Saint Malo of Aleth
Today in the Orthodox Church we venerate Saint Malo, a sixth-century companion of Saint Brendan and one of the seven major saints of Brittany, with a particular love of animals both wild and tame. A Welshman by birth, Saint Malo exemplifies much of the mendicant nature of many of the Welsh hermits and holy men.
Malo [also Macloù or Maelog] was born probably around the year 520 in Caerwent, Glamorgan. It is thought that his name derives from the Old Breton mach, meaning ‘hostage’, and lou, meaning ‘bright’. The Brythonic name Malo would therefore be cognate with the English name Gilbert (from OE gísl ‘hostage’ and beorht ‘bright’). As an aside: an Anglophone Orthodox child named Gilbert could therefore with good grounds take Malo as his patron.
As tradition holds, Malo was baptised by Saint Brendan the Navigator as a child. He was said to have become Brendan’s favourite disciple, and specially chosen to make the famous journey from Llancarfon to find the Isle of the Blessed. Malo also accompanied Brendan on his second voyage to Île de Cézembre in Brittany, where both Brendan and Malo stayed for some time.
At Cézembre, where the tides rise and fall dangerously, Malo once fell asleep on a sandbar at low tide. He was missed by Saint Brendan and his fellow pupils, who called for him everywhere even as the tide began to come in. Finding him nowhere, his fellows believed him to have drowned. However, wondrously, the sandbar rose with the tides so that it was never swallowed up by the waves, and Malo stayed alive and dry atop it. Brendan found him thus at high tide, and marvelled. Malo awoke; and desiring to pray the offices he asked his master to throw him his Psalter. In a spirit of faithful awe, Brendan flung the book into the waves, and the Psalter washed up on Malo’s sandbar, dry and usable. During this time they encountered a dead giant named Maclovius, whom Brendan revived by his prayers, and then baptised before allowing the giant to return to the grave.
The other disciples of Brendan were jealous of Malo’s meek and holy nature, and they played pranks on him. For example, one of them extinguished every lamp and brazier in the monastery while it was Malo’s turn to keep vigil. Looking about in the dark for a source of light, Malo took some cold cinders from the hearth and held them to his chest. Warmed by his faith, the embers took glow again, and he used them for light throughout the night.
Brendan eventually returned to voyaging, and ended up in mission in the Orkneys. Malo, however, stood behind, having been told by an angel of God that he was meant to stay there. Malo took up residence with a Breton hermit named Eran of Aleth [also Aaron], and became one of his trusted disciples. After Saint Eran’s repose in the Lord on the twenty-second of June, 544, Malo took up his eremitical residence and the same disciplines that he had learnt from Saint Eran. He was consecrated as Bishop of Aleth, and the region was soon to be called for him: Saint-Malo.
A number of wonders were performed by Saint Malo at Aleth. On one occasion he blessed a cup wrought from marble, and it changed into crystal. On another occasion, a hot-tempered Breton princeling kidnaped a disciple of Saint Malo who prepared him food, bound him hand and foot and cast him into the sands at low tide. When the tides rose, the waters formed a funnel around the poor monk’s head so that he could breathe until they went out again. On another occasion, a peasant woman complained to Saint Malo that a wolf had taken and eaten her ass. Saint Malo found this wolf and made it tamely carry bundles of wood on its back for the woman.
Saint Malo wrought several other wonders involving animals. In one, he lay his cloak aside as he was working in the vineyards, for he was sweaty and hot with the labour. He returned and found that a wren had laid her eggs on his cloak. Feeling pity on the birds and loath to spoil their nest, he let his cloak lie on the ground until the wren’s eggs had hatched and the hatchlings were able to fly. In the whole time that this happened, not once was the cloak wet with rain, and Saint Malo picked it up completely unspoilt.
On another occasion, Saint Malo was wandering in Brittany to preach the Gospel, and heard the sound of a man grieving loudly. It was a swineherd, one of whose breeding sows got unruly and had trodden into his neighbour’s fields to eat the grain. The swineherd had picked up a stone and flung it at the sow, but he had aimed a little too well and cast a little too hard, for the stone struck the sow on the head and she died. Her piglets all gathered around her but she was no longer producing milk. The swineherd was mourning both the sow and her hungry piglets. Saint Malo, moved himself to tears of pity, took his crozier and lay it on the sow’s ear where the stone had struck and said a prayer to the Holy Trinity. And at that touch, up came the sow as though she had only been sleeping – much to the joy of her herdsman.
Again, the Welsh hermits did not always get along well with the princes they lived under, and Saint Malo was no exception. The prince reigning in Aleth swayed the people against him, and drove him out, even though by then he was an old man. Malo took refuge at Saintes in Poitou-Charentes in France, and was greeted warmly by the bishop there. He stayed until the people urged him to come back to Aleth. He did not stay at Aleth long, however. Sensing that his end was near, he repaired back to Archingeay in Saintes with a handful of his closest monastic disciples, where he reposed peacefully in the Lord on the fifteenth of November, 621. He had a devoted cultus in both England – particularly Devon and Cornwall – and Brittany and Poitou in France.
The tale of how his relics wound up again in Saint-Malo from Saintes is just too good to let pass unmarked. A certain Breton heir of an estate near Aleth was obliged to flee his home sometime in the late 600s, as his brothers were conspiring to kill him and divide the inheritance between them. He was welcomed in by the sacristan at the church in Archingeay, and took sanctuary there for some time. After some years, feeling himself safe to return, this Breton lad went to the Bishop of Aleth and told him that the relics of Saint Malo were but lightly guarded. The bishop bade the lad return to Archingeay and bide his time for an opportunity to steal them away. The sacristan welcomed the boy back as before. The boy earned enough of the sacristan’s trust that he was given the keys when on one occasion the sacristan was called away. He stole the relics of Saint Malo and whisked them off to Brittany, where he was received with a hero’s welcome. The lad took confession for the theft, but the bishop was all too glad to have Saint Malo’s relics back. They were divided between the cathedral at Saint-Malo and the monastery of Eran of Aleth. There they remained until the French Revolution, during which most of the relics were destroyed. A scapular of Saint Malo remains in Versailles. Holy bishop Malo, pray unto Christ our God for us!
Thy life, O Father Malo,
Was resplendent with many virtues.
As thou wast unwavering in thy faith to thy last breath, O Saint,
Pray that we may emulate thy virtues
And thereby be found worthy of eternal salvation.
Saint Malo Cathedral, Brittany
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