The Sacred Places of Wales
A Modern Pilgrimage
by
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Holywell (Treffynnon: Tray Funnon) in Flintshire (less than twenty miles from Chester, on the English border) is "the town of the Holy Well." For over one thousand years, the well at Holywell was renowned throughout Britain and beyond for its healing powers, a reputation that somehow managed to survive the Reformation. During the author's boyhood, a large collection of crutches and canes left behind as a testament to the water's curative powers was a prominent feature of the site (they have since been removed by order of the Catholic Church). The Greenfield Valley, just below Holywell is important in Welsh industrial history and its Heritage Trail is well worth a visit, as are the remains of Basingwerk Abbey, founded in 1131 as a Savignac Monastery but mostly demolished as a Cistercian House at the Reformation, with its parts scattered throughout the area to be relocated in many local churches. The vesiges that do remain give no hint of the abbey's former importance, but their situation in a large green meadow overlooking the wide Dee Estuary, is pleasant enough. But it is to the holy well at the upper end of the Valley, just before the steep climb up the the town itself, that we make our pilgrimage. The well itself, formed from a mountain spring, is housed inside the shrine of St. Winifred (Gwenffrwd: Gwen Frude or Gwenfrewi : Gwen Frewee) regarded as the finest surviving example of a medieval holy well in Britain. The legend of St. Winifrid is responsible for the erection of the present shrine on a site chosen originally chosen by St. Beuno (St. Bye No for a chapel. When a local chieftain named Caradoc (Car Add Og) attempted to rape Beuno's niece Gwenffrwd, she ran to the chapel for sanctuary but though she failed to reach the doors, her refusal to submit to her pursuer caused him to cut off her head in his rage. The head rolled down the hillside, a spring miraculously appearing where it came to rest in a deep hollow. Beuno reattached Gwenffrwd's head, and she lived to become an abbess (at Shrewsbury) and later, a saint. Would-be rapist Prince Caradoc, meanwhile, fell dead under the holy man's curse.
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About the Book
This book takes the reader on an armchair tour of the sacred places of Whales, a tiny country in the western region of the British Isles that has retained much of its Celtic culture and language. Using the six ancient cathedrals as bases, the visitor explores this tiny nation’s wealth of holy, magical, and mystical sites.
About the Author
Peter N. Williams was born in Mancot, a little village in Flintshire, North Wales, just inside the border with England. Brought up in the industrial town of Flint, he was educated at King’s School, Chester and at the University College, Swansea, South Wales. After arriving in the United States in l957, he served with the US Army in Germany with an artillery unit. Following his three years of military service, he taught high school in Delaware for a number of years before completing his Ph.D. in English at the University of Delaware. He then taught English at the university before becoming chairman of the English department at Delaware Technical and Community College. He is now the editor, Welsh Desk, at Britannia.com. Founder of the Welsh Society of Delaware, Peter has studied the Welsh language and literature extensively (both subjects denied to those of his generation who grew up in Flintshire during World War II). He returned to Wales in l994 to study conversational Welsh at Aberystwyth and Llanbedr Pont Steffan. He has conducted many Welsh hymn-singing festivals throughout the East coast of the U.S., and has lectured on and taught the Welsh language to many societies, often performing as a soloist as well. He has lectured and conducted seminars at many Cymanfaoedd Ganu and Welsh gatherings. In 1977, Peter was honored as Welshman of the Year by the Philadelphia St. David’s Society. Well known to readers of the Welsh-American newspapers Y Drych and Ninnau for his articles on Welsh history and traditions, he is a long-serving director of the National Welsh American Foundation. In l999, he was honored for his work on behalf of Wales and Welsh Americans by being made a member of the Gorsedd at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Peter's other books include: Thirty-Eight Hymns in Welsh and English (Red Dragon Press, Newark, Delaware) and Wales to the Lehigh: the Story of David Thomas (Britannia Press, Yorklyn, Delaware) He began his study of David Thomas after recovering from open-heart surgery. He was inspired and encouraged by the Welsh-American author, the late Ellis W. Roberts.