Godrevy Team Ministry - Gwinear, Gwithian, Phillack, St Elwyn, St Erth - Cornwall | Diocese of Truro

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Gwinear Church

THE LEGEND:

The story begins with St.Gwinear, head of a team of Celtic saints who sailed over the sea from Ireland about the year 500 AD landing at Hayle and bringing the light of the gospel of Christ to the St.Ives Bay and surrounding areas of Cornwall. According to the ‘life’ or legend of St.Gwinear, he was an Irish prince and pupil of St.Patrick who, because of his faith was exiled to Brittany by his father King Clito. There during a stag hunt, he experienced conversion and later returned to Ireland to find that his father had died and the people, now Christian, wanted to make him king. Spurning the crown, he and his sister Piala and others, set sail as a party of 777 missionaries and landed at Hayle. PiaIa missed the party so came over independently on a leaf. She became patron saint of St.Ives, and Piala of Phillack.

Gwinear’s party is welcomed, but Teudar the local tyrant (and villain in the Cornish miracle play “Bewans Merysasek”) seeing them land, attacks with his army from behind, slaughtering Gwinear’s party. Gwinear and a few companions move on to Roseworthy where he is martyred by Teudar. The legend goes on to say that Gwinear, disliking some quarrelling women there, picks up his severed head and after washing it in a stream, which becomes the Red River, walks on to Herland where he is buried. Many remarkable miracles were attributed to him, including the appearance of springs of water where he place his staff. The legend written down by a monk, Anselm, in about 1300, is one of two which escaped burning at the Reformation and is found in Pluvigner, a town also dedicated to St.Gwinear in Brittany.

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