>Today, 3 November, is the feast of ...
>
>* Winifred or Gwenfrewi, virgin and martyr (c. 650)
>- fleeing from a chieftan from Hawarden, he caught up to her and sliced
>off her head; he was swallowed up by the earth on the spot, and where her
>head fell there arose a stream with red-streaked pebbles (St Winifred's
>Well); this site became extremely popular for pilgrims (as late as 1774,
>Dr Johnson saw people bathing there)
>
And Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a fragmentary poetic drama on the subject
between 1879 and 1885, during his time at nearby St Beuno's (named for
Winifred's uncle); the editor of the Penguin collection of Hopkins's poems
and prose says the spot is "still visited by pilgrims", but that was in
1953; does anyone know if the devotion is still maintained? Incidentally,
that edition also cites Butler's _Lives_ to the effect that after her
decapitation Winifred was restored to life by Beuno and spent fifteen years
as an abbess - a happier ending all round, I suppose, at least as happy as
Ida of Toggenburg's [vide infra] :-)
Steven Botterill
Associate Professor of Italian Literature & Romance Philology
Chair, Department of Italian Studies
3335 Dwinelle Hall #2620
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2620
(510) 642-6246/642-9884 (FAX)
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