OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

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  • A Celtic Weather Saint: Cewydd of the Rain

    The summer of 2012 was one of the wettest on record and so I enjoyed this nineteenth-century antiquarian account of a ‘Celtic’ challenger to the claim of the Saxon Saint Swithin to be chief of the ‘weather saints’. Scholars are unable to trace the exact origins of the legend that if it rains on the feast of Saint Swithin, celebrated on July 15, it will rain for forty days.  In the notes and queries section of the 1888 volume of the Welsh journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, however, writer M. L. Dawson argued that Cewydd, an obscure saint of Anglesey, has a prior claim. I enjoyed the way in which the author starts by saying that it would be foolish to challenge Saint Swithin’s standing, yet obviously relishes the chance to demonstrate that the Saxon saint was just a johnny-come-lately compared with those of the natives. Saint Cewydd is furnished with a splendid pedigree which even includes the family of King Arthur, particularly interesting to me is that he also claims to be the brother of the Irish saint, Aidan (Maedoc) of Ferns, whose feast we will celebrate at the end of next month: 


    A Celtic Weather Saint. — Most countries possess their special weather saint, whose festival, according as it is dry or wet, decides the meteorological character of the following forty days. St. Swithin has now so long reigned supreme as the weather saint of Great Britain, that it would, perhaps, be vain to denounce him as the Saxon usurper of the rights of a Celtic weather saint, who presided over the rainfall of our country as far back as the time of King Arthur. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the honourable distinction of weather saint belongs rather to the Celtic “St. Cewydd of the Rain” than to the Saxon bishop of comparatively modern times.

    St. Cewydd was one of a remarkable family, being the son of Caw, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd or Cowllwg, who, according to Achau y Saint, was “deprived of his territories by the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or, as the general term may be interpreted, by the Picts and Scots; in consequence of which he and his numerous family retired to Wales. He settled at Twrcelyn, in Anglesey, where lands were bestowed upon him by Maelgwn Gwynedd; and it is also said that lands were granted to some of his children by Arthur in Siluria”. Most of them distinguished themselves in one way or another, and founded churches, of which they became the patron saints. St. Cewydd’s eldest brother, Hywel, was killed in a civil war by King Arthur; his brother Aneurin, otherwise known as Gildas, became the most celebrated scholar of the day; another brother, Aeddan, was first Bishop of Ferns; while his sister, Cwyllog, was married to King Arthur’s nephew, the traitor Modred. Unfortunately, we know but little of the history of St. Cewydd himself, beyond the fact that he founded churches at Diserth, Aberedwy, in Radnorshire, and at Llangewydd, in Glamorganshire. Local nomenclature, however, would lead us to suppose that he lived in the neighbourhood of Diserth, for a farm in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan is still called Cil gewydd, i.e., the Cell of Cewydd, while a mountain- track above Llandeilo Graban, once trodden by the feet of the saint, perhaps, as he journeyed over the hills to visit his brother Maelog at his monastery of Llowes, yet bears the name of Rhiw Gewydd, i.e., Cewydd’s Hill. But no tradition remains to tell us how the saint won his title of “Cewydd of the Rain”, as he is called in old Welsh writings, and we are indebted to Lewis Glyn Cothi for our knowledge of the popular superstition which connected the rainfall with the festiyal of the saint. In a poem, or rather an elegy, written by him on the death of Morgan, son of Sir David Gam, he compares the tears shed over the departed hero to the forty days’ rain which fell after St. Cewydd’s festival:

    “Gwlad Vrychan am Vorgan vydd
    Ail i gawod wyl Gewydd.
    Deugain niau davnau dwvr
    Ar ruddiau yw’r aweddwvr.
    Deugain mlynedd i heddyw
    Yr wyl y beirdd ar ol y byw.”

    The said festival took place on July 1, O.S.; therefore, allowing for the difference between Old and New Style, it now occurs on July 13, two days before St. Swithin’s. Until quite lately, a feast or wake was held in Aberedwy parish the second week in July in honour of Saint Cewydd. That the popular belief in St. Cewydd’s power over the weather was not confined to the Welsh portion of Great Britain is proved by an old English proverb, which, altogether ignoring St. Swithin’s claims, says:

    ” If the first of July be rainy weather,
    ‘T will rain more or less for a month together.”

    M. L. Dawson.

    Archaeologia Cambrensis, 5th series, Volume 5 (1888), 270-271.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.


  • Saint Nicholas: the Irish Connection

    December 6 is the commemoration of an eastern saint who is truly loved the world over – Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra. A Russian lady once told me that her people love Saint Nicholas so much that they are apt to forget he isn’t actually Russian himself. This set me wondering if there might be an Irish dimension to the veneration of the great bishop of Myra. I found that there is, but that it owes more to the Normans and the Crusades than to the earlier native church. In his 12th-century Martyrology, Marianus O’Gorman begins the list of saints commemorated today with ‘Nicolaus a holy man’. The Cathedral of Galway, constructed in 1320, was dedicated to Saint Nicholas in his capacity as a protector of seafarers. He was seen as an appropriate patron for a rising commercial city and indeed, the great bishop of Myra is the diocesan patron of Galway and is honoured as such in the Litany of Irish Saints. But Ireland makes an even more extraordinary claim in relation to Saint Nicholas – it claims to be the place where he is buried! Below is an article from an Irish newspaper which summarizes the story:


    CURIOSITIES: SANTA CLAUS may well be buried in a little country graveyard in south Kilkenny. Incredible as this might seem there is evidence to substantiate the possibility that Saint Nicholas of Myra, the original Santa Claus, is buried just west of Jerpoint Abbey, one of the finest Cistercian ruins in Ireland, in Co Kilkenny. The unmarked grave is in the ruined church at Newtown-Jerpoint (two kilometres outside Thomastown) once the site of a thriving Norman town that was abandoned in the 17th century probably due to plague, writes Gerry Moran.

    St Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Turkey, died in AD 342 and was buried there. How his remains, or a portion of them, arrived in south Kilkenny has much to do with the Norman crusaders.

    Jerpoint Abbey was founded around 1158 by Donnchadh Mac Giolla Phádraig, King of Ossory. In 1180, it was taken over by the Cistercian order. In 1200, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, of Kilkenny Castle, decided to build a new town just across the river from Jerpoint Abbey. He called the town Nova Villa Juxta Geripons meaning “The New Town Across from Jerpoint”. That same year the Church of St Nicholas of Myra was built in the town and, according to the historian Canon Carrigan, the tomb was laid that same year also.

    When Strongbow invaded Ireland in 1169, his most trusted lieutenant was Sir Humphrey De Fraine. When the church of Newtown-Jerpoint was built and dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra in 1200, the most powerful Anglo-Norman baron in south Kilkenny was Nicholas De Fraine, son of Sir Humphrey.

    The story goes that the Norman Knights of Jerpoint, the crusading De Fraines (or De Freynes) when forced to evacuate the Holy Land exhumed the remains of St Nicholas of Myra and brought them to Normandy from where they eventually found their way to Jerpoint. The remains were laid to rest beneath a slab, now broken across the centre, depicting a monk in habit and cowl. The grave, whether it be that of the real Santa Claus or not, can still be seen to this day.
    [see photograph above]

    I am cynical about these old stories that supposedly go back into the mists of time, often the truth is that they cannot be traced back beyond the beginnings of the Victorian tourist era. I would be interested to know how far back this one about Saint Nicholas can really be charted in the historical record, if this is a genuine medieval tradition, one would expect to find some mention of it somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it cannot be traced back any further than the 19th century. I wouldn’t be surprised either if it receives a new lease of life in our own time when yarns about secret lore, knights, crusaders and relics have topped the bestseller lists.


    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

  • The Tully Lough Cross

    Below is an article on the Tully Lough Cross, an 8th- or 9th-century Irish treasure recovered from a lake in County Roscommon. I first posted this at my former blog in 2010 and the original link no longer works.
    Recovered Celtic Treasure
    Rescued from its watery resting place, the Tully Lough Cross was recently put on display alongside other key exhibits in the National Museum; Eamonn P Kelly discusses the stylistic and historic significance of this find.
    The Tully Lough Cross is an Irish altar cross of the 8th or 9th century (Fig 1). Constructed of metal sheets on a wooden core, it is a rare example of a metal-encased cross of the period and the only relatively intact Irish example, although what may be components for similar Irish crosses of the period have been found elsewhere in Ireland, England and in Viking graves in Western Norway. It is similar in form to the later Cross of Cong, which dates to the 12th century and which also has Co. Roscommon connections through its maker Mael Isu UaEchan, Abbott of Clooncraft. The only contemporary intact cross of comparable form is the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon example preserved at Bischofshofen in Austria, while the fragmentary remains of a bossed metal and wood cross of the 8th century from Dumfriesshire, Scotland, is in the National Museum of Scotland.
    Tully Lough Cross the cross arms are cusped and decorated with bosses and panels, some of them openwork; the ornament is characteristic of Insular art of the late 8th-early 9th centuries (All photos courtesy of the National Museum)

    In July 1986 a diver found the Tully Lough Cross in controversial circumstances on the bed of Tully Lough, Co. Roscommon, close to the edge of a small crannóg (an artificial island dwelling). One of the finders was subsequently prosecuted for failing to report the find and the court heard evidence of an attempt to sell the cross to the Getty Museum California, for $1.75 million. When the cross came into the possession of the National Museum of Ireland in 1990 it was in a fragmented state and examination showed that components were missing. Impact damage had also been sustained, probably before the cross came to be deposited in the lake. Underwater investigation of the find place, conducted in 1998, indicated that the cross was in a damaged condition when it came to rest on the lakebed, although it has also been established that the finders lost a few undecorated components subsequent to discovery.

    Upper shaft of the Tully Lough Cross showing details of the decoration, including a human figure between two animals, an openwork interlace panel and a bosse with spiral decoration

    The cross has been conserved and restored by National Museum conservators and placed on display in the Treasury in Kildare Street alongside other major national treasures such as the Tara Brooch and Ardagh Chalice. Unlike the Cross of Cong, another great treasure in the National Museum, the Tully Lough Cross does not appear to have been designed to hold a relic. Both crosses have similar outlines, with cusped arms, suggesting that the basic form was current over hundreds of years. In the case of the Tully Lough Cross a wooden (oak) upright and crosspiece were joined in the middle using a simple halving joint, secured by an iron nail. The cross arms are cusped and a number of cast and gilt bronze bosses and flat mounts are attached to the front and back, contrasted by plain tinned-bronze backing sheets. The decorative elements on the front are more ornate than those on the back. Three panels bear simple interlace patterns while two others depict a human figure between two gaping animals – perhaps an image of Daniel in the Lion’s Den – or that of Christ between two beasts, an important icon in the Early Middle Ages. The human figures are closely similar and each wears a kilt-like garment that extends below the knees. However the eyes of the uppermost figure are represented as open while those on the lower example are closed. The metal components of the cross are held in place with nails, tubular binding strips and cast animal-headed fittings. Amber studs are employed for decorative purposes on the bosses.
    Openwork panel from the upper shaft of the Tully Lough Cross:the symbolism of the figure may be Christ or Daniel in the Lion’s Den
    Whereas the decoration on the Cross of Cong owes much to the Hiberno-Scandinavian version of the so-called Urnes art style, much of the art style employed on the Tully Lough Cross is known as Ultimate La Tène. Pyramidal and circular bosses bear chip-carved decoration including egg and dart mouldings, opposed eagle-like birds, spirals that end in bird heads or in clubbed terminals, simple interlace as well as punched lentoids, dots and dot and circle motifs. On the cusped panels on the front, raised cast triskeles occur in a complicated pattern of inscribed intermeshed S-scrolls, trumpet patterns and peltas. It is possible that the cross was made in a local workshop, which may also have produced the book shrine found in Lough Kinale, Co. Longford.
    Cross of Cong made at the behest of Turlough O’ Connor, High King of Ireland, it is a cusped cross, decorated with animal interlace panels
    The book shrine cover is decorated with a bossed cross with cusped arms and a number of aspects of the decoration and workmanship are closely comparable. Amber studs occur on the bosses. Animal heads that project from medallions placed on the sides and ends of the book shrine are the same animal that is represented on the mouldings placed at the joints of the tubular bindings on the cross. Originally there were sixteen of which twelve survive. Cast in the form of a long-snouted beast with two upright rounded ears, the cheeks are crosshatched with two spiral nostrils at the end of the snout.
    The same animal is represented on other items of contemporary metalwork such as the Cavan brooch and the St-Germain shrine mounts but it also occurs on later objects such as St. Manchan’s shrine and the Cross of Cong. The human figure between two beasts motif can be compared with a similar figure represented on an unprovenanced 9th-century gilt silver bell shrine in the National Museum collection (reg. no. 1920:37). It also occurs on stone high crosses such as the South Cross at Ahenny, Co. Tipperary, and part of the importance of the Tully Lough Cross lies in the fact that it demonstrates conclusively the long-held view that many of the Irish high crosses were modelled on metal crosses. Bosses are a common feature on the high crosses and much of the decoration appears to be based on metalwork prototypes. The central pyramidal boss on the front of the Tully Lough Cross has a panel of opposed birds that are very similar in style and treatment to two panels of opposed animals represented on the above-mentioned bell shrine, while there are also comparable animals represented on the back of a large silver brooch of the 9th century from Killamery, Co. Kilkenny.
    Trapezoidal panel on the pyramidal centrepiece mount showing two three- strand spirals that end in bird-heads
    The Tully Lough Cross may have been associated with the church of Kilmore, an important Patrician foundation sited close to Tully Lough. During the middle ages the Ó Mochain family were keepers of what might have been another important altar cross, named after St Atrachta who had north Roscommon associations. The monumental scale and lavish decoration suggests that the Tully Lough Cross was paraded on important religious and ceremonial occasions. Whether it was lost accidentally or thrown deliberately into the lake is impossible to say, but the discovery in Viking graves of possible components from similar crosses may provide a pointer. The most complete of the related finds from Ireland is the Antrim Cross in the Hunt Museum, Limerick. Drawings of similar crosses occur on contemporary gospel books such as the Canterbury Codex Aureus, and the decorative style of the Tully Lough Cross is also to be found on the manuscripts.
    Eamonn P Kelly is the Keeper of Irish Antiquities in the National Museum of Ireland where he has been associated prominently with efforts to recover looted antiquities. His publications include Early Celtic Art in Ireland; Sheela-na-gigs Origins and Functions. He is a contributor to the recent book Treasures of the National Museum of Ireland: Irish Antiquities.
    Originally Published Here: Irish Arts Review, Volume 20, Number 3