gaulish Cernunnos and the Roman Janus. His father,

1 Lib. lx, cc. 20, 21.

2 Annales, lib. xii, cc. 35, 36.

3 So also in the Mabinogi of Manawyddan and the Red Book Triads.

4 Arthurian Legend, p. 346; Hibbert Lectures, pp. 93-7. Elton, in his Origins, pp. 291-2, treats him as a war-god.