3rd November
St Winefride’s and St Clydog’s Day
St Winefride. Source: Curious Clywd website
Today is St Winefride’s and St Clydog’s Day, two saints, who apart from being Welsh, have nothing in common. Like many virtuous early Christian young women, it seems, Winefride had to fight off the amorous attentions of Prince Caradoc of Clywd. Her resistance was such that the infuriated prince beheaded her on the spot. Winefride’s horrified uncle, St Bueno was watching however and he melted the lustful and murderous Caradoc with one divinely inspired stare. He then set his neice’s head back upon her shoulders and she was as good as new, although she bore a neck scar ever after. Where her head had touched the ground at Holywell, a spring appeared and soon became St Winefride’s Well. This well remains one of the best known and preserved medieval healing wells in the British Isles. People came from miles around to obtain cures to their diseases by bathing in its waters and even royalty sought its favour: King James II and Queen Anne looked to St Winefride to help them conceive a child, which she did. And all this over a hundred years after the Reformation. The well was also used for baptisms with the bell of the old adjacent church decked out in christening robes, to keep evil at bay.
St Clydog was prince of a sixth century British realm that expanded well into the lands conquered by the Anglo Saxons. This early Welsh hero was however murdered while out on a hunting trip. His retainers attempted to take the body home for burial but the cart they were travelling in broke down at the River Monnow and coukd not be repaired. The prince’s men decided this was a divine sign and buried him where the cart rested. The village of Clodock grew up on the spot.
