¹ A certain holy man named Beuno, exceeding glorious and famous in virtues, shone in the western region of Greater Britain, a supreme man and pre-eminent in all holiness; despising his paternal throne and made a poor man and a monk, in a short time he lived as a perfect man. When at length he had built churches in diverse places and set brethren in them to serve God, he himself, admonished by a divine oracle, departed from there, to seek a mansion provided for him by God. He came at length to the estate of a certain great and most powerful man named Theuith; to whom he said: “I beg that of the possession derived to you by hereditary right from your forefathers, you grant a part to God and me, that a church being built in the same place, I may in it serve God and daily pray for your salvation henceforth.” He willingly consented, and committed to him his only daughter, named Wenefred, to be instructed in manners. And whenever the holy man showed the people the precepts and counsels of salvation in preaching, he set the same virgin at his feet, bidding her heedfully mark and receive with an open heart all that was said by him.

² But the virgin, by the inspiration of God’s clemency daily growing to better things and profiting in wisdom, purposed utterly to renounce every man; yet this she feared to make known to her parents. And coming to the man of God, boldly breaking forth before him, she made him the sharer of her secret. “The seeds of the divine word,” she said, “poured forth to me from your mouth — to what growth they have come in me, I wish to be made manifest to you. I have chosen henceforth to renounce all the luxury of the world, and have purposed to keep my virginity whole and undefiled to God’s honour; and this, O most holy father, I beg may be obtained for me from both parents by your intercession.” The saint, hearing this, moved with pity, said he would earnestly meet her parents and do what she asked as far as he could. Thereupon, when the father and mother had learned their daughter’s desire from the man of God, suffused with tears they blessed God and graciously consented.

³ And the girl, devout, sometimes sat at the blessed man’s feet, drawing with a thirsty breast the things which flowed from his mouth of her bridegroom’s glory. She admitted nothing earthly into herself; frequently she kept vigil in the church at nights. Sometimes also, importunately pressing upon the saint, she urged him to discourse and treat of her bridegroom’s manners and life. Burning with all desire, then she had some joy when she heard him speak of her friend’s excellence, beauty and power; and refreshment of this kind excelled in her the pleasantness of all earthly things, and kept in her heart an unfailing delight of spiritual joy. And though she was tender in age, yet she was perfect in manners and hoary in heart, having a soul that despised all cupidity.

⁴ Now it happened on a certain Sunday, her parents going to church, that she of necessity remained alone at home. And look, a certain youth named Caradoc, King Alan’s son, entering the house, found the virgin sitting alone by the hearth. And she, recognising the king’s son, arose in haste, humbly inquiring what might please him. And he: “That I am the king’s son,” he said, “you are not ignorant, laden with riches and many honours, and that I will plentifully enrich you also if you will consent to my petition, yielding assent to my will.” But she, perceiving that he had introduced a discourse of union, her countenance a little downcast and suffused with blushes, feigned at first indeed to take it ill that he had found her unkempt and unadorned, saying: “Since you are sprung of royal race and, God willing, shall be king, I doubt not that I, joined in your marriage, should be richly replenished with worldly felicity. Yet suffer me a little while, awaiting my father’s coming; and I meanwhile will enter the chamber, quickly to return to you.” Saying this, she sought to be torn from him only for the hour. For she saw the most wretched man, kindled with unhappy lust, mortally tormented with love of her and becoming as it were mad. At length the youth granted that she should enter the chamber, hoping she would return to him without delay more decently adorned and more acceptably composed. Then she, entering the chamber, went out by another door of the chamber and took her way towards the church with headlong course.

⁵ Which the youth discovering, being at once made furious and filled with vehement anger, followed her swiftly with drawn sword; and looking upon her with a savage countenance, said: “Once I loved you and desired to join you to my embraces; now you flee me coming to you and despise me seeking you. Now indeed know for certain that either you shall be joined to me willingly in the present, or without delay I will cut off your head with my sword.” Then she, turning to the youth, answered unterrified: “Joined in marriage to the Son of the eternal King and judge of all men, I can receive no other; and not to draw you out longer, I will admit none besides him while I live. Draw your sword therefore, ply your strength, use whatever fierceness girds you as you please; and be certain that neither your terrors nor blandishments, nor promises nor gifts, can tear me from the sweetness of his love, in whose embraces I am bound and to whose devotion I am joined.” But the incestuous youth, seeing himself despised and impatient of his lust, and considering that the virgin could not be bent nor he have quiet while she lived, cut off her head with his sword.

⁶ As soon as the virgin’s head fell to the ground, in the same place a most clear spring of wondrous size, bursting forth, began to flow, which ceases not to flow even to this day, bringing health by the holy virgin’s merits to many sick. For on the mountain’s slope the virgin’s severed head, rolling easily, slipped back into the church; but the headless body kept the place where it had first fallen. For the head, falling between the feet of those intent on the divine mysteries, moved all with the utmost wonder. All therefore being struck with exceeding terror, and declaring the dire crime must be grievously avenged by God and detesting the deed’s author, the girl’s parents, loosed in sorrow and anguish, uttering a mournful voice, betrayed their grief in clamorous lamentations. For the virgin’s slayer, still standing timidly outside beside the lifeless body, was wiping his sword, wet with the virgin’s gore, upon the grass. For because he was the king’s son, thinking he had perpetrated the crime with impunity, he testified that he feared God not at all in committing so great a deed. And the man of God Beuno, taking his pride and obstinacy grievously, approached him, bearing the virgin’s head in his hands, and looking into the youth’s face said: “O wicked one,” he said, “who have stained the flower of youthful beauty and the offspring of royal dignity with a homicidal crime, why do you not repent of having committed so great a sin? You have disturbed the peace and defiled the church with your sacrilege and provoked God: and do you not grieve? Now therefore, since you spared not the church nor showed reverence to the Lord’s day, I beg my God that you may receive in the present a worthy recompense for the things you have unworthily committed.” This said, the youth straightway fell to the earth and expired. And wondrous to tell, in the sight of all the bystanders the dead man’s body melted and vanished, many asserting that it was swallowed by the earth and had plunged with his spirit into the abyss.

⁷ And the man of God, often kissing the virgin’s head which he had taken in his hands, troubled in spirit is compelled to weep. But afterwards composing it to the body and spreading his cloak over it, he breathed into her nostrils; and going to the altar celebrated mass. Which finished, returning to the virgin’s body, he made a splendid discourse to the people, saying among other things that the blessed virgin had made a vow to God but, intercepted by death, had not had a fitting time for fulfilling it; and therefore they ought, prostrate on the ground the more devoutly, to intercede with God for her resurrection. And it was done so. When therefore they had prayed long, the blessed man, rising from the ground, stretched his hands to heaven, saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, for whose love this virgin despised earthly things and longed for heavenly, hear us invoking you with devout souls, merciful one, and pour out the bowels of your pity upon us, granting yourself to be present as the effector of our prayers; and although we know that this virgin, having suffered for your name, laid up in the bosoms of heavenly joy no longer needs our fellowship, yet you, most merciful Father, showing yourself benign and ready to hear your sons humbly begging, grant assent to their supplications. Command therefore that this girl’s soul, being brought into her body, may show that you have rule and dominion over souls as well as bodies: that reviving by your mercy’s grace she may magnify your name, and after long spaces of life, with multiplied fervour of good conversation, may return to you her bridegroom, namely the only Son of God the Father, with whom and with the Holy Spirit you live and are glorified, God, for ever and ever.” And when all had answered “Amen”, the girl arose as from sleep, and wiping her face and cleansing it of dust and sweat, filled the bystanders with wonder and joy. Moreover where the head had been joined and solidified again, a certain thinnest whiteness encircled the neck like a thread and covered the place of the cutting; and as long as she lived it ever remained so.

⁸ From there the men of that province relate that she was called Wenefred, whereas before, as they assert, she was named Breuua. For what the Britons in their tongue call “wen” sounds in Latin “white”: and so, on the occasion of the whiteness encircling her neck, she is said to have had her name from the fact — the particle “wen” being added and, for the sake of euphony, two letters of her former name being changed, she came to bear the compound name which is called Wenefred. For it is related that after she departed this world, she manifestly appeared to none who did not see that white mark. Now the place where her blood was shed, not far from the monastery named Basingwerk in North Wales, was at first called “the Dry Valley”; but after her death it is called “Wenefred’s Well” even to this day. The stones also, both in the spring’s source and in its stream or on the margin of both, sprinkled with her blood, retain the ancient sprinkling even to this day: for they are as it were suffused with congealed gore, and are washed away neither by lapse of time nor by the continual flow of the passing water. And the moss which adheres to the same stones smells as it were of frankincense. The men of that province who had not yet known God, seeing the virgin’s resurrection, the spring’s flowing and the stones’ sprinkling, prostrate at blessed Beuno’s feet, received baptism.

⁹ And the virgin devoted to God, cleaving to the holy man’s feet, diligently attended to his discourses with devotion, and at last from him the humble handmaid of Christ received the sacred veil. The man of God Beuno, taking the virgin’s right hand, led her to the spring and, setting her upon a certain stone which is called “St Beuno’s stone”, said: “You see,” he said, “even here the traces of your passion: look, those stones sprinkled with your blood, showing you suffered for God, and the sprinkling of your blood preserved by God in the stones. Now therefore, my sweetest daughter, know these three things bestowed on you by God, which shall celebrate the title of your praise and heap up the love of your devotion in the minds of posterity. The first is, that those stones sprinkled with your gore can be cleansed by no washing for ever, nor washed away by the continual rush of that water, but shall ever remain bloody to show your passion. The second is, that whoever, having suffered any misfortunes, shall seek you and ask to be freed from his oppression and sickness, shall rejoice that he has obtained what he asked, certainly at the first, second or third time; or if not, let him know most certainly that he is about to lack the light of this present life shortly and to obtain through you something greater in the life to come. The third is: when I shall have departed from you, God will deign to give me a place upon the seashore to dwell in; yet the Most High has commanded me to be visited by your gifts every year: you shall hasten to this present spring with your gift, and whatever it be, having first commended it to God, you shall confidently lay it in the spring: you shall straightway see your deposit led down from the spring through the stream and carried by the rush of the running water even to the sea; and the sea’s element, obeying God’s will and furnishing its ministry, shall transfer what you deposited in the spring to the door of my poor lodging.” This said, leading her back to the church, he said: “I now depart hence, to serve God elsewhere after my measure, and shall bear your devotion with sweet memory while I live.” And saying this, taking only his staff, he began to go away, leaving to the blessed virgin and her companions all his household furniture and whatever God had given him by the hands of the faithful.

¹⁰ And blessed Wenefred, gathering with her the daughters of nobles, taught them to love chastity and, all the blandishments and allurements of the world being despised, to submit their necks to Christ’s light yoke and give themselves to God’s service by the rule of a regular purpose. And so every year, on the first of May, she used to send some gift to her master, and the little cloth in which the cope or suchlike was wrapped suffered no hurt from the water nor felt the least infusion of water, but remaining wholly dry was led down through the stream by the rush of the running water and carried across the sea. And though fifty miles separated them, yet within the space of one night the gift was found at the man of God’s door through the sea-waves. And from this there was added to the blessed man a surname, a memorial even to this day. For he is called Beuno of the dry cloak, because a dry cope was brought to him unhurt by the waters through the waters.

¹¹ At length, blessed Beuno being dead, St Wenefred, by divine admonition, went to a holy man named Deifer. For that man was great before the Lord, of whom it is related that he made a spring burst from the earth, conferring health on many sick. And when St Wenefred came to St Deifer, as the saint persisted in prayer that night, a voice sounded from heaven, saying: “Tell my dearest daughter Wenefred that, going to a man named Saturnus, she may hear what she is to do and learn in what place she is to dwell all the time of her life.” To whom when the holy virgin had come, he said: “There is a certain place called Gwytherin, held in the utmost reverence by all the people: God has commanded you to visit this place and inhabit it while you live, and by your examples to form the minds of others. For there is an abbot of many virtues named Elerius, whom continual groaning and persevering prayer have so rendered free from all worldly cares that he now savours nothing earthly, affects nothing of worldly delight, wholly intent on heavenly things.” When the holy virgin went there, Abbot Elerius, foreknowing her coming by the Holy Spirit, set out to meet her; and receiving her honourably, brought her to the convent of virgins and committed to her the care and custody of the virgins. Whosoever sick came to her, received health and returned unharmed; and every sad person bore away joy of mind and consolation.

¹² At length, one night as she was engaged in prayers, Jesus Christ appearing made known that the day of her death was at hand. So on the third of November, full of virtues and good works, she rendered her spirit to God, and was buried beside St Kebius and Senanus. For through her almighty God deigned to work many miracles: among which he gave light to a certain smith’s daughter blind from birth. Certain robbers, seizing a cow in St Wenefred’s territory, turned aside by a hard and stony way, in which they thought the tracks neither of themselves nor of the animal could be recognised. Yet the cow straightway fixed its feet in the ground even to the knees, and the tracks appeared plainly as well in the rocks as in the hard and dry way. For wherever the robbers went forward, the impresses of the animal’s feet could ever be clearly seen. And so at length, the cow being left in the grove, the robbers, swiftly fleeing, hid themselves.

¹³ When tender little children have begun to sicken labouring with some ailment of their bodies, their mothers have been wont to cast them into the source of the same spring and, cast out again by the river’s rapidity, suddenly to receive them back glad and restored to health. On the descent of the same stream a very good mill is built, which never ceases to grind either by the abundance of rains or snow flowing in, or by any molestation of burning frost or summer drought. Which robbers once entering, carried off all the iron tools or instruments with them. And when they had brought them to their own mill, neither the wheel could turn nor any profit come to those officers, until they had been carried back.

¹⁴ After the courses of many years, namely in the year of grace one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight, the bones of the holy virgin Wenefred were translated to Shrewsbury, to the monastery of the monks, with great honour.

A Further Story #

¹ [Added in the Tiberius manuscript.] In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty there was a certain man in the town of Huntingdon earning his living by the works of his hands, who begot by his concubine a son named Herbert. And the concubine dying, he brought in another: by whose counsel above all being led on, through the darkness of night he carried his son to the river running beneath the town, and binding a stone in the child’s bosom, cast the innocent with an effort into the stream. And without delay, the tranquil wave serving him, he is cast back to the bank on which his father stood. And when the same thing had been done a third time, the punisher of his only offspring, astonished, broke the tender child’s spine, crushed his breast, and fixing wooden pegs in the ends of his garments, entered the river and pinned the little body to the bottom amid the muddy recesses of the waters with the same pegs. But after this, on the fifteenth day, by divine power the body was found with the pegs fixed in the tunic, the body whole and the skin glowing white, and was buried in the church of St Mary of the same town in a marble tomb. And in the place of the martyrdom a chapel is founded, where not a few miracles are seen to be worked, among which it is thus read. A certain nobleman had two daughters, one ten, the other twelve years old, deaf and dumb from birth: to the place where the boy Herbert was slain he came with his daughters as quickly as possible. And when they had obtained health and received the faculty of hearing as well as of speech, they themselves spoke whatever had been asked them by those speaking. And when the inquirers said: “Can you hear and speak?”, they did not answer “we can”, but answered the same Latin words in the second person: “Can you hear and speak?” And so in French and English in the same manner they answered the inquirers in the verb’s second person. And by this, that they understood the speech of no language, the inquirers plainly understood that they had not heard before the miracle.