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Happy St Dwynwen’s Day

The ‘Loving Our Lake’ team wish you a very happy St Dwynwen’s Day. As St Dwynwen is the Welsh patron saint of friendship and love, we are sharing our love for Llyn Padarn on this auspicious day.  St Dwynwen knew a thing or two about water quality, fish and the prospects of locals and visitors, here’s how the story goes…

It is said that Dwynwen, who lived during the fifth century, was the beautiful daughter of King Brychan Brycheiniog. She fell in love with Maelon Dafodrill but her father forbade them to marry. Maelon threatened to attack or did attack Dwynwen and left her.

In her distress, she begged God to help her forget Maelon. As Dwynwen slept, she was visited by an angel who said Maelon had been turned into a block of ice, gave her a potion to erase her memory and granted her three wishes.

Dwynwen’s first wish was to thaw Maelon, her second was that God would fulfil the hopes and dreams of all true lovers, and her third was that she should never marry. All her wishes were fulfilled and Dwynwen devoted herself to God for the rest of her life, preaching and establishing many Christian churches.

She founded a convent on the island of Llanddwyn (Dwynwen’s church), off Anglesey. The remains of the thirteenth–sixteenth-century church, at the site of her convent, can be seen today.

A well on Llanddwyn was dedicated to her following her death (about 460AD) and became a place of pilgrimage. The well was supposed to be the home of a sacred fish or eel whose movements predicted the future for young lovers. If the water of the well boils, it foretells love and good luck for the visitor.

So Loving our Lake would like to wish you all a Happy St Dwynwen’s Day and may the sacred well fish wriggle like these Arctic Charr bound for Llyn Padarn.Arctic-charr-padarn-torgoch

References
National Museum of Wales http://www.museumwales.ac.uk
Historic UK http://www.historic-uk.com
BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/northwestwales
Gwasg Carreg Gwalch – Dwynwen – Santes Cariadon Cymru, Siân Lewis
http://www.carreg-gwalch.com/product/dwynwen_-_santes_cariadon_cymru/