Saint Decuman part 1

Saint Decuman Church, Watchet - ChurchCrawler [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Happy Decuman was born of a good family in the western part of Wales, of parents strict observers of the Christian religion. He, after he had passed his childhood at home, as he advanced in years, was of a very good disposition; and at length crossed the Severn unknown to all his acquaintance, especially to his relations, and to those who seemed to be more nearly concerned for his welfare; trusting in Christ alone for his protection. But not to mention anything more, he paid no freight and had no ship. This good man relying upon the mercy of God, not doubting but that He would protect him, bound shrubs together, which he found growing by the sea-side, and making use of such a vehicle committed himself to the ocean. Being by divine providence directed, he was carried to the opposite shore, near Dart's Castle.

There was in that part of the country in which he landed, a desert place (presumably Exmoor) beset with shrubs and briars, which were very long and large, and by the hollowness of the vathes was wonderfully separated. This place pleased him much : changing his native country for a sort of exile, the luxury of a palace for the dens of a desert. There he began to dwell and to live upon roots and herbs, leading the life of a hermit, and by such government in the above-mentioned desert, he lived many years...." [cont.]

Hewett 1900

"Dunstan, the Devil and Glastonbury Abbey

Carving of a Devil Woman from Cambridge - Photograph © Andrew Dunn, 15 February 2006.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

"The celebrated and undoubtedly gifted Dunstan was born within the precincts of the abbey, and received the tonsure within its walls. He left it for the court of Athelstane, but seems to have been disgusted with court life and returned to Avalon, where, near the abbey, he built himself a cell or hermitage with an oratory attached, where he dwelt, spending great part of his day in devotion, and the rest in making crosses, censers, or vestments for the abbey; for Dunstan was a skilled artist and a fine musician. It was in this hermitage that tradition said he had his contests with Satan, who (the Golden Legend, printed by Caxton, tells us) appeared to the hermit in the form of a beautiful woman."

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Glastonbury Abbey

Evil King John at Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle - Some rights reserved by treehouse1977

"King John made the crime-stained castle his residence, and deposited his regalia in it. He also converted it into a State prison, and starved to death in it, in 1202, twenty-two French prisoners, the very flower of the Poitevin chivalry. Not many years afterwards he brutally tortured here Peter of Pomfret, the poor hermit who had prophesied that John should lose his crown in 1213. The king actually did resign it that year to the Papal Legate, and the truth of the hermit's prediction so infuriated the royal monster that he caused Peter to be dragged to and fro through the town of Wareham at the tail of horses, and afterwards he had the poor mutilated man and his son hanged in sight of the walls."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Corfe Castle
Map - Wareham

Saint Neot's Well - part 1

Saint Neot at prayer in his well - Please credit this website if you wish to use this image

"St. Neot's Well, not far west from the church, was arched over in granite by the late General Carlyon, the old arched covering, having fallen in many years ago. St. Neot, said to have been learned, eloquent, and intelligent, was a monk of Glastonbury, and supposed to have been brother to Alfred the Great, contemporary with St. Dunstan ; he died 800. Many sought his prayers, either for relief of their infirmities, or for spiritual comfort. Wearied of his fame he retired to his hermitage here, with one attendant, Barius. It was in this well that he stood up to his chin daily, and chanted the Psalter throughout...." [cont...]

Hope 1893

Wishing Well, Roche

"Roche, north of St. Austell, famous for the Roche rocks, with St. Michael's Chapel built amongst them. Once tenanted by a hermit; then by a leper, whose daughter waited on him, and drew water from a well, said to ebb and flow, called after her. To St. Gundred's, near a group of cottages called Hollywell village, maidens would repair on Holy Thursday, to throw in pins and pebbles, and predict coming events by the sparkling of the bubbles which rise up. Lunatics were also immersed in it."

Hope 1893

Map - Roche

Gwavas Lake

Chyandour, 2008 -   © Copyright Bob Embleton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"On the western side of Mount's Bay, between the fishing towns of Newlyn and Mousehole, is the well-known anchoring place known by the above name. It is not a little curious that any part of the ocean should have been called a lake. Tradition, however, helps us to an explanation. Between the land on the western side of the bay and St. Michael's Mount on the eastern side, there at one time extended a forest of beech-trees. Within this forest on the western side was a large lake, and on its banks a hermitage. The saint of the lake was celebrated far and near for his holiness, and his small oratory was constantly resorted to by the diseased in body and the afflicted in mind. None ever came in the true spirit who failed to find relief. The prayers of the saint, and the waters of the lake, removed the pains from the limbs and the deepest sorrows from the mind. The young were strengthened, and the old revived, by their influences. The great flood, how ever, which separated the islands of Scilly from England submerged the forest, and destroyed the land enclosing this lovely and almost holy lake, burying beneath the waters churches and houses, and destroying alike both the people and the priest. Those who survived this sad catastrophe built a church on the hill, and dedicated it to the saint of the lake, or, in Cornish, St. Pol, modernised into St. Paul. In support of this tradition, we may see on a fine summer day, when the tide is low and the waters clear, the remains of a forest, in the line passing from St. Michael's Mount to Gwavas. At neap tides the people have gathered beech-nuts from the sands below Chyandour, and cut the wood from the trees embedded in the sand.--ibid., 218."

Hope 1893

Map - Gwavas Lake

Saint Nectan

Foxglove - Pam Brophy [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[The Christian Nectan was the eldest of a royal house in Wales in the sixth century, or so the legend goes. It was said that he felt the calling of the ascetic life of a hermit, and so set his coracle onto the sea and aloud the Lord to take him where he would. The wind and waves pushed him hither and thither, before finally setting him down safely on the rugged north Devon shoreline, near Hartland (a minor miracle in its self, given the fierceness of that storm blighted peninsular). It was here that he built is Hermits hut by the well that bares his name. Seeing his absolute poverty a kindly local farmer by the name of Huddon gifted Nectan two cows, ostensibly in return for helping him locate some lost pigs.

One day Nectan found his cows gone, and by following their hoof marks soon overtook the thieves who where in the process of stealing them. Seeing nothing more than a week skinny hermit the thugs knocked him down and killed the Saint. It is said that where ever the Saints blood flowed foxgloves grew. Nectan became so venerated that 500 or so years later a total of 39 churches where erected and dedicated to the Welsh Saint (34 in Cornwall and 5 in Devon)

- Thanks to Ann from Ideford for forwarding me this story, probably written by a former vicar of Ashcombe (though here retold in my own words). She added that next Sunday (the 13th of June) the people of Ashcombe Church will be celebrating Saint Nectan, it being the nearest Sunday to his day (he is the saint to whom their church is dedicated). They will also sing a hymn about the Saint, written by the same Vicar who put the above story to paper.

I have a few years ago also been told this story by a north Devon resident, who adds to the story, saying that not only was the saints head cut off, but he then picked it up and carried it under his arm back to his well, dripping blood and conjuring foxgloves for 2 or 3 miles. She had part of an old green lane running across the back of her overgrown orchard (we estimated from the age of the age and uncared for nature of trees and the spread of bluebells from the bank it had been abandoned for around 40 years - having been told bluebells spread one meter every ten years!). The lane, though hard to use, did indeed contain masses of foxgloves, despite the overgrown hedges.]

Map - Hartland
Map - Ashcombe

The Demon Tregeagle - part 7

'...Tregeagle was safe, his head was within the holy church, though his body was exposed on a bare rock to the storm. Earnest were the prayers of the blessed hermit in his cell on the rock to be relieved from his nocturnal and sinful visitor.

In vain were the recluse's prayers. Day after day, as he knelt at the altar, the ghastly head of the doomed sinner grinned horridly down upon him. Every holy ejaculation fell upon Tregeagle's ear like molten iron. He writhed and shrieked under the torture; but legions of devils filled the air, ready to seize him, if for a moment he withdrew his head from the sanctuary, Sabbath after Sabbath the little chapel on the rock was rendered a scene of sad confusion by the interruptions which Tregeagle caused. Men trembled with fear at his agonising cries, and women swooned. At length the place was deserted, and even the saint of the rock was wasting to death by the constant perturbation in which he was kept by the unholy spirit, and the demons who, like carrion birds, swarmed around the holy cairn. Things could not go on thus...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Chudleigh Rock

'On the east side of the rock is a ledge called the Hermit's or Golden Chair, the path to which is very difficult.  The Pixies' Cave or Parlor opens half way up the rock.  The passage to it is about 135 feet in length, and in the principle caverty is an incrusion called the Pope's Head.'

Hope Moncrieff 1895

Exeter - St. Sidwell's / St Sativola's Well

'On the spot where St. Sidwella is reputed to have been martyred is the well.dedicated in her honour; it is situated on the left-hand of the Exeter side of the tunnel leaving the city, at a place called Lion's Holt. St. Sidwella, virgin martyr 740, was buried near St. Sidwell's Church, Exeter. William of Worcester speaks of her thus : "Sancta Satwola virgo canonizata ultra portam orientalem." She is commemorated on December 18. A line spring near the church supplied the ancient well bearing her name, by which, tradition has it, she lived the life of a recluse. In the east window of Exeter Cathedral she is represented with a scythe in her hand, and a well behind her, probably but a rebus on her name Sithewella ; she also figures on one of the columns in the cathedral, carrying her head in her hands (Col. Aug. Ch., 287). Bishop Grandison, in his Legenda Sanctorum, states that St. Sidwella was the eldest of four devout sisters, daughters of Henna, a noble Briton residing in Exeter. On his death, her cruel and covetous stepmother, envious of the fortune of St. Sidwella, who inherited considerable property in the eastern suburbs of the city, engaged one of her servants, a reaper or mower, to become her assassin, which he did, whilst she was occupied in her devotions, near the well in Hedeweil Mede, at a little distance from the
parish church which still bears her name. The locality of the spring agrees very well with this, as it is situated in what is now called Well Lane. Some time hence people may wonder why this street is so called, as the well is not now to be seen ; it has been destroyed, and the site is occupied by a house which has been built over it. The well, however, is distinctly marked on. Rogers' map of Exeter, dated 1744, as "Sidwell's Well"—Trans. and Reports Dev. Ass., xii. 449.'

Hope 1893