Saint Cadog of Llancarfan
Today is the feast-day of the sixth-century Saint Cadog, one of the most-celebrated of the Welsh hermits in the Age of Saints. Saint Cadog is not only the founder of Llancarfan Monastery, but also the progenitor of an entire tradition of Welsh holy fathers and mothers. He is also the namesake of Edith Pargeter’s fictional mediæval West Country Benedictine sleuth, Brother Cadfael (of whom I’m a rather devoted fan).
Saint Cadog [also Cattwg, Cado, Cattock and Catocus] was born to the king of Gwynllŵg, Saint Gwynllyw, and his wife, Saint Gwladys, who was in turn one of the many holy daughters of Saint Brychan of Brecknock. Even before his birth he seemed to be marked out for holiness: the four posts of whichever house where his mother rested while pregnant with him glowed with a heavenly fire, and the tables where she sat were filled always with milk and honey even when the larders were emptied.
He was born at his father’s court in Fochriw in 497, after his father had wooed Gwladys by an act of bridenapping. Gwynllyw, who was a rather ferocious British warlord, celebrated his son’s birth by taking his war band and going on a raid. During this raid, he stole the milk-cow and calf of a certain nearby hermit, Saint Tathyw, who followed the king all the way back to his court demanding recompense. Gwynllyw was prevailed upon by his wife to return Saint Tathyw’s cow to him. Tathyw then baptised their son in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, christening him Cadfael.
The king and queen asked of Saint Tathyw one thing more, and that was to educate their son in the way of the Lord. This he did at his hermitage in Caerwent. While he was a student of Saint Tathyw, Cadog was sent at one time to fetch a brand of fire for his master’s hearth, which had gone out. He asked of a nearby field worker named Tidus to give him a brand, but Tidus scolded the boy, and pointed to a hearth where live coals lay glowing. He said that if his master needed fire so badly, he could carry the coals in his cotte to him. This Cadog did at no hurt to himself – a wonder which would find echoes in the lives of Saint Asaph and Saint Malo. Saint Tathyw, seeing this wonder, understood that he was teaching a holy prodigy, and instructed him to seek out a place to build his own monastery.
Cadog left into the kingdom of Penychen to found a hermitage of his own. While looking for a suitable place to build, he apparently trespassed onto the lands of a wealthy landowner who kept swine, where he became weary and rested underneath an apple tree. The swine were frightened by Cadog’s presence, and they fled back to their master, who went and sought out Cadog. The wealthy landowner presumed this vagrant clad in rags who had wandered onto his lands was a thief, and he took up a spear and attempted to kill Cadog. But no sooner had he levelled the weapon at the youth but God struck him blind in both his eyes, and struck lame the arm that held the spear. The landlord, who sank to the ground, called out piteously upon God and upon His servant to have mercy on him and restore his sight, but Cadog said that he would do no such thing until he went and told what had happened to him to his master, Pawl King of Penychen – who also happened to be Cadog’s uncle.
The landlord went on the road, stumbling blindly as he went, until he came to Nant Pawl and asked admission to the court. He spoke to no one until he stood before the king, and then he told of how he had tried to strike down Cadog, but suddenly himself was smitten with divine retribution. After he spoke, his sight was restored as scales fell from his eyes, and the flesh of his withered right arm became whole, healthy and useful again. Pawl King wondered at this, went with his twelve retainers to the landlord’s land, and saw Cadog sitting there under the apple tree, still at rest.
Pawl King and his retainers prostrated themselves before his holy nephew, and offered him the rule of the kingdom. However, Cadog had no interest in ruling a kingdom. Instead he sought only a habitation, remote from human activity, which he and some of his monastic companions could live in. This Pawl willingly granted to him. The land Pawl gave to Cadog would eventually become Llancarfan. Tradition has it that Cadog followed the path of a wild boar who came out of the brambles on that land, and wherever it stopped is where he would clear, drain and build. At each place where the boar stopped in its path, Llancarfan’s monastery, refectory and dormitory were built. In the first year, Saint Cadog was able to reap grain only from one acre of cleared field – named Erw Wyn (‘The White [or Wheat] Acre’), but this blessed crop was enough to sustain him and all of his followers and visitors that whole year.
Llancarfan flourished under Abbot Cadog’s rule. Despite draining and clearing the marshy land around Llancarfan being slow and painstaking work, Cadog and his pupils succeeded with the help of God and the wild creatures with whom Cadog had a good rapport. At its height, Llancarfan would house up to a thousand monks and pupils, and it would support a goodly number of smaller cells and outlying daughter monasteries. All the same, soon enough Saint Cadog was taken with a desire to visit Ireland. This may have been out of love for his first master, the Irishman Saint Tathyw, or it may have been out of a holy desire to learn more of the knowledge of God that was to be had in the western isle. His monks were sad to see him depart, but he left a trustworthy prior in charge at Llancarfan and sailed westward for Ireland without incident.
He studied at the abbey of Saint Mo Chutu in Lismore, where he made a deep and thorough study of all the seven liberal arts. In these he gained so much knowledge that he was given his cognomen of Ddoeth, or ‘the Wise’. While in Ireland he made the acquaintance of Saint Fionnán of Clonard, who became one of Abbot Cadog’s very close friends.
When Saint Cadog returned from Ireland, he went firstly back to his parents and later to the residence of his grandfather, Saint Brychan. As his father’s hagiography makes clear, he took no pleasure in the life of the court at Fochriw. He was incensed by the lavish feasts that his parents partook of while poor men went hungry at the doorstep. And he had no patience for the hunts or the fine clothes that the other young men of the court delighted in. He admonished his parents, Saints Gwynllyw and Gwladys, and exhorted them to change their way of life – and this eventually had a profound effect on them, as seen in their hagiography.
When he returned to Brycheiniog, Saint Cadog and his companions set up a home in Llanspyddid, where Cadog was tutored in Latin by an Italian fellow named Bachan. At that time there was a famine in Brycheiniog, and Cadog and his companions found themselves without means to feed themselves. After praying to God one day, Cadog found a little mouse playing about on his desk with a grain of wheat in its mouth. It placed the grain on his tablet, and ran off again. Seven times it came back, each time bearing a grain of wheat. Marvelling at this wonder, Cadog found a long, fine thread and wound it around the paw of the willing mouse, holding the other end to see where it would lead him. The mouse led him to an old granary which had been partially submerged in the marshy ground, but all the grain within had been preserved from corruption. There was more than enough for Cadog and his companions to use, and giving thanks to God, taking what he needed and no more, he gave away the whole of the granary to the people of Brycheiniog, with the poorest receiving the best amount, who were thus delivered from the famine.
At length Saint Cadog left his oratory at Llanspyddid to his teacher Bachan, and returned to Llancarfan. He found that the monastery had suffered violence, its monks had been scattered and its walls had been deserted and overgrown. Mourning, he and his followers set back to work on restoring it. Now, the reason that it acquired this name of ‘Llancarfan’ (‘Churchyard of the Deer’) is that when the time came to begin this work, it proved too much for Cadog and his few followers. Two wild harts appeared to Cadog’s followers, who in their presence became tame and allowed themselves to be yoked and bridled. They helped him clear the land and haul the lumber that would be used to rebuild Llancarfan. The hagiography tells of how Saint Cadog gave Saint Fionnán leave to do reading while the workmen worked, but after being scolded by the prior, the cellarer and the sexton, he was sent to bid the stags draw timber. Saint Cadog was not well pleased with this, and berated the three monks who had sent his pupil to do their work. Meanwhile, a heavy rain began to fall. Saint Fionnán, remembering that he had left the book he’d been studying from out in the open under the sky, began to weep for fear his book would be spoilt beyond repair. But going back out after the rain, Fionnán found and marvelled that it had not been touched by the water and was whole and sound as he’d left it.
Cadog’s holiness became renowned far and wide. Dewi Sant even said, to an angel of God before the convocation of the Synod of Brefi, that he was not worthy of being compared to Saint Cadog. Cadog himself again undertook a journey – this time a pilgrimage to the islands of Greece, to the Holy Land and to Rome. During his journey he had no trouble conversing, for the Lord gave him a knowledge of all the languages he would need – not only Latin but also Greek and Syriac. While in Grimbul, the wife of a certain king came to him and asked him to pray for her, for she had trouble conceiving a child. Saint Cadog did so, and the queen went back to her husband that night and conceived by him a boy. On his return from the Holy Land after a sojourn of three years, the queen presented to him the lad she had borne, whose name she called Elli. Saint Cadog tutored young Elli in the ways of God before he was compelled to return home. Elli would later become the second abbot of Llancarfan. Saint Cadog also claimed three stones from holy places in Jerusalem, which went back with him to Llancarfan and served as altarpieces. The Synod of Brefi was called in Saint Cadog’s absence on this pilgrimage. To put it lightly, he was not amused. He nevertheless forgave Saint Dewi and mended his relationship with him afterwards.
Llancarfan was made quite wealthy both by gifts from wealthy donors and by the resourcefulness and work of its own monks. Saint Cadog was lavishly generous with the wealth of Llancarfan, particularly to the poor and needy. And yet Llancarfan suffered its share of robbers. One band of robbers, claiming loyalty to Sawel Ben Uchel – the father of the aforementioned Saint Asaph – raided Llancarfan and stole all the food while Cadog was out serving the poor. Saint Cadog discovered them, cut their hair as they slept, and when they woke gave chase to them. They all wound up being swallowed in a bog. In another instance, Llancarfan was visited by a certain Illtud Farchog and a band of his men from Penychen, who came demanding food. Cadog gave chase to these men, too, and they were swallowed in a bog – all but Illtud himself, whom Cadog castigated in God’s name and encouraged to mend his ways. Saint Cadog butted heads in this way with several worldly princes, including Maelgwn Gwynedd, Rhun Hir ap Maelgwn (both distant forebears of yours truly), and Rhain Dremrudd ap Brychan. Saint Cadog always came out the better in these contests, usually impressing the prince in question with his holy way of life or with his worldly erudition, or else intervening on the prince’s behalf in the wake of a battle or a reversal.
During Lent, Saint Cadog was accustomed to withdrawing from the company of men and living in silent solitude on the isle of Flatholm in the Bristol Channel. His learned friend Saint Gildas the Historian also spent Lent on an isle nearby, that of Steepholm. The two would sometimes meet on one or other of their islands to pray together. Saint Gildas owned a bell, which Saint Cadog admired deeply and wished to buy from him, but Gildas would not sell the bell for any price. Instead he dedicated it on the altar at Rome, where the Pope instructed Gildas to give the bell as a gift to his friend who desired it and would do good with it. This bell which Gildas wrought was a holy relic at Llancarfan, of which it was said it pealed twice in human speech and would do so again a third time. Gildas also wrote and illuminated for his friend a beautiful liturgical text, called the Gospel of Gildas, which he presented to Saint Cadog, and was a much-beloved relic at Llancarfan, on which the locals would swear solemn oaths.
Saint Cadog spent time preaching in Scotland and also made a return journey to Ireland in 564. He entrusted his abbey to Saint Elli, and then took himself to a certain abbey named Beneventum in his hagiography – probably Bannaventa in Calchfynedd, now Weedon Bec in Northampton. He lived there as a beloved abbot and ruled with a gentle hand over many monks. Cadog lived to the age of eighty-two years, but he was martyred in Beneventum on the twenty-fourth of January, 580, by heathen Saxon invaders who ran him through with spears. For many years afterward the Saxons would not let the Welsh claim their beloved saint’s relics, but they were eventually transferred back to Llancarfan.
Saint Cadog is remembered with fondness by all the Welsh, but particularly in Llancarfan which is the centre of his cultus. At least fifteen churches in Wales are dedicated to Saint Cadog – mostly in Dyfed. He is attested in Scotland in the toponym of Kilmadock in Perth, the site of a monastery which he was supposed to have ruled for seven years. He has a holy well in Padstow, Cornwall – where he poured out water he had brought back from the Jordan during his time in the Holy Land. He is also remembered at Llanspyddid in Brecon where he had built his oratory. He is also honoured in Brittany: Île de Saint-Cado is named in his memory, and he has several church dedications around that island, in Belz, Morbihan and other places in Finistère. He is remembered there particularly as a patron of the deaf, and of children afflicted with scrofula. Holy father Cadog, learnèd abbot, pilgrim and friend of the poor, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
Having been raised to piety, O Hierarch Cadoc,
Thou didst dedicate thy life to God,
Serving Him in the monastic state.
As with joyful heart thou didst fulfill thy daily obedience,
Caring for the earthly needs of countless paupers,
Look now upon our spiritual poverty
And beseech Christ our God
That He will grant us great mercy!
St Cadoc’s Church, Llancarfan, Wales
In addition to being the feast-day of Saint Cadog of Wales, it is also the Lunar New Year – the first day of the Year of the White Metal Rat. Seems fitting that we should celebrate the incoming Year of the Rat with a saint, one of whose symbols in Western devotional art is the helpful little mouse whose discovery of the granary helped him survive the famine at Llanspyddid. I wish all of my gentle readers a hearty ‘財源广進，鼠运亨通！’
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