COBNISH DEDICATION'S. 107 



The name has gone through much change. William of 

 Worcester, quoting from a calendar that came into his hands, 

 says of her ''S** Elevetha Virgo Martyr una ex 24 filiarum 

 reguli de Brekehaynoke in Wallia per 24 Miliaria de Hereford 

 est, jacet (in) ecclesia monalium virgin um villae de Usque, et 

 fuit martirizata super montem per unum miliare de Brekenok 

 ubi fons emanabat ; et lapis ubi ea acapitabatur ibi remanet et 

 quoties toties aliquis in honore Dei et dictae Sanctae dicat 

 orationem dominicam, aut bibat de aqua dictae fontis, inveniet 

 qualibet vice crinem muliebris dictae Sanctae super lapidem ex 

 magno miraculo," (Itin. ed. Nasmith, Camb. 1778, p. 156). 

 Again, in another place, he says, " S*"' Elaveta virgo jacet in 

 ecclesia apud Usque" (p. 180). This is the Elined or Almedha 

 of Giraldus Cambrensis. 



Thus we have the same person called Ellyw, Elic or Elie, 

 Elvetha, and Electa. 



In Wales she was known as Elined and as Ellyw, and this 

 was corrupted in S. Tayled or S. Ayled. The chapel that stood 

 on the mountain where she suffered, a mile from Brechnock, 

 was standing in 1698, but roofless. Some vestiges of the 

 building may still be traced, and an aged yew tree and her holy 

 well at its foot mark the site. Giraldus Cambrensis says, that 

 in his time, " In her honour a solemn feast is annually held 

 here in the beginning of August, and attended by a large 

 concourse of people from a considerable distance, when those 

 persons who labour under various diseases, through the merits 

 of this blessed virgin, receive their wished-for health. The 

 circumstances which occur at every anniversary, appear to me 

 remarkable. You may see men or girls, now in the church, now 

 in the churchyard, now in a dance, which is led round the 

 churchyard with a song, on a sudden falling on the ground in a 

 fit, then jumping up as in a frenzy, and representing with their 

 hands and feet, before the people, whatever work they have 

 unlawfully done on feast days ; you may see one man put his 

 hand to the plough, and another, as it were, goad on the oxen, 

 mitigating their sense of labour by the usual rude song ; one 

 man imitating the profession of a shoemaker ; another, that of 

 a tanner. You may see a girl with a distaff, drawing out the 



