Happy St. Dwynwen's Day! Dydd santes Dwynwen da! (?) From the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, ed. David Hugh Farmer:- "Dwyn (Donwen, Donwenna, Dunwen, Dwynwen) (5th-6th century), virgin. One of the children of Brychan, Dwyn[wen] settled in Anglesey, where her name is retained in Llandwyn and Porthddwyn. Her church was the goal of the sick and especially young men and maidens, as she is the Welsh patron of lovers. The Legend explaining this tells of a certain Maelon who wished to marry her, but she rejected him and prayed to be delivered. She dreamt that she was given a drink which cured her, but the drink turned Maelon to ice. Then she made three requests: that Maelon be unfrozen, that all true-hearted lovers should either succeed in their quest or else be cured of their passion, and that she should never wish to be married. Accordingly, she became a nun. In the Middle Ages Llandwyn was one of the richest prebends in Wales, largely due to the offerings at the shrine and at the holy well, where the movements of fishes were belived to indicate the destiny of those who consulted it. This practice and the invocation of Dwyn[wen] for curing sick animals long survived the Reformation: the remote situation of Llandwyn, perhaps formerly an island, near Newborough, enabled the popular superstitions to survive. Feast: 25 January." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Oes rhywun sy'n gallu cyfieithu'r geiriau yma? Mae rhaid i fi fel dysgwr copio o'r llyfr Saesneg, a dydw i ddim yn gallu cyfieithu'r stori yma (neu stori Dewi Sant) yng Nghymraeg. Cofion Briony -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Briony Williams briony@uk.ac.ed.cstr (JANET) Centre for Speech Technology Research, briony@cstr.edinburgh.ac.uk 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, UK. Tel: (0)31 650 2790 (A quarter-Irish Englishwoman working on Welsh in Scotland)