St Ffraid: Brigit in Wales

Interior of church, St Bride's Major
photo: Paul Williment

I’ve finally finished writing about Brigit in Wales, St Ffraid, and uploaded it to my website. It’s several weeks after I’d planned to have finished it but various things have intervened to delay me and I also realised that I’d lost the insight I gained after being ill in the New Year: that by moving forward a small footstep each day –“ the footstep of a cock on a gentle evening when his crop is full” – things get done in an almost miraculous way. I’d become too caught up in wanting to have done something instead of enjoying the doing. So I relaxed about it and thought ‘It’ll be finished when it’s finished’!

I’d been meaning to write something about St Ffraid because there isn’t much about her on the web – as often happens, Wales is rather neglected. So it was a work of service to Brigit and to Wales – that sounds rather pompous – what I mean is that it felt like something I ought to do rather than something I was desirous of doing. But, as with all work of willing service, I have been enriched by it. I have felt much more connected to the story of Brigit in Wales: to the custom of St Brigit’s Ale which I plan to revive in some small way; to the places and rivers associated with her – especially the church at Llanon which I am inspired and uplifted by and the Braint on Anglesey which is another area I’d love to visit one day; I was pleased to find the Welsh form ‘Gwas Sant Ffraid’ in the tradition, meaning ‘servant, follower or devotee of St Ffraid', since, finding it more and more difficult to assign a label to my spiritual path (more of than another time) the one firm designation I give myself is ‘devotee or follower of Brigit’.

I was also conscious while I was researching and writing, of how slender a thread the Welsh story of Brigit is and how grateful I am to the tradition bearers who have contributed to spinning this yarn so that we can learn something about it today. In particular, of course, we are lucky that Iorwerth Fynglwyd’s cywydd has survived. He was one of the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr or Poets of the Nobility who were composing after the fall of the last prince Llywelyn in 1282. More specifically, he was one of the Cywyddwyr (c. 1350-1650) - the poets who developed a new form of poetry, the cywydd, which, although still linked to the tradition, was often more personal and emotional. Instead of a formulaic approach to mention of the saints, the Cywyddwyr displayed what seems to have been a genuine devotion to them. Iorwerth Fynglwyd was known particularly for poems which encapsulated some truth or proverbial wisdom and some of his cywyddau were the most popular in 16th century Wales. He lived at St Bride’s Major, Glamorgan, and therefore would have been especially familiar with the story of St Brigit.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher carried out amazingly extensive research into the British saints – there would have been much less for me to say if they hadn’t written about Brigit – and in our own time Elissa Henken, professor of Folklore and Celtic studies, has written two interesting books about the Welsh saints, including material about Sant Ffraid and female saints in general.

And there are many more poets and scholars besides, providing links with the tradition so that we able to discover and be inspired by it.

Statue of Brigit, St Bride's Major,
with pen in her left hand and book under her right arm
photo: Paul Williment

At the time of first fruits

At this time of first fruits I thought I'd write about various projects I've been working on lately. I've been feeling frustrated that none of them have ripened into fruition but perhaps it is better to look at it another way - as the work so far being the first tender fruits.

The Cauldron of Poetry is is the most important; I’ve been working on it for nearly a year on and off and have been intrigued by this Irish text about cauldrons and poetry for well over a decade. It's going to be in three parts and I have actually finished the first draft of the first part - the most challenging for me. It is an exposition of the text. The second part will look at the symbol of the Celtic cauldron and the meanings that have accrued to it. I have this in note form.

The third part is not yet started – it will look at how some of the ideas of the first two parts – as well as some other ideas and practices of early poetry – may be used today. I expect this part to be the easiest and most exciting as it will flow from what has come before and won’t involve checking facts and referring to other texts all the time.

There were times when I really questioned why I was working on this, what on earth was the purpose of it. But at one point, reading around the subject, I had a moment of epiphany when I felt that my spiritual life and my poetic life were beginning to converge and this writing about the Cauldron was part of the journey to that union. Whether this will turn out to be the case or not, I’m not sure. Sometimes these intense moments of inspiration are not realised – but obviously I still have to follow it to its conclusion and see what happens.

St Brigit in Wales: Sant Ffraid - I decided to write about Sant Ffraid because I was looking on-line to give a link to some information about her on my web site and found very little. In theory this piece of work shouldn’t take very long as I have most of the information I need. In theory!

Poetry and the Otherworld: this is a working title and is almost written but exists only in my head – nothing on paper yet except some quotes from modern poets which I’ve collected. It’s about where poetry comes from and why early societies connected it with seership and the Otherworld. Sometimes today poets report that they hear poems which appear mysteriously. I’ve had this experience myself many times and part of the piece will describe a personal experience of working with Malidoma Somé, an initiated elder of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, Africa. I wanted to attend some of his workshops after reading his books and thinking that the Dagara were a people actually living a lot of the practices of the early Celts (and their more recent folklore traditions). I had my most complete experience of a ‘received’ poem during this time, as well as gaining other insights into a possible connection between poetry and seership in early societies.

There are more articles I've planned or researched or started to write but these are the three I want to concentrate on and then I intend to have a break from prose and non-fiction and spend more time on poetry.

I've a busy week this week, mostly socialising! But I hope to finish the piece on Sant Ffraid - I'll update my progress next week. It would be lovely to say I'd finished it and then I could move on... What I should like to do then is finish Poetry and the Otherworld and the second part of the Cauldron by Calan Gaeaf/Samhain. There's a plan... I always like to have a plan...