The first day of March every year commemorates the death and celebrates the life of Patron Saint of Wales, St David.
An early leader and preacher of Christianity, It is safe to say that St David’s life has with time, slipped into mythology, treading the boundary between the factual and the apocryphal. What we are left with are stories and fragments, some realistic and some supernatural of the remarkable life of a remarkable man, and fitting Patron Saint.
From founding a monastic community, Glyn Rhosyn (Rose Vale), where St David’s Cathedral now stands today, to raising the earth into a hill as he preached so that the all in the crowd that formed could hear (something Wales clearly needs more of..) and bringing a youth back from the dead, St David was an incredibly influential member of the Church rising up to become Archbishop of Wales.
He existed on a humble diet of bread and herbs and water (it is reported that he drunk no other drink) and this treated him well because the stories state that he lived until the ripe age of 100. Upon his deathbed his last words were; ‘Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.’
So lets celebrate this unique and fascinating figure in the history of Wales and remember to ‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain’, ‘Do ye the little things in life’.
Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant Hapus (Happy St David’s Day) from The Art Shop.