Gwen Teirbron

Saint Gwen Teirbron
Born Brittany
Died 5th or 6th century
Venerated in Catholic Church
Western Orthodoxy
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
Feast 3 October (Catholic Church)
18 July (Russian Orthodox Church Abroad)

Saint Gwen Teirbron (French: Blanche; Latin: Alba Trimammis or Candida; possibly English: Wite) was a Breton holy woman and wife of Saint Fragan who supposedly lived in the 5th or 6th century. Her epithet is Welsh for '(of the) three breasts'.

Veneration

Popular devotion interpreted Gwen's unusual physical and spiritual fecundity by God's gift to her of a third breast. Her iconography followed suit. Gwen is invoked for women's fertility. She is commemorated on 3 October in the Catholic Church (although this has been transferred from Saint Candidus of Rome), and on 18 July (NS) by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Australia.[1]

Possible identification

She is interpreted by Dyfed Lloyd Evans as having been a euhemerized mother goddess.[2]

Children

  • Winwaloe, son of Prince Fragan (or Fracan) and Teirbron[3][4]
  • Jacut (or James), son of Prince Fragan and Teirbron[3][4]
  • Wethenoc (or Gwethenoc or Guethenoc), son of Prince Fragan and Teirbron[3][4]
  • Creirwy (or Creirvy), daughter of Prince Fragan and Teirbron[3]
  • Cadfan, son of Eneas Ledewig (or Aeneas of Brittany) and Teirbron[5]

References

  1. ↑ Canberra Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church (Abroad). Brief Lives of Saints, 2007.
  2. ↑ Nemeton: Gwen Teir Bron
  3. 1 2 3 4 Butler, Alban. The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints, volume 1, p. 275 (Henry & Co. 1857).
  4. 1 2 3 Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 3, p. 38 (1911).
  5. ↑ Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 2, p. 9 (C. J. Clark, 1908).
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