first tolerated, and then accepted as a man of God. He established churches at Llanfyrnach, and Dinas, as well as Nevern, in what is now Pembrokeshire. He was also the founder of churches or chapels at Henry's Mote, and Pontfaen,1 near those already named, thus forming a continuous belt of establishments. Llanboidy in Carmarthenshire was also one of his settlements, and he had a foundation as well in Brecknockshire called after him Llanfrynach, and one in Glamorganshire, also called Llanfrynach.

The legend relates that he had a cow which gave such an abundance of milk that he greatly valued her, and committed her to the custody of a wolf, "which, after the manner of a well-trained shepherd, drove the cow every morning to her pasture, and in the evening brought her safely home." He had, it would seem, a trusty wolf-dog, which the writer has converted into a wolf.

On the occasion of Maelgwn Gwynedd coming south, to exact dues, he sent word to Brynach that he must prepare supper for him and all his retainers. This the abbot positively refused to do, lest thereby he should establish a precedent, and the kings should claim as a right to quarter themselves and their followers on him.

a

Maelgwn was very wroth, and his servants seized the cow. Thereupon the wolf, or dog that tended her, came whining to his master. Brynach went to Maelgwn, recovered his cow, and arrived at a compromise with him. He agreed to receive the king and his company as guests, if the prince would not claim hospitality as a right.2 Maelgwn was drunkard, but in Brynach's monastery was constrained to drink only the water drawn from the stream, and his supper consisted of wheaten bread, and doubtless meat, but the wheaten bread was a luxury unknown where barley and oat-cake were the staple of food; a legend attached to this distribution of wheaten loaves; it was said that Brynach had gathered them off a tree.

Maelgwn slept in the monastery, and next morning said to the saint, "In the Name of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, I will exempt thee for ever from all royal tribute," and he also made to him a grant of land that had been settled on by a monk named Telych, and which, apparently, Maelgwn took from this monk to make it over to Brynach. The Life gives no further particulars of Brynach save that he died on the seventh day of April.

Rees, in his Essay on the Welsh Saints, pp. 347, 349, following Ecton, ascribes both to S. Bernard. George Owen, in his Pembrokeshire, p. 509, mentions a Capell Burnagh” as existing in the parishes of Henry's Mote and Morvil.

2 "Sanctus volens se et suos necnon et loca sua ex omni actione liberare, asseruit se regi nullam debere cenam, nec injusto ejus precepto in aliquo velle parere," Ibid., p. 10.

It is somewhat remarkable that no mention is made of his having been in Devon, where was his notable foundation of Braunton, and where, according to William of Worcester and Leland,1 his body lay. We can hardly doubt but that his migration was due to the determination of the Welsh to be rid-of all the Irish who had so long oppressed them, and that they compelled the ecclesiastics of that nation to leave, as well as the chieftains.

Leland, in his Itinerary,2 says: "I forbear to speak of S. Branock's cow, his staff, his oak, his well, and his servant Abel, all of which are lively represented in a glass window of that church (Braunton). This has long perished. Of Abel nothing is known. The oak was fabled to have supplied the wheaten loaves.

:

Whytford, in his Martiloge, calls the Saint Bernake, and says of him "In Englonde ye feast of Saynt Bernake, a gentylman of grete possessyon, which all he sold and went on pylgrymage to Rome, where by the waye he dyd many myracles. And when he came to England agayne he was of grete fame, and moche magnifyed, whiche to declayne and avoyde he fledde pryvily into South Wales, where he was assayled with the tentacyon and persecution of a lady in lyke maner as Joseph in Egypt, but with grace he vanquyshed and was of hygh perfectyon, many myracles, and had revelacyons and also vysyons of angels."

The son of Brynach, called Berwyn, is said to have settled in Cornwall, where a church was dedicated to him, and to have been slain in Ynys Gerwyn.3

In Nevern churchyard, to the south of the porch, is a fine cross called Croes Fyrnach, about thirteen feet high, with elaborate interlaced ornamentation. William Gambold, in a letter dated September 18, 1722, wrote: "This S. Byrnach was the Minister of that parish (Nevern), and a great Cronie of S. David. Now S. David, whenever he went from S. David's to Llandewi brevi, always called at Nevern, and generally lodged a night with his friend S. Byrnach. But, one time, coming that way Byrnach discovered on David's shoulder a prodigious large stone (draught enough for six yoke of oxen) carved all over with endless knots, and on one side (among or underneath the knots) five or six characters now unintelligible, which stone David told his friend he designed for Llandewi brevi, as a Memorial of him: but was prevailed upon by Byrnach to give it him, and Byrnach fixed

2 See also Westcote, View of Devonshire in 1630, p. 308.

3

Iolo MSS., p. 119. Nicolas Roscarrock calls him Berwyn or Breuer, and

says he suffered at S. Breward, Cornwall.

it on end on the south side of Nevern Church within a few yards of the church wall."

About this stone there is a tradition that the cuckoo is wont to first sound his note, perched thereon, on the day of the patron saint, April 7. "I might well have omitted," says George Owen,1 " an old report as yet fresh of this odious bird, that, in the old world, the Parish Priest of this church would not begin Mass till this bird, called the Citizen's Ambassador, had just appeared and begun his note on a stone called S. Brynach's Stone, standing upright in the churchyard of this parish; and, one year, staying very long, and the priest and the people expecting the accustomed coming-came at last, lighting on the said stone, his accustomed preaching place, and being scarce able once to sound his note, presently fell dead."

There is a Ffynnon Fyrnach in the parish, and the adjoining fall of a small rivulet into the sea is called Pistyll Byrnach. There is another Holy Well of his near Henry's Mote, and close to it are an upright stone, marked with a rude cross, and the ruins of his chapel.

2

The principal well dedicated to the Saint (referred to by Giraldus Cambrensis), lies above the range of rocks called Carnedd (or Carnau) Meibion Owen, on the side of the mountain by the roadside. It is compassed round with a curtilage of stone wall, five or six feet thick, called Buarth Byrnach, Brynach's Fold or Enclosure. This is supposed to have been his principal resort.

In the inventory of Church goods taken by the Commissioners of 1552 is mentioned "Bronach is chapell," in the parish of Llanddarog, Carmarthenshire, which has been in ruins for nearly three hundred

years.

Whytford, Cressy, and the Welsh Calendars generally give April 7 as the day of S. Brynach; but according to Bishop Grandisson's Legendarium for the Church of Exeter, his day in that diocese is January 7, and this is the day given by William of Worcester.3

The Translation of Brynach was kept on June 26. At Braunton the Feast or Revel is now held on Whitsunday, to which it has gravitated from the Feast of the Translation. In a good many places Brynach, also called Branock, Byrnach, and Bernach, has been confounded with, or supplanted by, S. Bernard. Even at Maenclochog this is so, where his well is now called S. Bernard's Well.

1 Fenton, Pembrokeshire, 1811, p. 542.

2 Itin. Camb., Bk. II, cap. ii.

3 Carlisle, in his Topographical Dictionary of Wales (London, 1811), s.v. Llanfrynach (Brecknockshire), gives the parish Wake as the Sunday next after Easter.

At S. Stephen's in Brannel, Cornwall, is a holy well, or ancient baptistery, called S. Bernard's Well. That it was dedicated to the abbot of Clairvaux is improbable. It is possible that originally it was called after S. Bernac or Brynach, and may show what was the original dedication of the church, before it was placed under the patronage of S. Stephen.

For the determination of the date of S. Brynach we have not much to go upon. Maelgwn Gwynedd died of the Yellow Plague in 547; and the death of the Saint must have taken place some ten or fifteen years later, possibly even as late as 570.

His symbol is a wild white sow with young pigs, as he is said to have founded the church at Nevern where he discovered a sow with her litter. Also stags are said to have drawn timber for him from the forest. Both are represented in Braunton Church on the bench ends and on the roof.

Mr. Anscombe identifies Brynach with the "Eurbre gwydel o iwe[r]don" of Jesus College MS. 20, reading Gur Bre[nach] for Brynach, in which case he was grandfather or great-grandfather to Brychan. But it would be simply impossible to identify this man with the Brynach of Welsh hagiology. There is, however, a Brynach Wyddel, also under the forms Eurnach and Urnach, connected by legend with the Snowdon mountains, in whom we may detect the Gwrnach, Awarnach, and Diwrnach Wyddel, with his magic cauldron, of the Tale of Culhwch and Olwen. There are some details of him, hopelessly jumbled, to be found in the Iolo MSS., where Brynach Wyddel, king of Gwynedd, is said to have been converted and baptized by S. Rhidian of Gower and Rheged, and to have "founded the first churches in Gwynedd." He was killed at his stronghold, Dinas Ffaraon, now Dinas Emrys, near Beddgelert, in single combat with Owain Finddu, son of Maxen Wledig, the one killing the other. Eurnach or Urnach, we are also told, was the father of Serigi Wyddel and Daronwy, "and headed 20,000 Irish to Gwynedd, where they and their descendants remained for 129 years."2 A Brynach Wyddel is also mentioned in a mythical Triad.3

1 Archiv f. Celtische Lexikographie, i, p. 524; ii, p. 185.

2 Iolo MSS., pp. 81-2, 84-5.

3 Myv. Arch., pp. 390, 412.

S. BUAN, Confessor

BUAN was the son of Ysgwn (Esgwn or Ysgwyn), the son of Llywarch Hên.1 His grandfather was the celebrated sixth century warrior-bard and Brythonic prince in the north. Not being able to hold back the invading Angles, Llywarch lost his patrimony and fled to Wales, where he found, for a time, an asylum with Cynddylan, prince of part of Powys. There was no profession open to such of his sons as escaped the sword but the religious life. Buan is said to be the patron of Bodvean, Carnarvonshire, which means the "Dwelling or Abode of Buan," a somewhat uncommon combination for a church-name. The old form was Boduan, i.e. Bod Fuan. His festival used to be observed there on August 4.2

S. BUDDWAL, or BUDDWALAN, Confessor

3

S. BUDGUAL or Budgualan, hodie Buddwal or Buddwalan, is mentioned in the Book of Llan Dâv in a grant to that Church of Lann Budgualan (or Budgual) in Erging. It is represented to-day by the church of Ballingham, some 8 miles S.E. of Hereford, and dedicated to S. Dyfrig. Budgual must have been one of those very early Saints, before the sixth century, of whom no records have been preserved.

S. BUDMAIL, Confessor.

BUDMAILE is invoked in the Celtic Litany of S. Vougay, of the tenth century.

Budmail is probably, almost certainly, Bothmael, the disciple of S. Maudetus or Mawes, along with S. Tudy. These disciples attended Maudetus when he retired to the island now called l'Isle Modez, off the north coast of Brittany in the Bréhat archipelago.5 Once, when

1 Peniarth MSS. 16 (early thirteenth century), 45 (late thirteenth), and 12 (early fourteenth); Hafod MS. 16; Myv. Arch., p. 418; Iolo MSS., p. 128; Cambro-British Saints, p. 266.

2 Willis, Bangor, p. 275; Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 280. In the Cambrian Register, iii, p. 225, the 9th is given.

3 Pp. 164, 171, 275.

4 Alb. le Grand, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, new edition, 1901, pp. 226–7.

5 "Duos discipulos, scilicet Bothmaelum et Tudium secum habuit fideles consortes in spe perhennis gaudii, labore et divino officio." Vita ima S. Maudeti, ed. De la Borderie, p. 8.