Saint Endelienta – April 29
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Saint Endelienta (also Endelient, Edellienta, or Endellion) was a Cornish saint of the 5th and 6th centuries. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King Brychan, and a native of South Wales who traveled to North Cornwall to join her siblings in converting the locals to Christianity. Legend says that she was a goddaughter of King Arthur and that she lived as a hermit at Trentinney. The saint is commemorated by a village of St Endellion which bears her name. Endellion is an Anglicised version of her name. Her feast day is 29 April.
Tradition makes her a daughter of King Brychan, of Brycheiniog in South Wales. The village of Saint Endellion in Cornwall, named after her, is from where she is said to have evangelized the local population. Two former wells near the village were named after her.
She is called “Cenheidlon” in Welsh records, with Endelienta being a Latinised form of the name. The saint is believed to have been a native of South Wales who crossed the Bristol Channel to join her siblings in converting the people of North Cornwall to Christianity. During her journey, she initially landed on the island of Lundy, where she is believed to have founded a small chapel, which would later be wrongly rededicated to Saint Helen. She subsequently moved on to the mainland where she stayed with her brother, Saint Nectan, at Hartland, before eventually choosing to settle at Trentinney, south-west of the present-day village of St Endellion, although she would return to Lundy from time to time on retreat for meditation.
Her sister, St Dilic (whose church is at Landulph), settled nearby and the two would often meet along a certain path whose grass would ever afterward grow greener than elsewhere.
Following a vision of her death, the saint is said to have asked that upon her death, her body should be placed on a sled or cart drawn by bullocks and that she should be buried at the place where they stopped. She is thought to have died on 29 April sometime in the 6th century, and possibly at the hands of Saxon pirates. She was buried at the top of a hill, and a church built over her grave. The present church at St Endellion stands on that site.
