140 
IV.—Chronicles of Cornish Saints. 
VI.—S. BuRIAN. © 
By the REVEREND JOHN ADAMS, M.A., Vicar of Stockcross, Berks. 
Read at the Spring Meeting, May 18, 1872. 
1 an old English Martyrology, published in the year 1608, we 
have the following account of this Saint :-—“ May 29th, at S.. 
Buriens, in Cornwall, the commemoration of 8. Burien, Virgin, 
who being an Irish woman of great nobility by birth, came over 
into England and lived a most virtuous and godly life for many 
years in Cornwall, where in very great sanctimony and working 
of miracles, she finally gave up her soule to her heavenly spouse. 
Her memory is very famous, even until this day in our Island of 
‘Great Brittany, especially among the Cornishmen, where there is a 
towne and port of her name in the Cape or Promont of Cornwall, 
commonly called S. Buriens, where also in tymes past hath byn a ~ 
famous Church erected in her honour.” 
The above notice contains all the information that is current 
concerning S. Burian ; but a little research enables us to add some 
interesting details to this scanty outline of ler life. 
In the Martyrology of Donegal, under May 29th, S. Burian’s 
feast-day, we find, instead of her name, that of “ Briuinseach Cael, 
Virgin, daughter of Crimhthann of Magh-Trea”; and in the Table 
of the Martyrology, at the same date, “ Bruinsech the slender,” 
with the following note appended to her name: “St. Buriena, a 
Virgin of Ireland, is venerated in a town bearing her name in 
England on the 29th of May. Is she not this Bruinseach” ? The 
similarity of the names, coupled with the fact that where we 
might expect to find Burian, Bruinsech is given in the Irish 
Martyrology, makes it extremely probable that they designate one 
and the same person. Moreover, Leland tells us that Bruinet, a 
King’s daughter, came into Cornwall with St. Piran ; this Bruinet, 
