Tag Archives: Wales

St. Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs of Cologne

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Statue of St. Ursula and her companions (clustered together beneath her cloak) in the church of St. Ursula in Cologne.

St. Ursula (Latin for “little bear”) was among the most popular saints of Western Europe during the Middle Ages. She and her companions–later versions of her life story report that she had 11,000 women with her although there were doubtless a much smaller group of women actually with her, probably 11 that was later expanded by a error in transcription–travelled to Cologne from Wales and were martyred in Cologne; there are records indicating that the women were executed AD 400.

The church of St. Ursula in Cologne is Romanesque, built in the 11th century atop the ancient ruins of a Roman cemetery, where the virgins associated with Saint Ursula are said to have been buried. The church has an impressive reliquary created from the bones of the former occupants of the cemetery. It is one of the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne and was designated a basilica in the canonical, if not architectural, sense in June 1920.

The “Golden Chamber” of the church contains the remains of St. Ursula and her companions who are said to have been killed by the Huns. The walls of the Golden Chamber are covered in bones arranged in designs and letters along with relic-skulls. The exact number of people whose remains are in the Golden Chamber remains ambiguous but the number of skulls in the reliquary is greater than 11 and less than the 11,000. These remains were found in 1106 in a mass grave and were assumed to be those of the legend of St. Ursula and the virgins. Therefore, the church constructed the Golden Chamber to house the bones.

The small village of Llangwyryfon, near Aberystwyth in west Wales, has a church dedicated to St. Ursula. The village name translates as ‘Church of the Virgins’. She is believed to have come from this area. The Order of Ursulines, founded in 1535 by Angela Merici, and devoted to the education of young girls, has also helped to spread Ursula’s name throughout the world. St. Ursula was named the patron saint of school girls.

It has been theorized that the character of St. Ursula is a Christianized form of the Norse goddess Freya, who welcomed the souls of dead maidens. Other 19th-century scholars have referred to the goddesses Nehalennia, Nerthus and Mother Holda.

April Daisies

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Daisy, the flower of April, is associated with the planet Venus and the deities Freya, Artemis (Diana), and Thor.

“April showers bring May flowers,” they say. But its nearly April and April flowers are pretty important as well.

Daisy was said to have sprung from the tears of Mary Magdalen and associated with April whose “showers are sweet with fruit” according to Geoffrey Chaucer. Daisy is a “feminine” flower whose element is water (according to the alchemists). According to an old saying, spring has not fully arrived until you can step on 12 daisies. Daisy can be used in magic to promote lust and love. Thor used daisy-chains when he disguised himself as Freya to fool the giant  Thrymer, who wanted Freya as his wife.

When you were little, do you remember plucking the petals of a daisy while reciting, “S/he loves, s/he loves me not?” I remember my aunt plucking a daisy from my grandparents’ garden and asking the flower this question about her fiancé. This repetitive questioning will reveal the true feelings of a potential lover. Picking the first daisy of the season will make you an uncontrolled flirt and sleeping with a daisy under your pillow will bring an absent lover back to you.

Daisy can be eaten to relieve stomach ulcers (as Henry VIII did). King Henry’s family came from Wales, where daisy was used to cure insanity, treat smallpox, tumors, jaundice and skin diseases. According to an ancient Celtic legend, daisies came from the spirits of children who died at birth; therefore daisies are also associated with innocence.

Spring and innocence and love all go together, right? Pluck a daisy and hold all three in your hand. Gather a vaseful of April daisies and attract spring and innocence and love to your house.

St. David of Wales — and his leeks!

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Children wearing their St David's Day leeks on March 1, 1957.

Children wearing their St David’s Day leeks on March 1, 1957.

Many Welsh people wear one or both of the National symbols of Wales to celebrate St. David: the daffodil (a generic Welsh symbol) or the leek (Saint David’s personal symbol) on March 1. The association of leeks with St. David arises from an occasion when a troop of Welsh soldiers were able to distinguish each other from a troop of the English enemy dressed in similar fashion by wearing leeks. Leek soup is also a popular dish on March 1.

The word leek comes from the Anglo-Saxon name for the plant, leac. The leek, like its relatives the onion and garlic, has been known as a food plant for thousands of years. Over 1,200 years before Christ, the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness longed for the leeks, onions, garlic, meat and other foods they had known in Egypt (Numbers 11:4-6).

The emperor Nero ate great quantities of leeks under the delusion that they improved his voice.

Beginning in antiquity, soldiers of many centuries believed that carrying a leek in battle would assure safety and victory; this was probably why St. David told the Welsh soldiers to wear it.

Who was St. David of Wales? He is said to have been the primary evangelizer of Wales and as a member of Welsh royalty, he founded a Celtic monastic community at Glyn Rhosyn (“The Vale of Roses”) on the western headland of Pembrokeshire at the spot where St David’s Cathedral stands today. David’s fame as a teacher and ascetic spread throughout the Celtic world. The date of Saint David’s death is recorded as 1 March, but the year is uncertain – possibly 588.

Saint David was recognised as a national patron saint at the height of Welsh resistance to the Normans. Saint David’s Day was celebrated by Welsh diaspora from the late Middle Ages. Indeed, the 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys noted how Welsh celebrations in London for Saint David’s Day would spark wider counter-celebrations amongst their English neighbors: life-sized effigies of Welshmen were symbolically lynched, and by the 18th century the custom had arisen of confectioners producing “taffies”—gingerbread figures baked in the shape of a Welshman riding a goat—on Saint David’s Day.

In 1485, Henry VII of England, whose ancestry was partly Welsh, became King of England after victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field; Henry was the first monarch of the House of Tudor and this dynasty added a Welsh dragon to the royal coat of arms, a reference to the monarch’s origins.