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…as retold by me. Dydd Gŵyl Santes Dwynwen Hapus/Happy St Dwynwen’s Day!
Dydd Gŵyl Santes Dwynwen Hapus/Happy St Dwynwen’s Day!
Dwynwen is the Welsh patron saint of true lovers, her name has a variety of meanings (as most ‘wen’ or ‘wyn’ names do,) but the most common translations are ‘white wave’ or ‘to steal purity/fairness.’
Which kind of fits in with the less happy aspects of her story.
Warning: this post discusses the story of St Dwynwen, which includes rape/sexual assault
She was a princess, or so the story goes, who fell in love with a man, while her father had arranged for her to marry someone else.
Devastated by the yearning in her heart (or, in the less PG versions, running from her so-called ‘lover,’ who either rapes her, or attempts to rape her,) she ran into the forest where she met an angel.
(Which is totally where you’d normally find angels instead of wood spirits or any type of Fair Folk *shifty glances*)
The angel froze her lover in a block of ice and promised to grant her three wishes
…which is apparently something angels do here.
(And only really makes sense in the less-PG versions, because why else would the angel…