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preceding ones. The Princess Dwynwen, his 26th and last daughter, became a 
devotee of such grace and beauty that she was considered a Welsh Venus, or 
Goddess of Love. The church of Llanddwyn, in Anglesea, is dedicated to her. 
Her shrine was much resorted to by desponding swains and love-sick maidens. 
The poet David-ap-Gwylym, in his long ‘‘ Invocation to Dwynwen,” says— 
A thousand altars in her temple smok’d, 
A thousand bleeding hearts her pow’r invok’d. 
On the present occasion, however, your attention must be confined to the 
history and sanctity of the 25th daughter of Prince Brychan. Her name was 
Cenai, Cenau, or Ceyna. Cressy, the Benedictine, has given an account of her, 
which is to be found in the ‘‘ English Martyrology.” She was a beautiful 
creature, tall, graceful, and fascinating. It is said of her in Capgrave: ‘‘ When 
she came to ripe years many noble persons sought her in marriage, but she utterly 
refused that state, having consecrated her virginity to Our Lord by a perpetual 
vow. For which cause she was afterwards, by the Britons, called Keyn-wiri, 
that is, Ceyna the Virgin. Tormented by such attentions, at length she deter- 
mined to forsake her country and find out some desert place where she might 
attend to contemplation. Therefore, directing her journey beyond Severn, and 
there meeting with certain woody places, she made her request to the prince of 
that country that she might be permitted to serve God in that solitude. His 
answer was, that he was very willing to grant her request, but that place did so 
swarm with serpents, that neither men nor beasts could inhabit init. But she 
constantly replied, that her firm trust was in the name and assistance of 
Almighty God, to drive all that poisonous brood out of that region. Hereupon 
the place was granted to the Holy Virgin ; who, presently prostrating herself in 
fervent prayer to God, obtained of Him to change all the serpents and vipers there 
into stones. And to this day the stones in that region through all the fields and 
villages do resemble the windings of serpents, as if they had been framed so by 
the hand of the engraver.” A similar miracle is also related of St. Hilda, at 
Whitby, in Yorkshire. This place is now known as Keynsham, in Somersetshire, 
between Bath and Bristol, and Camden, the learned antiquary, notices this 
story, and says that ‘‘an abundance of that fossil termed Cornu Ammonis (or 
ammonite) is frequently dug up,” and then in all simplicity he calls them 
“miracles of sporting nature.” He himself saw one dug up from a quarry, 
which he says “ represented a serpent rolled up into a spire, the head of it stuck 
out into the outward surface, and the end of the tayle terminated in the centre.” 
Fine examples are now to be seen over the doors of many houses there, and ~ 
fragments are common amongst the stones broken up to mend the roads. Cressy 
says—‘‘ The Princess Ceyna spent many years in this solitary place, and the 
fame of her sanctity everywhere divulged, and :nany oratories were built by her.” 
She left there a beautiful spring of water in great repute for the cure of bad eyes 
and other diseases. From this place she seems to have gone into Cornwall, 
where so many of her relatives had already established themselves. Here she 
took up her residence in the parish of St. Neot, and some time afterwards here 
she was found by her nephew St. Cadoc, or St. Cattwg the wise, the son of 
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