Ffynnon Edren, Llanedren

Dedication: St Edren

Location: St Edren's Church

Status: destroyed?/lost

There are two Welsh saints of the name "Edren" or "Ederyn", one who is associated with Anglesey and some parts of Caernarfonshire, and another who is linked exclusively to South Wales. The latter figure, the late 5th or early 6th century son of King Vortigern, is the patron saint of Llanedren and its holy well. According to tradition, this Edren was a companion of St Cattwg (or Cadoc), and he is said to have founded a religious community or college, consisting of no fewer than three hundred people, in Llanedeyrn, now a suburb of Cardiff. It is clear that Edren must also have been something of a missionary, as he founded the church of Llanedren, commonly called "St Edren's", in Pembrokeshire, where his holy well was reputedly once located.

Very little is recorded about the history of Ffynnon Edren, and the earliest reference to the site that I have found dates from 1911, when Jonathan Ceredig Davies documented a number of traditions associated with Llanedren churchyard in his Folklore of West and Mid-Wales. According to Davies, the well had once been "much resorted to" for the cure of a variety of afflictions, most notably "hydrophobia", or rabies. However, the well was long gone by the early 1900s, and it was locally said that the spring had dried up "as a curse" or punishment, after "a woman washed her clothes in this well on Sunday", thus breaking the Sabbath. An alternative, and much more plausible, explanation was provided to Davies by the Rev. J. Bowen, an "enthusiastic antiquarian", who had himself been informed by an "old man" that the well had actually "been closed in order to drain the graveyard".

Irrespective of the reason for the well's disappearance, the fact that a holy well once existed in the churchyard is evident through the bizarre custom that apparently developed after the spring dried up. Rabies must have been a widespread problem in the area, or else Llanedren was very well known for its cures, because it suddenly became popular to eat the grass that grew in the churchyard, specifically that which grew around the base of the church's walls, in place of using the well as a remedy for the disease. It is said that it was commonly believed that the powers of the holy well had been miraculously transferred to the grass after the spring had vanished. According to Francis Jones, writing in The Holy Wells of Wales (1954), this grass became known as "porfa'r cynddeiriog", meaning "the grass of the mad", because of what it was believed to heal.

When exactly this practice began is not clear (although it undoubtedly corresponds with the well drying up), but it was certainly extant as early as 1811, if the editor of West Wales Records is to be believed. How widespread this traditon was is not obvious, although it continued into the late 19th century, and perhaps survived for much longer. A documented example of a supposed cure that was wrought by the consumption of this grass occurred in 1848, and was reported on by a large variety of British newspapers, almost all of which had exactly the same message:

So strong a hold has the genius of superstition among the peasantry of South Wales, that a woman recently bitten by a mad dog was sent to the churchyard of St. Edrin's to eat the grass, which, it is believed, has the peculiar property of being an antidote to hydrophobia.

There appear to have been at least two different methods of consuming the grass. Whilst Jonathan Ceredig Davies recorded that people often "took some of the grass to their homes to eat it with their food", a manuscript written by the Rev. H. T. Payne, and partially transcribed by the Royal Commission, who included it in their Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Pembrokeshire, claimed that "the people cut the grass with a knife and eat it with bread and butter", in a sort of sandwich. Payne also said that the powers of the grass extended to the curing of "cattle, horses and sheep, and pigs", which almost certainly reflects a tradition once associated with Ffynnon Edren; these animals were apparently not fed grass in a sandwich, but were instead brought into the churchyard to graze.

Despite the fact that this was evidently quite profitable (consumers of the grass were obliged to leave a small offering, which was given to the parish clerk, in a hole in the church wall), it seems to have ceased by the early 20th century. Intriguingly, there is a possibility that this tradition developed completely in vain, because Jonathan Ceredig Davies' authority, the Rev. J. Bowen, had been informed that "there is still a spring in a field outside the wall" of the churchyard. Although historic Ordnance Survey maps do not mark any water sources in the vicinity, it is still possible that the spring feeding Ffynnon Edren has survived.