Patron of Hares, Saint Melangell

This week I went north  to visit the shrine of St Melangell, who is the patron saint of hares. 

The shrine is at this ancient church, in Melangell, which was built on the bones found in a Neolithic burial site.

A long time ago, I watched a pair of brown     hares race across a Wiltshire meadow, veering through the grass this way then that, bring and whitish streaks of joy. Something touched my innermost spaces. Those hares spoke and some secret and power part of me responded. I was transfixed in that moment, and the vision of these beautiful and sacred creatures has stayed with me, in my mind's eye forever. I knew then that the hare was my animal; my ally and totem, my inner confidante, my shamanic companion. 

The hare has staying with me every since that day in the late 1980s. 

So when friends asked me to go with them to the shrine of St Melangell, I jumped at the chance. I’d never heard of this saint, even though she is the patron hares, which are my totem animal

Her shrine is still kept in beautiful condition, in the small northwest Wales village of Pennant Melengells, It's one of the most remote shrines in the UK, located in the Berwyn Mountains. It’s only a short drive from St Mylin’s well, a far better-known shrine to a well-loved saint, who was probably Bishop of Wales at around the time Saint Melegell was born.

Melengell lived in the 7th Century CE, in what then would have been an independent Wales, still more Iron Age than Medieval. The Romans had long gone, and the old, local tribes called refi had taken over the rule of the land once more, led by a warrior aristocracy. The people would have spoken Old Welsh and held that powerful blend of belief; Celtic Christian, fused with a remaining underbelly of pagan belief, still clinging around the edges of this new religion. They'd only recently been converted to the powerful message of this still-new faith by saints like David and Mylin.

The tarn of Llyn Cau 
 https://petebuckley.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/
walking-in-wales-cadair-idris/

We arrived at the youth hostel, for our one night stay in Dolgellau, which is sheltered under the most southern tip of the Snowdonia mountain range. 

 Rising above us was Cader Idris. Myth and legend have echoed around this high peak  for many a century and began with the fabled Welsh book of folklore, The Mabinogion. It’s said than anyone who falls asleep for the night at the foot of the Cadir Idris wakes, the following morning, either dead, mad, or a poet. We were about to lay our heads down is just that place, and I was hoping to wake with the latter quality!

The following morning (seemingly neither dead nor mad), we motored northeast to the village of Pennant Melangell. The far west of Wales possibly still looks, in places, very much like it did when the saints and the war-lords ruled the head and heart of early Wales.  As we travelled, my friends told me what they knew about St Melangell. 

She was the daughter of an Irish monarch, who had determined to marry her to a nobleman of his court. The princess fled from her father, across the Irish Sea, and took refuge in the isolated Tanat valley. She lived as an anchorite, walled into her shrine for most of fifteen years, without seeing the face of a man. 

The legend has it that one day Brochwel, prince of Powys, was hunting a hare with his dogs. In its desperation, the hare found this beautiful young lady wandering through the countryside, and took refuge under her cloak. The pack of hounds refused to go anywhere near the saintly Melangell, some howling and turning tail, some whimpering and lying down before her feet.

The prince was amazed to find a virgin of surpassing beauty, engaged in deep devotion, with the hare he had been pursuing under her robe, boldly facing the dogs. The Prince gifted her the valley of Pennant Melangell and she lived there, offering sanctuary and retreat to all who came.  She founded an abbey on the spot, and died abbess at a good old age.  Her tomb was in a little chapel, or oratory, adjoining to the church. 

I loved the carvings inside the church, especially the 15th Century oak screen with carvings that tell the story of Melangell and Prince Brochwel, and a fabulous series of stone carvings of the hare by the sculptor Meical Watts. 

But what we’d come to see, and be tranquil within, was the 12th Century shrine of Saint Melangell. Its stones are carved with Romanesque and Celtic motifs, and it contains what is said to originally have been the saint’s cell bed. Bones said to be those of the saint were deposited within the shrine. This was all were reassembled in the last century but it took a lot of fund-raising to eventually get the entire thing to be re-erected in the chancel at the back of the church. 

The church is now a Grade-I listed building. But more interesting to me, is that it sits in what is believed to be a Bronze Age site. In fact, Neolithic bones have been found on the site, which shows, as often is the case, that this sacred place had been used throughout time. I was overwhelmed by the ring of yew trees, planted before Christ was born, by people of the Iron Age...local druids, perhaps… These surround the churchyard. I spent a lot of meditative time in both saint's shrine, and under the trees, too.

Southey, when he visited the church in the 19th century wrote; 

And now I shall tell you why

It was proper that I 

Should go thither to spy

The place with mine own eye.

Tis a church in a vale,

Whereby hangs a tale,

How a hare being pressed,

By the dogs and much distressed,

The hunters coming nigh

And the dogs in full cry,

Looked about for someone to defend her,

And saw just in time

As it now come pat in rhyme,

A saint of the feminine gender.

To be honest, I don't think he'd had enough opium, that time…maybe he failed to sleep at the foot of Cader Idris!

For information about St Melegell's church and shrine, Click here for website

The churchyard is surrounded by yew trees, planted before Christ was born, by people of the Iron Age...local druids, perhaps.

 Then in the 6th Century CE, Melangell tells that she was the daughter of an Irish monarch, who had determined to marry her to a nobleman of his court. The princess fled from her father and took refuge in Wales, where she lived fifteen years without seeing the face of a man. St Melangell was still a young woman, when a hare, pursued by The  Prince of Powys, huntsmen and dogs, took refuge in her cloak. The prince was amazed to find a virgin of surpassing beauty, engaged in deep devotion, with the hare he had been pursuing under her robe, boldly facing the dogs, who retired to a distance howling, The dogs howled with fear and turned tail. The Prince gifted her the valley of Pennant Melangell and she lived there, offering sanctuary and retreat to all who came.  She founded an abbey on the spot, and died abbess at a good old age. She was buried in the neighbouring church, called Pennant, and from, her distinguished by the addition of Melangell. Her hard bed is shown in the cleft of a neighbouring rock. Her tomb was in a little chapel, or oratory, adjoining to the church, and now used as a vestry room. 

Recently the shrine of the saint has been revamped.They found a bricked-up door in this special area at the back of the church and opened it out to create what had originally been her  cell bed. 

People still come to visit the shrine. 

Southey, when he visited in the 19th century wrote; 

And now I shall tell you why

It was proper that I 

Should go thither to spy

The place with mine own eye.

Tis a church in a vale,

Whereby hangs a tale,

How a hare being pressed,

By the dogs and much distressed,

The hunters coming nigh

And the dogs in full cry,

Looked about for someone to defend her,

And saw just in time

As it now come pat in rhyme,

A saint of the feminine gender.

To be honest, I don't think he'd had enough opium, that time...

Her bones still lie there.

The following morning, after staying in Dolgellau, we visited the Centre for Alternative Technology

Seahenge.

SEAHENGE.   

About ten years ago, a strange phenomenon grew out of the Norfolk coastline. A dark circle with a central core; like an atom, like a cell. 

People thought at first it was the rotting carcass of an old boat. But it soon became clear that this was a magical thing. It brooded like an eye, suddenly open and clear-sighted; a spectacular timber sacred circle.

This henge manifested itself from the coastal waters as they retreated, generation on generation. Constructed from wood blackened with two millennia of submersion, it had an upturned oak-bole in its very middle, the tapering fingers of the old roots pointing at the sea, the sky, the land. It emerged from what might be considered its grave like a benign vampire; mysterious and ancient.

I can imagine the excitement Francis Prior, a local archaeologist, felt as he came upon the henge... We walked for hours – or so it seemed – across tracts of sand, blasted from time to time by penetrating winds. At last we reached the circle. Three archaeologists from the Norfolk County Unit were clearing washed-in sand and debris from the gales of the previous day. As we arrived the sun came up, and I rapidly clicked off half a roll of film. The site was much smaller than I had imagined, but extraordinary, nonetheless. I was struck by its simplicity. It consisted of a rough circle or oval of oak posts, with what looked an upside-down oak in the middle. I can only guess at what this inverted tree meant, but I felt it had something special to tell...(Francis Prior, Seahenge, HarperCollins 2001)

Frances Pryor has a written many books on his specialist subject of the archeology of the east coast of Britain, and I particularly loved Seahenge, as it was so close to my own heart. Francis Prior became an archaeologist in the early seventies, and is married to archeologist; Maisie Taylor. He's best known for his marvellous work on Flag Fen, Flag Fen, a Bronze Age site developed about 3500 years ago, which has a wooden causeway about 1/2 a mile long  built  across the wet fenland. Part way across the structure is a semi-man-made a small island waswhich was most likely a site of religious ceremonies and significance. Prior reconstructed a lot of the site including a typical Iron Age roundhouse dwelling, and created a visitors' centre. The fens are redolent with Bronze Age workings,  the perfect high point being the discovery in 1998 of a spectacular timber sacred circle on the coast of the Norfolk coast – a strange phenomenon which suddenly seemed to be growing out of the Norfolk coastline. A dark circle with a central core; like an atom, like a cell. 

I have always wanted to visit the seahenge. When it first emerged, druids and ‘new agers’ clustered around it as if it was a rare flower and they were bees; they sat upon it, protesting the plan to uproot the entire henge and remove it from the place it had been built thousands of years ago.

I had a hankering to go too, and be with my friends, but I also had some sympathy for the case of the experts. As soon as the old wood emerged from the salt water, it was at risk, the air would rot it away to nothing. If it was left where it was, it would eventually be lost. But pulling it out did feel like pulling teeth; like moving old bones from cemeteries; brutal and tactless. Even so, the ‘sit in’ on the upturned tree roots also felt naive and insensitive in its way. The only way to preserve this amazing creation was to move it, and finally...inevitably...the archaeologists had their wicked way. Seahenge was taken south, so that the curators of the Lynn museum could learn how to care for it from the experts...the people who had worked on the Mary Rose after it had been dragged up from the sea bed.

the display at Lyn Museum

Now, I have seen the Mary Rose, and I can remember my reaction to it clearly. It made my spine tingle. It stands – a hulking wreck of a ship – inside a perpetual shower. Water drains and runs and drips over it every second of its life. I seemed to me something between a form of torture and a form of giving life. I have never forgotten it, and since Seahenge erupted, I’ve longed to see that too.

Francis Prior became an archaeologist in the early seventies, and set up the Fenland Archaeological Trust in 1987, constructing Neolithic roundhouses and allowing visitors to see the long history – natural and man’s history –of the area. I’d always wanted to see Flag Fen in the same way as I longed to see Seahenge. So when I had the opportunity to go to Norfolk to refresh my knowledge on keeping chickens, I decided to combine business with pleasure.

The dark history that separates the origins of Seahenge with the present day cannot be exaggerated. Thousands of years have passed. And to this day we don’t know what the henge was built to do. Sacrifice, is always people’s first thought, but it’s always my last. I prefer to believe that it was used for sacred rituals more benign...the connection of man with the old gods. Nevertheless, there seems to be a black hole that stretches between me and the henge.

We set out to King’s Lyn from Norwich quite early. It looked a long way on the map, and that proved the only correct assumption of the day. It was almost lunch time before we reached the city, so we ate first, and wandered around a bit, then went to the museum. 

It was shut. Until future notice. No reason given. 

I visualized the henge, locked up inside, perhaps happy to be alone again, and in the dark, beneath its constant torrent of water.

The plan had been to drive on to Flag Fen, but that wasn’t exactly around the corner either, so I phoned from the car. 

I spoke directly to Francis Prior.

‘No,’he said, ‘we open at the end of the month.’

‘But it said on your website you opened on the 1st?’

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Lynn museum is shut too.’

‘Really? Why ever is that?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

I might, at that point, have asked...’would it be sensible of us to drive to Holmes by the sea, just a short drive from Lynn, to see if we can spot the second henge that’s come up out of the sea? The one that has been left there to do its own thing? After the troubles of uprooting the first? The one you can see if you’re there at low tide?’

I didn’t ask any of that, of course. I didn’t even ask when low tide was. We just drove off, following the road to the east coast. We passed through the prettiest villages imaginable. Behind this was the sea, separated from us by low lying marshes of grass, creeks and dunes. A place of wild salt water birds and wild winds.

‘Even if we don’t find the second henge,’ I said, ‘we could have a lovely walk.’

‘I’ll park here, then, shall I?’

Even as we came to a halt, we knew we were stuck. Two wheels were deep in mud, skidding round, going nowhere.

We got out. My partner examined the mired tyres. I stared out to sea. High tide at Holmes by the sea. A gull wheeled. 

We stuck everything we had under the wheel; even the blanket from the boot. The tyre squealed and whizzed on its axel. 

A lady came by. ‘Oh dear, your stuck,’ she said. ‘I’d help you if I could...’

‘Gosh, no you’re to do no such thing,’ I said.

‘Well, I am nearly ninety,’ she said. ‘But I go for this walk each day. I don’t believe one should just give up, do you?’

‘No,’ I said, staring at the tyre and the ripped, sodden muddy blanket.

She walked on. I kicked myself. I’d forgotten to ask her if she knew what directions I should give the RAC.

A family came a little later. Young couple, pushing a buggy; older man and wife. I stopped them to ask where exactly we were.

The men took charge immediately. They went home, collected their 4X4 plus a tow rope and we were out of the mire in minutes. 

As we drove away, I contemplated on our wasted day. It was as if the henge had not wanted us to have any success. It had not wanted to be seen...twice over. 

Maybe sacrifices were made, after all.