St. Derfel Gadarn and Pals
Now, if you don't KNOW Tim F., and you saw his responses on the "Bad Catholic" meme, you might think he is actually a computer (or Pope Benedict in disguise). But I can attest to the reality of Tim...there are those who call him...Tim. His favorite saints response really gives you an insight into the kind of encyclopedic brain that he does have (so much so that when I have any question about the Church, heresies, saints, etc., I automatically assume he can answer it. Thus, I am not only a tech stalker (of The Canuck and DJ) I am Tim's personal Church stalker. I'm a multi-stalker! (Don't be jealous, DJ and Canuck - there's plenty of stalking to go around!)
Be sure to read his "favorite saints" list. Many of these saints I have never even heard of (although I'm quite sure he didn't make them up). This will make educational reading with my trusty encyclopedia of saints. I plan to print out the list and read one a day until I have read them all. Ooh, perhaps I could pull a Diane Court and underline all the saints I look up!
According to my list, there were about 70 listed, of which I was familiar with approximately half. Not terrible, but on the other hand, it could be better.
As I have said before, it is a crying shame that I can still sing every song from the Grease soundtrack word for word, but I have no idea who St. Derfel Gadarn is.
Be sure to read his "favorite saints" list. Many of these saints I have never even heard of (although I'm quite sure he didn't make them up). This will make educational reading with my trusty encyclopedia of saints. I plan to print out the list and read one a day until I have read them all. Ooh, perhaps I could pull a Diane Court and underline all the saints I look up!
According to my list, there were about 70 listed, of which I was familiar with approximately half. Not terrible, but on the other hand, it could be better.
As I have said before, it is a crying shame that I can still sing every song from the Grease soundtrack word for word, but I have no idea who St. Derfel Gadarn is.
posted by The Big Seester | 2:49 PM
7 Comments:
I am torn. On the one hand, I would love to further spread devotion to St. Derfel, on the other hand, I have thoroughly enjoyed being one of his few living devotees. It makes me feel as though I have a special friend up there, all to myself.
Yet, Mom always said to share. And St. Derfel really is a cool bloke. Derfel was the son of King Hoel Fychan and, as a youth, joined the court of King Arthur (yes, THE King Arthur). As a survivor of the war and a witness to King Arthur's slaying, he turned from soldiering to religion and became a hermit at Llandderfel (named after him) in Gwynedd. He was recruited to become abbot of Ynys Ensi, on Bardsey Island, in Wales. He died on April 6, 660, and is buried there.
There was a Welsh prophecy that a statue of St. Derfel in the parish church in Llandderfel would one day set a whole forest on fire - and so it was carefully guarded.
On May 22, 1538, at Smithfield, Bl. John Forrest, OFM, Queen Katherine of Aragon's confessor, was burnt at the stake. Added to the pyre was the statue of St. Derfel, recently looted during the dissolution. Hence, the statue did indeed "set a whole Forest on fire."
There was an old Welsh saying that St. Derfel was known for "snatching souls out of hell"
St. Derfel is the brother of St. Tudwal and of St. Arthfael. His feast day is April 5. His relics were destroyed by order of Oliver Cromwell.
This isn't a comment relevant to your most recent post (most of which I'm afraid I don't understand, not being too familiar with early Welsh saints) but instead I've arrived at this blog via the Corrie Canuck site.
I'd been catching up on the updates and comments after almost a month of neglect and noticed that "Michigander Fan" now seems to have another moniker "the big seester" so I clicked on it thinking I'd find an e-mail link that I could use to just say "hi!"
I'm looking forward to spending some more time browsing through your posts - looks like some interesting stuff e.g. references to Heather Mallick, Neil Peart, Family Guy, and of course Coronation Street, caught my eye.
(London) Rob
well hey there London Rob - you kind of disappeared there for a while, didn't you?
Welcome to the blog!
Michigander Fan
See, this is why Tim is the smartest - what a great story!! Why have I never heard of this saint before?
TBS
St. Derfel sounds like a cool guy to me. I'm pretty impressed with Bl. John Forrest, too, from what I read about him on the Catholic Forum patron saints' page.
I hope this posts...had a dickens of a time yesterday.
Hello, Eve from the Cotswolds-
The chapel of St Derfel, ruined by the agents of Henry VIII is now being studied and excavations have been done there.There is a major study being done on the saint by 'Ancient Cwmbrran and the Cistercians' project. The pilgrims' way from Llantarnam Abbey has been cleared.
My blog April (29)-you will have to scroll down to this, gives a fuller account. I have been asked to write a study on what we know, and luckily there are sources in North Wales too.
http://www.maryinmonmouth.blogspot.com/
Luckily the chapel is in a beautiful spot high up on the Mynydd Maen, the stone mountain overlooking Cwmbran.
easiest way to contact me is on facebook Eve Nicholson-but you can email through blogger account.I had to discontinue comments for the moment.
Hi Tim! I agree St. Derfel is a well kept secret and a treasure, however I have a slightly different take on him. A friend of mine studying for the Catholic priesthood told me about St. Derfel one day 20 years ago. One of his seminary professors talked about Derfel while discussing a practice of the early Church of essentially canonizing the occasional local pagan demigod or woodland sprite. Such a Celtic figure of devotion could have been a 'horned god' or a 'green man' figure, showing deity through the animal or plant kingdom, respectively.
This practice was intended to bring the local folks more easily into the Church (and it didn't hurt that the offerings previously rendered to the pagan figure would now be delivered to the door of the church built on the old demigod's sacred place.)
Such saints were naturally provided cover stories calculated to win the devotion of the local population.
The upshot is that Derfel is suspected by some scholars in the Church today to be an example of this quaint practice. This, per my friend who studied at a seminary in the US Midwest.
Regardless of his true origins, I've remained fascinated with this colorful saint for years, and not just because my family has Welsh ancestry and a castle waiting for us, at least according to my late Great-Grandmother Griffith.
Being unwilling to wait for my castle to be delivered, I recently decided to celebrate my Welsh heritage in another way.
I am constructing a shrine in my yard to St. Derfel. It is a Native American wigwam, made of saplings, limbs, and leaves, but configured in an east-west cruciform based (with a bit of imagination) on the Cathedral of Chartres, France. :)
I hope my 18' x 14' green shrine becomes a pilgrimage destination, as there are precious few shrines to Derfel in Florida.
In point of fact, I suspect mine is the only one in the Western Hemisphere.
I plan to encourage the medieval practice of bringing offerings to Derfel to elicit his help, including the snatching of relatives from hell, which you mentioned. These practices were condemned as paganism by the Protestants and led to the seizure of the famed wooden statue.
I look forward to receiving cows, goats, turnips, leeks, carrots, and other offerings on behalf of the saint.
In exchange for offerings, I will provide some token of surety, perhaps a "Get Out Of Hell Free" card. :)
Incidentally, I saw online that the statue was seated upon a roughly sculpted horse that was never delivered to London, and still exists today. There is a video of it on Youtube. It is little more than a section of log, but it's a 1,500 year old log - an amazing piece of continuity with the past. I hope some day to see it in person.
In 2010, a foundation in Wales commissioned a new wooden statue of Derfel for an annual folkloric fair held in the saint's honor.
I hope to put photos of my wigwam, which I am dedicating this Yule 2011 as St. Derfel's-In-The-Yard, somewhere on the Internet soon, to help contribute to the amazing resurgence of interest by at least a couple of us in this regrettably obscure figure who weds religion and folklore as gracefully as he once sat a wooden horse.
So all hail St. Derfel, who maybe, just maybe, started life as a Welsh god or ancestor spirit - a Tom Bombadil, if you like - only to be re-branded by a clever Churchman as a lendary soldier of the even more legendary King Arthur!
Either way, Merlin surely has reason to smile, as do we.
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