ON ST. CYNON, CONFESSOR, IN WALES,
CommentaryCynon, confessor in Wales. (S.)
FIFTH CENTURY
[1] St. Cynon, otherwise Knonkel, R. Challoner reports A Supplement … to the British Martyrology (London, n.d.), p. 30., on the authority of Browne Willis A Survey of the Cathedral Church of Bangor (London, 1721), p. 360., that today in the village of Tregynnan (Montgomeryshire) the feast of St. Knonkel [Challoner writes Knonkel; Knonkell, Browne Willis, loc. cit., and John Bacon, Liber Regis vel Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum (London, 1786), p. 1047; Knomkell, Lewis Morris, Celtic Remains, ed. D. S. Evans (London, 1878), p. 412.], confessor, is kept. This name neither Baring-Gould and Fisher The Lives of the British Saints, vol. II (London, 1908), p. 273. nor anyone else that we know of has ever found among the saints; on the other hand, it is established from the very word that the village of Tregynnan (more correctly Tregynon) has St. Cynon as patron. For this reason we adopt the opinion of those who think that Knonkel is the same as Cynon [Different writers have written the name differently: Cynon, Cynan, Kenon, Kynan, Kynon among the more recent; it matters little. In the Book of Llandaff (ed. J. G. Evans and J. Rhys), p. 150, there is found a certain Cinan, king, and, p. 276, Cinon, priest; these seem to be the oldest forms of the word.].
[2] acts from more recent writings. Neither seems to be mentioned in the calendars, neither in the ancient genealogies. But if credence is to be given to more recent writings, St. Cynon was born of the illustrious family of Emyr Llydaw [From the codex of Thomas Hopcin, written about the year 1670, in Edw. Williams (Iolo Morganwg), Iolo Manuscripts, ed. Taliesin Williams Ab Iolo (Llandovery, 1848), pp. 111–12; from the long book of Thomas Truman, which Edw. Williams had copied out in the year 1783, ibid., pp. 131–33.]. He was one of those many saints who after the middle of the fifth century crossed from Armorica into Wales, under the leadership and mastership of St. Cadfan, "to restore the faith and baptism" [I adnewyddu Cred a Bedydd, from the same codex, loc. cit., p. 111. The same pilgrimage is reported by very many others, of whom, to omit the more recent, let codex Peniarth 16 (beginning of the 13th century) serve as an example, in Baring-Gould and Fisher, op. cit., vol. IV (London, 1913), p. 371, col. 1, and codex Peniarth 45 (end of the 13th century), loc. cit., col. 2.]. It would be long to copy out the collectanea of the distinguished Iolo Morganwg on St. Cynon, which report the same things in scarcely changed words [Iolo Manuscripts, p. 103, n. 56; p. 112, n. 7; p. 133. Cf. O. Jones, Edw. Williams and W. O. Pughe, The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, 2nd ed. (Denbigh, 1870), p. 421, col. 1; p. 422, col. 1; and W. J. Rees, Lives of the Cambro British Saints (Llandovery, 1840), p. 266, n. 24.]. To sum it all up briefly, he is said to have been the companion of St. Cadfan, his kinsman, first at Bangor Illtyd, then at Bangor Catwg; finally, when St. Cadfan had founded Bangor Enlli (in Latin the college, or monastery, of the island of Enlli, which the English call Bardsey, in Cardigan Bay), he is said to have been his chancellor there, whatever that office was [In Welsh cynghellawr. What the office of chancellor was in the fifth century after Christ we do not clearly understand. Perhaps the writer used a more recent word to signify the ancient office of steward, on which see C. Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Oxford, 1910), vol. I, pp. CXVII–CXVIII; unless perhaps, having heard of the chancellor of St. David, J. W. Willis Bund, The Celtic Church of Weles (London, 1897), p. 396, he wished St. Cadfan too to have had a chancellor.].
[3] A proverb ascribed to him. Among the Welsh sayings, of which a whole forest has been collected in verse, there is this about St. Cynon:
A glywaist ti chwedl Cynon Yn ymochel rhag meddwon? "Cwrw da yw allwed calon." [Iolo Manuscripts, p. 654, n. 33. This reading seems preferable to the one shown by The Myvyrian Archaiology, p. 129, col. 1–2: A glyweisti a gant Kynon | Yn ymoglut rac meduon? | "Curw yw alluyd Calon." In Latin: Have you heard what Kynon sings, while he flees the drunken? "Strong drink is the key of the heart."]
In Latin: Have you heard the saying of Cynon, when he fled the drunken? "Good ale is the key of the heart." Moreover, the Welsh have this as a proverb: Allwedd calon cwrwv da The Myvyrian Archaiology, p. 839, col. 2., "the key of the heart is good ale".
[4] Churches dedicated in Wales, On no one's authority, but only because they seemed not conveniently ascribable to any other saint, this St. Cynon has been supposed to be the patron of the church of Tregynon (in the county which for the Welsh is Trefaldwyn, for the English Montgomery), and of the church of Capel Cynon, which is subject to the parish of Llandyssilio Gogo (in the county of Aberteifi, or Cardigan). Moreover, not far from the village of Llanbister (in the county of Maesyfed, or Radnor) there is situated an old house called Croes Cynon (that is, the Cross of Cynon); that a cross or oratory of St. Cynon was erected there, that the waters of Nant Cynon (that is, the Valley of Cynon) were his drink, that a cell cut there in the rock is marked with his name, notes the writer of the history of Radnor [Jonathan Williams, History of Radnorshire, in Archaeologia Cambrensis, Third Series, Suppl. to vol. IV, December 1858, p. 502.]: yet what these names really signify, whether St. Cynon lived there or was only venerated by the piety of the inhabitants, he did not decide. To us, indeed, the latter opinion rather than the former seems likely to be true; but that he is the same Cynon as the hermit and companion of St. Cadfan, which the Rev. Jonathan Williams judged by no means doubtful, is not established to us.
[5] in Lesser Brittany, Finally, perhaps it is no other saint than ours whose name lies hidden in these place-names: Saint-Conan, trève of Saint-Gilles-Pligeaux (Côtes-du-Nord); Loconan in Trebrivan (Côtes-du-Nord); Saint-Conan not far from Plesidy (Côtes-du-Nord); Saint-Gonnant in Caro (Morbihan) [J. Loth, Les noms des saints bretons, in Revue Celtique, vol. XXIX (1908), p. 246.]. in Cornwall. Finally, in Cornwall too there is a chapel of a certain St. Conan, near Pencarrow Id., ibid.. Yet why these should be attributed to this saint above all, we do not remember that it has ever been proved clearly enough by anyone.