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Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!
So there I was this morning, walking into the Wellness Center for my thrice weekly half-mile swim, when I meandered past the kiddie-pen (they always seem to be having a marvelous time) and noticed the large hanging banner in green sparkly cardstock wishing everyone a “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!!”
Glory be.
It doesn’t arrive for another two-and-a-half weeks, but when it does it will be celebrated in all parts of the Emerald Isle, even by Catholics in the Protestant North, and also marked loudly and festively, all ’round the world.
Meanwhile, March 1 is St. David’s Day, one reserved for the patron saint of Wales.
David is believed to have been born somewhere in the last half of the fifth century in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and he lived most of his early religious life as a teacher and preacher. He rose quickly through the ranks as a result of his oratorical and organizational skills, becoming the Welsh archbishop shortly after performing a miracle in which a small hill spontaneously appeared beneath him (allowing the crowd to see and hear him preach more easily), while a dove settled on his shoulder. David is also credited with several additional miracles, including those involving the resurrection of a dead child and the restoration of a blind man’s sight.
It appears that David’s monastic rule was rather rigorous, and seemingly at least–like many early Christian saints–vegetarian. His monks pulled the plows at their abbey’s themselves, and:
David and his fellow members within this community believed hard manual labor was the duty of all, thus preferring not to use cattle to help them plow the fields. They resolved to maintain a diet of bread and vegetables, with just a sprinkling of salt, so as not to inflict unnecessary suffering upon any creature by taking its life for food–Holly Roberts, Vegetarian Christian Saints
David is believed to have died around the year 600 and some records indicate that he was canonized around 1120 by Pope Calixtus II. Dozens of churches founded by and/or named for David still exist in Wales today, and his shrine at St. David’s Cathedral in Mynyw, which was a popular pilgrimage destination during the Middle Ages, is still the Cathedral of the Western Welsh See.
I know not why St Patrick is more than first among equals of the Saints of the British Isles and Éire. First glance might indicate that it’s something to do with the difficulty of wishing someone a “Happy St. David’s Day,” in Welsh (see the post title). But that’s probably not it, as I don’t guess that “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” in Irish is a day at the beach either. And “Happy St. Andrew’s Day” (November 30) in Gaelic (Latha Naomh Anndra sona dhuibh!) is just impossible.
How lucky we are to have English to solve all these ticklish problems.
But even that hasn’t saved poor old St. George, whose own day (April 23) languished in the doldrums and virtually uncelebrated for hundreds of years, without much of a presence in popular culture at all. I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and ascribe that fact partly to the well-known (and regrettable) reluctance of the English to wave their own flag and toot their own horn without a sense of deep embarrassment (“it simply isn’t done!“), and partly to the difficulties associated with George’s infernal “bloody cross” and all the unwelcome, unwoke, and bothersome historical, religious, and cultural baggage it evokes and has come to represent, even more so in the last seventy years.
There are some indications that this trend is reversing, although the recent advice–given to the English football fans at the recent World Cup matches in Qatar–to be rather discreet about wearing shirts with the English flag on them or waving the flag itself in the streets or in the football stands, are not encouraging. While St. Patrick’s Day and St. Andrew’s Day are bank/public holidays in their respective countries, neither St. David’s Day nor St. George’s Day is in theirs.
But, this year, I’ll just set all those matters aside and take my saints one at a time, starting with Dewi, the one for whom my father was named.
Happy St. David’s Day!
.
Published in General
Save some pity too for Scotland’s patron saint Andrew whose feast day in the US is marked by leftover turkey no one wants to eat.
It is a peculiarity of wokeness that it encourages tempering ‘excesses’ far in excess of what any of the protected class cares about.
All the world knows that a country’s flag in Futboldom is the equivalent of a logo.
Robert Burns gets more attention in the U.S. (Burns Night) than Andrew the First-Called. Though Andrew is also the patron of Greece, so the GOC celebrates him.
I am about 30% Welsh, but most of my ancestors came to America before the revolution, so I do not have ties to the old country. All I know about Wales is Tom Jones and the cookies I make at Christmas time . . . and now I know St. David’s Day.
Fun Fact: Wales owes its very existence to “…and sometimes Y.”
You didn’t make it easy to find that place on Google Maps. I had to lift a finger a few times to find out that Mynyw is now St. Davids, which is just about as far west as you can go in Wales. All that extra finger lifting on Google Search almost counts as a pilgrimage, doesn’t it?
A few nights ago after everyone else had gone to bed I did a bicycle ride about a hundred miles further to the east of Mynyw in the Elan valley, my first ride in Wales in four seasons of virtual riding around the world. Virtual rides are of course not as good as the real thing. The next morning I looked at where I had taken off my bicycle shoes and realized that I had worn an unmatched pair for the ride. Nobody had even pointed and laughed at me, which goes to show that this virtual reality stuff is not quite there yet. But the countryside was nice looking and it got me thinking about an unvirtual visit.
There is a web page about modern pilgrimage routes to St David’s. One suggestion is a one-day cycling pilgrimage, an 18 mile circular route, which is something I could manage without doing too much damage to other people’s schedules.
A cycling pilgrimage route is something that Croagh Patrick in the west of Ireland doesn’t have. I’ve been there twice and each time talked about doing the pilgrimage route up the mountain and back, but each time others in the party thought we had to move on to reach our evening destination. Still, I’d like to do it before I get too old for such things.
Are there pilgrimage destinations for Saints Andrew and George? A circular pilgrimage to all four of them might make a good project, depending on what kind of countryside it takes one through. (I think up a lot more of these projects than I’ll ever do.)
And they sing a song about a guy murdering his girl friend at their rugby matches (lighten up, she had it coming)
Hmm. Georgia. That would make for quite a circle. Probably not. And maybe not Jerusalem, either. I’ve done some virtual riding in the hills west of Jerusalem, and the scenery was not at all like I expected. But getting there is another thing.
I thought Scotland’s patron saint either Robert Burns or St Glenfiddich.
although some of the fans still sing it (they are Welsh after all), it’s no longer sanctioned, or allowed at the league level:
https://ricochet.com/1382618/meme-yyy-delilah/
Happy St David’s Day!
FLUELLEN
KING HENRY V
Hey!
Somebody had to rescue the Princess with the Big Head.
What a great recipe. Those are what we always called “Welsh Tea Cakes.” Also (referring to the article again), somewhere I have a platform ticket from the train station at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It’s several inches long. The town is known as “Llanfair PG” for reasons which should be obvious.
Beautiful country.
I don’t know if there’s a pilgrimage site for George, although his body is buried in what was Lydda and is now Lod, in central Israel. Information on his tomb can be found here. That would be quite a bike ride, virtual or otherwise.
The National Shrine to St. Andrew is in Edinburgh, and I don’t know of a pilgrimage site associated with him, although Patras in Western Greece is where he was supposed to have been crucified on a saltire (diagonal) cross, a design that’s replicated in the Scottish flag.
I know not why St Patrick is more than first among equals of the Saints of the British Isles and Éire.
At least according to Thomas Cahill, St. Patrick saved civilization as we know it. That’s why.
Short Version. Very short and roughly abbreviated. . He was a Roman citizen in Britain in the early fifth century that was kidnapped and enslaved by the Irish in Ireland. After a few years he escaped to France I think and became a priest there . After a few more years he returned to heathen Ireland as a missionary to convert the warlike Irish, which he did which brought him great fame.
St Patrick, more importantly established the Monastery system, where monks would copy all the works of knowledge and literature they could get their hands on. The knowledge of the Romans was being destroyed at a rapid pace in the late fifth century and the copying of that knowledge saved it for humanity, otherwise much of what we know from the Romans would have been likely lost.
That Monastery system spread eventually across Europe. Monasteries became centers of knowledge and innovation. A later Irish priest, St. Columba later founded the Monastery at Iona, the first church in Scotland on the lonely island of Iona, which became a leading center of learning in that part of Europe. From there, Irish monks from Iona established Lindisfarne, the famed English monastery that is just south of the border with Scotland, which was sacked by the Vikings in 793.
This website about the Way of St. Andrews suggests several routes, and has information for anyone who might want to do them by bicycle. (Sometimes you have to use alternate routes part of the way.)
What I don’t understand is whether any or all of these were historical pilgrimage routes.
Some of the pilgrimage routes suggested for St. David seemed to at least include related historical sites along the way. I’d like that, but the lack of such places wouldn’t be a show-stopper for me.
In Ireland I had known about the use of Crough Patrick for modern-day pilgrimages, but now wondered if the Hill of Tara also was a historical pilgrim destination. That place is not too far from our daughter’s place, and would make a nice out-and-back bicycle ride for a day. There is a deconsecrated church on the site that has services once a year on St. Patrick’s Day, but I don’t see anything about it as a pilgrim destination. The one time we visited the site it seemed there were some people who imagined they were pagans doing pagan stuff on the hill, which interfered with my getting the camera shots I wanted. It didn’t make for the pilgrim vibe I would have been looking for, but they may have been pilgrims of a sort.
It is, indeed, an inspiring story. Although complicated by certain historical facts.
Cymru am beth! Cymru am beth!
I learned here that Google Translate doesn’t have voice output for Welsh.
Perchance you were in Carmarthen as an undergrad?
No, I just had a crack Welsh teacher at IU. Way better than the teacher for Old Irish at the time.
Thanks for this. I obviously knew of St. David and he being patron of Wales but I knew almost nothing else. Belated St. David’s feast day.
“I know not why St Patrick is more than first among equals of the Saints of the British Isles and Éire.”
Here’s my speculation on why. The Irish maintained their Catholicism while the British went Protestant, and for a while under the governance of Puritanism. Affiliation and devotion to saints was stripped and then curbed. It took some time for High Church Anglicanism to bring back saints. At least this is my perception.