Saint, Castle, Saint, Castle, Castle (from yesterday)

Today was our first full day of the course which involved excursions to visit the sites of two Welsh saints and stops for lunch and tea breaks at two towns with castles. After a two hour bus ride to the northwest coast and the Llyn peninsula (I learned to pronounce the double ll sound in Welsh you make a sound like a dentist's suction tool-- here they just pronounce it like CL which gives almost the same effect and you feel a lot less self-conscious). There we visited a church which supposedly is the burial site of St. Beuno, a Welsh saint from the seventh century. If you have a diseased cow, Beuno is your man. He's also the patron of sick children. UK, sick kids, diseased cows . . . it's not a good place where the mind takes one. Thank goodness I'm now a vegetarian.





Although the church dates back only to the 15th century (previous churches burned down until this most recent, built in stone, was erected on the site of Beuno's monastery) in the chapel there is a 7th century stone that allegedly was one that was used to mark a corner of the land given to Beuno by a local king. His resting place allegedly is in the chapel as well. In the middle ages pilgrims would visit the shrine and bathe in his well then lay rushes on top of the tomb and spend the night (slumber party with the saints!). This "sacred incubation" was supposed to cure pilgrims of their ailments. I imagine sacred incubation is covered by the NHS but in the US you'd probably be out of luck.




Our favorite relic in the church only dated back a few centuries--a clamp used to catch unruly dogs and get them out of church. Evidently it was customary to bring your pooch to services but they didn't always behave so the ushers would round them up and haul them out. I sent a picture to Daniel so he could show it to Henri as a warning . . .





After visiting Clynnog Fawr we then headed to Caernarfon, a royal town in Gwynedd (Guneth). The main attraction of Caernarfon is Caernarfon castle. While you may not know the name, if you've seen the scenes of the investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales, you've seen the inside of the castle grounds. It's primarily in ruins now and although we were just stopping in Caernarfon because it was a convenient place to eat lunch, four of our group, including myself, decided to use our lunch hour to visit the castle. That's two of the group (Carly and I can't tell if the second is Becky or Joe) waving from the turret. I started up and was getting claustrophobic on the winding narrow tower steps so I contented myself with walking along the battlements, which was just as lovely.




After leaving Caernarfon, we headed to the shrine of another saint, Seiriol, on the island of Anglesey which looks out onto the Irish sea and is quite lovely. The church where Seiriol's shrine is located, Penmon Priory, houses two examples of old Celtic high crosses and just beyond the church is the well that is allegedly Seiriol's well but per Gareth, one of St. Deiniol's staff members and an archaeologist, is probably not really from Seiriol's time. The priory ruins and dove cote across the street, however, are. The dove cote was huge which leads me to believe that Seiriol had a fondness for pigeon pie.

In addition to chowing down on doves in the priory, Seiriol also used to walk the half mile or so to the sea and then row across the treacherous waters to an island off the coast called, back then, Ynys Seiriol (pronounced Innis like the Irish word for island). In more recent times it became known as Puffin Island because it was inhabited by puffins rather than monks but after ship infested with rats wrecked near the island in the 1950's, the puffins became dinner for the rats and the population is now gone. Seiriol's island-- not a good place for pigeons or puffins.


On our return to Hawarden we stopped by Beaumaris, a cute little seaside town and home of Beaumaris castle, the ruins of one of the several castes built by Edward I in Wales to maintain a presence in the area. To his friends he was known as Edward Longshanks because of his height-- to his enemies in Scotland and Wales he was known as Edward the Hammer of the Scots and Welsh because he had designs on both nations and managed to get Wales under English rule and tried with the Scots (remember Braveheart? ). To me, he's just known as Gramps as I recently discovered I'm descended from his one and only illegitimate son, John Botetourt. I was all excited about being a Plantagenet when I first saw the surname on the family tree but I'm still coming to terms with having the Hammer's DNA, being of Scottish descent as well.


In addition to the pictures of today's castle, I'm also including pictures of Hawarden castle, where we wandered the grounds yesterday. We also visited the Hawarden jail-- a tiny one room cell barely big enough to stand in (allegedly-- the door's padlocked) which was basically the drunk tank for the town in the middle ages. Hopefully Friday night after a few pints of Brains no one in the course will end up there . . .




Another wonderful lecture from Ian Bradley tonight. Reassuring to hear that what he sees as the aspects of the so called Celtic church that can and should be adapted in today's faith communities in order to make them reinvigorated and relevant are all things which we were doing at the Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage-- pilgrimages, labyrinth walks, spiritual direction, new monasticism . . . so why were our staff positions elminated? ??? Something to ponder as I go to sleep and hope the pheasants and bells don't wake me up again (last night I learned that the bells in the church next door do indeed ring every hour through the night-- at least at midnight, 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 5 am, and 6 am. I must have slept through 4 am somehow).