Several old Breton songs tell us the story of St Enora (or Honora), the wife of Efflam (already alluded to in the chapter on Arthurian legend), but these accounts vary very considerably in their details. One account 341 giving us “stern facts” relates how St Efflam was betrothed for political reasons to Enora, a Saxon princess, and speaks of how impossible it was to expect that such a union could prove anything but disastrous when it was not a love match. So, whether partly to escape from a married life which jarred his susceptibilities, or entirely on account of his religious asceticism, Efflam left his wife and crossed to Brittany to lead the life of a religious hermit. One of the Breton songs gives the beginning of the story in a much more picturesque way. It relates how Enora, “beautiful as an angel,” had many suitors, but would give her hand to none save the Prince Efflam, “son of a stranger King.” But Efflam, torn by the desire to lead the religious life, far away from the world, rose “in the midst of the night, his wedding night,” and crept softly away, no one seeing him save his faithful dog, which he loved. So he came to the seashore and crossed to Brittany. The story of his landing and his meeting with Arthur has already been told, and we have seen how his fate was once more, by divine agency, linked with that of Enora. The song tells us how the angels carried the princess over the sea and set her on the door-sill of her husband’s cell. Presently she awoke, and, finding herself there, she knocked three times and cried out to her husband that she was “his sweetheart, his wife,” whom God had sent. St Efflam, knowing her voice, came out, and “with many godly words he took her hand in his.” One account says that he sent her to the south of Brittany to found a convent for nuns, as he wished to devote his life entirely to the service of God and the contemplation of nature. All versions agree on the point that he built a hut for her beside his own, and one story relates how he made 342 her wear a veil over her face and only spoke to her through the door! But one Breton song with more of the matter of poetry in it than the rest tells how the little hut he built for her was shaded by green bushes and sheltered by a rock, and that there they lived, side by side, for a long and happy time, while the fame of the miracles they wrought spread through the land. Then one night some sailors on the sea “saw the sky open and heard a burst of heavenly music,” and next day when a poor woman took her sick child to Enora to beg for her aid she could get no response, and looking in she beheld the royal lady lying dead. The humble place was alight with her radiance, and near her a little boy in white was kneeling. The woman then ran to tell St Efflam of her discovery, only to find that he too was lying dead in his cell.
Corseul the Accursed
The town of Corseul has sunk into insignificance, and its failure to achieve prosperity is said to be due to its covert hostility to St Malo—or, as he is more correctly called, Machutes. Coming to Brittany on missionary enterprise, the Saint found that Christianity had not penetrated to the district of Corseul, where the old pagan worship still obtained. He therefore decided that his work must lie chiefly among the Curiosolites of that land, and determined that his first celebration of Easter Mass there should take place in the very centre of the pagan worship, the temple of Haute-Bécherel. The people of the district received him coldly, but without open hostility, and he and his monks prepared for the Christian festival in the pagan shrine, to find to their dismay that they had omitted to bring 343 either chalice or wine for the Eucharist. Several of the monks were sent into the town to buy these, but in all Corseul they could find no one willing to sell either cup or wine, because of the hostility of the idolatrous folk of the place. At last the Saint performed a miracle to provide these necessaries, but he never forgave the insult to his religion, and while he founded monasteries broadcast over his diocese he avoided Corseul, and as Christianity became more and more universal the pagan town gradually paid the penalty of its enmity to the cause of Christ.
St Keenan
St Keenan (sixth century) was surnamed Colodoc, or “He who loves to lose himself,” a beautiful epitome of his character. As in so many instances in the chronicles of Breton hagiology, confusion regarding St Keenan has arisen among a multiplicity of chronicles. He seems to have been a native of Connaught, whence he crossed into Wales and became a disciple of Gildas.
He was told to “go forward” carrying a little bell, until he reached a place called Ros-ynys, where the bell would ring of itself, and there he would find rest. He asked Gildas to provide him with a bell, but the abbot could only supply him with a small piece of metal. Keenan, however, blessed this, and it grew until it was large enough for a good bell to be cast from it. Thus equipped, the Saint set out, and journeyed until he reached an arm of the sea, where he sat down on the grass to rest. While lying at his ease he heard a herdsman call to his fellow: “Brother, have you seen my cows anywhere?” “Yes,” replied the other, “I saw them at Ros-ynys.” Rejoicing greatly at finding 344 himself in the vicinity of the place he sought, Keenan descended to the shore, which has since been called by his name. Greatly athirst, he struck a rock with his staff, and water gushed forth in answer to the stroke. Taking ship, he crossed the firth and entered a little wood. All at once, to his extreme joy, the bell he carried commenced to tinkle, and he knew he had reached the end of his journey—the valley of Ros-ynys, afterward St David’s.
Later, deciding to cross to Brittany with his disciples, Keenan dispatched some of his company to beg for corn for their journey from a merchant at Landegu. They met with a gruff refusal, but the merchant mockingly informed them they could have the corn if they carried off the whole of his barge-load. When the Saint embarked the barge broke its moorings and floated after him all the way! He landed at Cléder, where he built a monastery, which he enriched with a copy of the Gospels transcribed by his own hand.
The fatal contest between King Arthur and Modred, his nephew, caused Keenan to return to Britain, and he is said to have been present at the battle of Camelot and to have comforted Guinevere after the death of her royal husband, exhorting her to enter a convent. He afterward returned to Cléder, where he died. The monastery fell into ruin, and the place of his burial was forgotten, till one night an angel appeared in a vision to one of the inhabitants of Cléder and bade him exhume the bones of the Saint, which he would find at a certain spot. This the man did, and the relics were recovered. A fragment of them is preserved in the cathedral of Saint-Brieuc. St Keenan is popularly known in Brittany as St Ké, or St Quay.