Virgin-Martyr Hǽlcelde of Middleham

Church of St Mary and St Alkelda, Middleham

The twenty-eighth of March is the feast-day of Saint Hǽlcelde, a beautiful Northumbrian virgin-martyr who was put to death by a Danish woman during the ninth century. She is remembered in the toponymies of two Yorkshire towns: Middleham and Giggleswick. Each of these towns has a church dedicated to the saint: in Middleham, the Church of St Mary and St Alkelda, and in Giggleswick, St Alkelda’s Church.

According to the local tradition, Hǽlcelde [or Alkelda] was a virginal princess and a nun, who was involved in evangelising the Northumbrian countryside. She was en route from Middleham to Giggleswick, two towns thirty-three miles distant from each other on a road now called St Alkelda’s Way, when she encountered two heathen Danish women. They held Saint Hǽlcelde between them and strangled her with a thick scarf. This murder occurred on the twenty-eighth of March, possibly in the year 800.

Further complicating matters, is that Hǽlcelde may not have been the saint’s real name. The word ‘hǽlcelde’ is an Old English compound: hálig ‘holy’ (or hǽlan, ‘healing’) and celde ‘well’. Because her name itself merely means ‘holy well’, and because such a name is not attested anywhere else in the written record, the historicity of this saint has been called into question. Another more likely possibility is that the Christian name of this virgin-martyr, but not her story, was lost to time. She would have become known locally as the ‘saint of the holy well(s)’, and this cognomen was eventually remembered as her proper name.

Hǽlcelde is indeed associated with two holy wells in Northumbria, each one located nearby each church named for her. The well of St Alkelda in Middleham unfortunately has had the reputation of being the most-neglected such well in the shire. Saint Hǽlcelde is also associated with the Ebbing and Flowing Well in Giggleswick, whose water is still used for baptisms in the church named for her there. Holy martyr Hǽlcelde, victorious witness to Christ among the heathen, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

St Alkelda’s Holy Well, Middleham