Saint Senara | |
|---|---|
| Born | Breton |
| Died | Pendour Cove, Cornwall |
| Venerated in | Anglican Communion Catholic Church (Folk Catholicism) |
| Major shrine | St Senara's Church, Zennor |
| Feast | 1 May |
| Attributes | Pregnant woman in a barrel in the middle of the sea [1] |
| Patronage | Zennor [2] |
Saint Senara, also known as Asenora, Sinara, or Sennara, is a legendary Cornish saint with links to the village of Zennor on the north coast of Cornwall, UK. The Church of Saint Senara, Zennor is dedicated to her, and according to legend her name inspired the name of the village of Zennor along with local features like Zennor Head and Zennor Quoit.
Nicholas Orme, in his commentary on Nicholas Roscarrock's (c. 1548-1634) Lives of the Saints notes that a male Sanctus Sinar of Zennor was recorded in 1170, and in 1235 as a female Sancta Sinara; since 1235, this saint has been identified as female. Nothing else is known about her, unless she is identified with Azenor, the mother of Saint Budoc. Orme also notes the similarity to Saint Senan at Sennen, another saint of the Penwith peninsula. [3]
According to a 1907 source, Saint Senara was a widow and her feast day is celebrated on May 1. She is frequently connected to Azenor, mother of Saint Budoc. [4]
According to versions of the story which identify her with Azenor, Senara or Asenora was a Breton princess of Brest. Her husband, a Breton king, wrongly accused her of adultery and threw her into the sea in a barrel while pregnant. [5] She was visited by an angel whilst floating in the sea off the westernmost end of Cornwall, and gave birth to a son in the waves, who later became Saint Budoc or an Irish bishop. She was washed up on the Cornish coast, where she founded Zennor before continuing to Ireland. [6] [7]
Due to the striking similarity, the legend's origins possibly lie in Greek mythology and the story of Danaë who was also cast to sea with her son Perseus in a wooden box. [5]
She gives her name to St Senara's Church in Zennor. A statue of St Senara lies in an enclosed garden next to the church. There has been a church at this site since at least the 6th century AD, but the current building was constructed in the 13th and partly the 15th century.
The church contains the Mermaid Chair, an ancient chair with carvings of fish on the seat and a mermaid admiring herself in a mirror on the pew end. It is believed to be at least 600 years old. [8] [9] [10] The mermaid was highly venerated by local fishermen and is said to represent the dual nature of Christ (human and divine). [8]
Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair links the legend of St. Senara to that of the Mermaid of Zennor. [11] In Kidd's reimagining of the myths, Senara was originally a mermaid named Asenora who would remove her fish tail to walk on land. An abbot stole and hid the fish tail, allowing Asenora to be tamed and converted. Characters attribute the story to Legenda Aurea: Readings on the Saints, but although this is the title of an actual reference work, no such story appears in the real-life work. The Mermaid Chair of Kidd's book is much more ornate and bejeweled than the real-life artifact which inspired it, with the arms consisting of carved, winged mermaids. [12] The book was adapted into a movie in 2006. [13]
Dorothy Pentreath was a Cornish fishwife from Mousehole. She is one of the last known fluent speakers of the Cornish language. She is also often credited as the last known native speaker of Cornish, although sources support the existence of other younger speakers of the language who survived her.
Breage or Breaca is a saint venerated in Cornwall and South West England. According to her late hagiography, she was an Irish nun of the 5th or 6th century who founded a church in Cornwall. The village and civil parish of Breage in Cornwall are named after her, and the local Breage Parish Church is dedicated to her. She is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholic Church.
Brychan Brycheiniog was a legendary 5th-century king of Brycheiniog in Mid Wales.
Zennor is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish includes the villages of Zennor, Boswednack and Porthmeor and the hamlet of Treen. Zennor lies on the north coast, about 6 miles (10 km) north of Penzance, along the B3306 road which connects St Ives to the A30 road. Alphabetically, the parish is the last in Britain. Its name comes from the Cornish name for the local saint, Saint Senara.
Columba of Cornwall, also called Columb (English), was a saint from Cornwall who lived in the 6th century. She was born to pagan royalty, but became a Christian after the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, appeared to her in a vision. Her parents arranged a marriage to a pagan prince, but she refused the marriage and they imprisoned her. She escaped to Cornwall, where she was again captured and martyred. She is the patron of two churches in Cornwall, in St Columb Major and St Columb Minor, where well-developed traditions arose about her. The traditions include a tale about a spring gushing forth along the path of her blood at the site of her execution and another about a well at the site containing water that would not boil. Various dates in November have been cited as her feast day.
Mabyn, also known as Mabena, Mabon, etc., was a medieval Cornish saint. According to local Cornish tradition she was one of the many children of Brychan, king of Brycheiniog in Wales in the 5th century. The village and civil parish of St Mabyn is named for her, and the local St Mabyn Parish Church is dedicated to her.
Pendour Cove is a beach in west Cornwall, England, UK. It is about 1 mile northwest of the village of Zennor, and immediately to the west of Zennor Head.
Ia of Cornwall was an evangelist and martyr of the 5th or 6th centuries, flourishing in the area of St Ives, Cornwall. She is said to have been an Irish princess, the sister of Erc of Slane.
Juthwara or Jutwara was a virgin and martyr from Dorset. According to her legend, she was an eighth-century Saxon, and sister to Sidwell, though some historians have theorised she was a Briton living in the sixth century. Her relics were translated to Sherborne during the reign of Ethelred the Unready. Nothing further is known with certainty about her life.
Wyllow was a Cornish hermit saint and martyr whose existence was reported by William Worcester.
Cornish mythology is the folk tradition and mythology of the Cornish people. It consists partly of folk traditions developed in Cornwall and partly of traditions developed by Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium, often shared with those of the Breton and Welsh peoples. Some of this contains remnants of the mythology of pre-Christian Britain.
St Endellion is a civil parish and hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The hamlet and parish church are situated four miles (6.5 km) north of Wadebridge.
Christianity in Cornwall began in the 4th or 5th century AD when Western Christianity was introduced as in the rest of Roman Britain. Over time it became the official religion, superseding previous Celtic and Roman practices. Early Christianity in Cornwall was spread largely by the saints, including Saint Piran, the patron of the county. Cornwall, like other parts of Britain, is sometimes associated with the distinct collection of practices known as Celtic Christianity but was always in communion with the wider Catholic Church. The Cornish saints are commemorated in legends, churches and placenames.
Maudez is a Breton saint who lived in the 5th or 6th century. He is also known as Maudé, Maudet, Maodez or Modez (Breton), Maudetus (Latin), Mandé (French) and Mawes. In the Breton calendar his feast is 18 November.
Zennor Head ; is a 750-metre (2,460 ft) long promontory on the Cornish coast of England, between Pendour Cove and Porthzennor Cove. Facing the Atlantic Ocean, it lies 1 kilometre north-west of the village of Zennor and 1.6 kilometres east of the next promontory, Gurnard's Head. The granite (Killas) cliffs rise over 200 feet (60 m) from the sea and the highest point of the headland is 314 feet (96 m) above sea level, with an Ordnance Survey triangulation station. Zennor Head is on the South West Coast Path, which follows the cliff edge closely, skirting the entire perimeter of the headland. The promontory is part of the Penwith Heritage Coast, and is the largest coastal feature in the United Kingdom that begins with the letter "Z". It gets its name from a local saint, Senara. Zennor Head was mined for copper and tin in the Victorian Era. There is no longer any residential or commercial occupancy on the headland, but it is occupied by a variety of coastal animals and plants, such as kestrels and gorse.
St Senara's Church, in Zennor Churchtown, Cornwall, England, UK, is the parish church of the parish of Zennor. It is in the Deanery of Penwith, Archdeaconry of Cornwall, and Diocese of Truro. It is dedicated to the local saint, Saint Senara, and is at least 1400 years old, though it was rebuilt in the 12th century. It is a Grade I listed building.
The Mermaid of Zennor is a popular Cornish folk tale that was first recorded by the Cornish folklorist William Bottrell in 1873. The legend has inspired works of poetry, literature and art.
Tetha, also known as Teath, Tecla, and by a variety of other names, was a 5th-century virgin and saint in Wales and Cornwall. She is associated with the parish church of St Teath in Cornwall. Baring-Gould gives her feast day as 27 October, but this has been called a mistaken conflation with Saint Ia. In 1878, it was held on the movable feast of Whit Tuesday. Other sources place it on 1 May, 6 September, and (mistakenly) 15 January. It is no longer observed by either the Anglican or Catholic church in Wales.
The Gwerz Santes Enori is a Breton gwerz, a type of folk song that combines literary with musical characteristics. The song, which is preserved in many versions and fragments, tells a story that resembles a saint's life, a 14th-century version of the hagiography of the Breton saint Budoc. Its general theme has been called that of "the girl with a golden breast", as told in stories throughout the Celtic world and surviving in oral form into the 20th century.
