Bardsey Island
The island is also known as the island of the currents and the saints. There are said to be the graves of 20,000 saints interred on the island, and legend suggests that anybody buried here will not go to hell no matter how wicked his deeds.
As well as being the burial place for monks and saints, it is said to be the final resting place of Merlin, who sleeps in a cave guarding the treasures of Britain, waiting for a time when he is needed again.
The island was colonized by St Cadfan in 516, and was the home to an Augustinian Abbey. A place of pilgrimage for many years three trips here was said to equal one trip to Rome. The actual trip over to Bardsey Island was very treacherous due to the unpredictable currents within Bardsey Sound; the pilgrimage must have been a hair-raising experience.
The isle is said to be haunted by ghostly monks, sometimes seen on the shore at night. Their appearance is said to foretell misfortune in the area.
Directions: The island lies off the Lleyn Peninsula. There is a motor boat service from Aberdaron to Bardsey when the sea is not too rough.
The first Abbot of Bardsey
The first Abbot of Bardsey Island was Cadfan, a patron saint of warriors. Cadfan was the son of Eneas Lydewig and Gwen Teirbron, who is rumoured to have had three breasts. Gwen was the daughter Emyr Llydaw, who may have been Emrys Wledig or Ambrosious Aurelianus.
St Cadfan is a very
St Cadfan is a very interesting figure among a host of other equally intriguing figures from early British history. Born from a noble Breton family which gave the Church many clergymen and an astounding number of saints (St Winwaloe, St Wethnoc and St Iacob were his half-brothers, St Tydecho his cousin and even his mother was sanctified), he became a prominent clergyman in his native land before leaving everything behind to go preach the Gospel in Wales. He died at Bardsey and his body was translated to Lllandarfan Cathedral at a later date.
Gwen Treiborn was also very interesting. She was born with three breasts because she was destined to give her first husband, King Cado, three sons who all became saints. She bore Cadfan to her second husband, Eneas. She was twice kidnapped by Saxon pirates but each time she managed to escape by walking on the waters across the Channel to Brittany. Later in life she retired to an hermitage in Dorset: here the aforementioned Saxon pirates murdered her in revenge.
Very interesting, we should have a section dedicated to early British saints…
In Distortion We Trust
Early British Saints
I’m all for that Mauro. They could probably fall under Early Christianity and Occult Biographies until they make a dedicated section.
Re: Bardsey Island
According to old chronicles, the monks that escaped the Saxon massacre at Bangor Iscoed fled to Bardsey Island, and it became a place of sanctity. It thus became the goal of countless pilgrims, who, it is supposed built the church of Saint Mary at Braich-y-Pwll on the end of the Lleyn peninsula.
There is also the so called "King of Bardsey" in more recent history. This is histroy of a dynasty of peasant monarchs. Bardsey is owned by the Wynn family, decendants of the first Lord Newborough, a memeber of one of the most ancient families in Wales. With communication with the mainland being infrequent and uncertain, the islanders did not follow the law of the land, and drew up their own code of rules by which the community was governed. The 3rd Baron and 5th Baronet, depiciting that some gobernace was needed, selected from their tenants a head man, and bade the other islanders obeyed him. By way of jest, Lord Newborough declared the man should indeed be King, and presented him with peasant "crown" made of brass, a "treasure" in the shape of a silver casket and an "army" to guard the treasure in the guise of a wooden effigy painted as a soldier. The king ruled for many years, the office passing at his death to his son. But, the son shirked his responsibilities after his fathers death, hid the crown, and settled on the mainland to be a farmer. Another man was elected to the position, from another family, and the modern democratic ideas have now changed the titled from King to President.
Re: Bardsey Island
Due to the difficult and arduous journey to Bardsey Island, it was considered that 3 pilgrmages to Bardsey was the equivalent to 1 pilgramge to Rome.