The Saxon legend of Melangell is haunting and beautiful, and not often told. The first I ever heard of the saint was after some people I knew visited Pennant Melangell in Wales. At the village's church, as curious ghost hunters, they left a tape recorder recording during their visit. When they played it back, they claimed to have heard the unmistakable whisper of 'Melangell' crackling out from the machine's speakers, which they had not heard while inside the church. Whether you believe in this or not, the legend of this impressive woman is thick with strength, resistance and faith.
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| Photo by Natalia Sobolivska on Unsplash |
Melangell was the daughter of an Irish king. Despite choosing to remain unmarried for life, she was promised as a bride by her father to a member of his nobility. Running away, she lived on the lands near Pennant Melangell for fifteen years without being discovered. However in 604AD a man named Brochwel Yscythrog, Prince of Powys and owner of the lands, was hunting nearby when he followed the path of a darting hare and found Melangell in a thicket of brambles. With her was the hare he had been chasing, sheltering under her gown, but staring back at him, unafraid of his dogs. Brochwel was shocked to see Melangell so devoutly at prayer and living on his estate by herself, and even more shocked when his dogs refused to snatch the animal from her. They talked, and Melangell told him all about her story and why she had chosen to live in the countryside in secret, to escape her fate. The prince, sympathetic to her, granted her some property of her own and instructed her to build an abbey, so that others could find sanctuary in the same way that she had. She founded the nearby church, and the village was named Pennant Melangell in her honour. Dying in her eighties, she is buried in the church, which quickly became a shrine to her memory throughout the medieval period. She also seems to have gained wider fame later on. The eighteenth-century writer Thomas Pennant remembered being shown the actual bed Melangell slept in while living on Brochwel's land, 'in the cleft of a neighbouring rock'.
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| St Melangell's Church, via Wikimedia Commons by Rosser1954, CC BY 4.0 |
Sadly, any trace of Melangell's tomb or any of the decorations which once were laid there have been removed. However medieval carvings at the church record the legend, including depictions of hares as well as Melangell herself. She is also known as St Monacella. Pennant revealed that in the 1600s, locals were too afraid to hunt for hares in the parish because of her spiritual influence, and in the 1700s, they believed that if any hare was chased, a shout of 'God and St Monacella be with thee' would save its life. Descriptions of the fifteenth-century carvings were recorded in the nineteenth century by a local reverend, and include Melangell standing with a foliated crozier and a veiled headdress in her capacity as abbess at the church here. He also took care to note that she is depicted larger than the prince and the huntsman, signifying a heightened importance, as she sits on a red cushion.
A tale of early Christianity, women's strength and strong resistance to the ideals and expectations of the time, Melangell's story is one we should remember. It is a tantalising view of a Saxon-era legend, but also reveals the fifteenth-century residents that put their hopes on the saint, depicting her and her assertiveness inside their church.
Liked this? You might also like: The Welsh Legend of Nelferch, 10 British Castles to Visit by Train and The Warrior Women of the Wars of the Roses.
You might also like my book Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses, published by Pen and Sword.
Source: Archaeologica Cambrensis, Volume 3, London, 1847
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