Welsh Journals

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the middle of that century addressed to St Dwynwen a poem in which he makes reference to her gold icon and the candle-lit choir of her church (the ruins of the church are still to be seen on Llanddwyn island at the southern tip of Anglesey). But the real concern of Dafydd's poem is that his malady is love; he begs Dwyn- wen not to be a prude, begs her to intercede to bring him and his lover together: his lover was a married woman but Dwynwen, he assures her, need no longer fear sin, for God will not eject her from Heaven.43 Another more conventional poet a century and a half later left a poem about St Dwynwen. Dafydd Trefor, a canon of Bangor Cathedral and a contemporary of Richard Peicke, gives us a picture of Llanddwyn island swarming with the young of both sexes, with the sick and crippled, of miracles worked, of the figure of the saint covered with votive offerings of gold, gems and coins.44 These offerings were no poet's fantasy. In the late middle ages the prebend of Llanddwyn was a rich one. About the end of the fifteenth century Dean Richard Kyffin, rector of Llanddwyn, had a window for St Dwynwen put in the choir of Bangor Cathedral.45 All this is at one with the evidence of the Llanbeblig books that there was wide devotion to St Dwynwen. What was not previously known to have survived was any part of a mass or office for her feast. This gives particular interest to the collect, secret and postcommunion for the mass of St Dwynwen which are written on the verso of the second flyleaf at the end of Lord Kenyon's missal. They are added in a calligraphic secretary hand, not Richard Peicke's, probably later than his additions; the headings are in red. De sancta Donwenna Oracio Deus qui beatissimam virginem tuam Donwennam pre timore regis Maelgoini de Hibernia in Walliam transfretare fecisti, et illam ibidem diuersis miraculorum generibus decorasti, tribue nobis quesumus: [vt] eius meritis precibus et inter- cessionibus de hac lacrimarum valle ad portum salutis qui Christus est remissi peccatorum nostrorum sordibus peruenire valeamus. Per dominum nostrum. Secreta Offerimus tibi domine preces et munera in honore sancte Donwenne virginis tue gaudentes presta quesumus, vt et conuenimus hec agere, et remedium sempitemum acquirere. Per dominum nostrum.46 Postcommunio Deus qui beatam Donwennam supra mare pedibus ambulare, et Maelgoinum tyrannum superare miraculose fecisti, tribue nobis quesumus: vt eius meritis et precibus a viciis ad virtutes et a mundi miseria transferamur ad regna celestia. Per dominum nostrum. Maelgwn (Maelgoinus), generally known as Maelgwn Gwynedd, was the dominant Welsh ruler of the first half of the sixth century, a man castigated as a