Little is known about St. Melangell (pronounced “Melangekh”). She belonged to the royal house of Strathclyde and arrived from Ireland near the start of the 7th century to convert the Welsh and set up a small religious settlement. The scarcity of information has done nothing to stop a fierce dedication to her by those around her. The Nun Nectaria writes, “Her presence and her prayer must have been quite extraordinary, as attested to by the devotion the Welsh people have always paid her” (https://orthochristian.com/71372.html). This was the case even following the Reformation when the veneration of the saints was heavily suppressed. Legend has it that the local prince encountered her while hunting, and a hare he was chasing took refuge under her cloak. (Hares are still sometimes called Oen Melangel, “St. Melangell’s lambs.”). She so impressed him that he granted her the land to be a sanctuary to all who fled there. She founded an abbey there and served as its abbess for 37 years. Her shrine still exists at Pennant Melangell and continues to serve as a place of pilgrimage. One of the routes, “St. Melangell’s Way,” runs 23 miles from Oswestry and takes about two days to walk.
The church dedicated to her is set in what is known as a “thin place,” where the separation between this world and the other is especially porous. Its circular churchyard, ringed by 2000-year-old yews, is thought to have been a Bronze Age burial site. Nearby is a rock set in a cliff under which Melangell is said to have prayed. The valley is rife with waterfalls; a sense of charged peace permeates the place. The shrine was a place of healing in the Middle Ages, and for the last thirty years, there has been a Cancer Help Centre in the garden where many people have found healing.
The shrine contains all the bones intact of a 6th-century woman, who may well be St. Melangell herself. If so, these are some of the few sacred bone relics that survived the Reformation. The early 12th-century building may be the oldest Romanesque shrine in Britain. The entrance to the shrine bears the inscription, Perindod Melangell, “Melangell’s Pilgrimage.” Above the gate is a Welsh poem that means, “Lean purely towards prayer in your heart. Take care when praising God; God only is good, and it is good to give Him honor here.”
Holy Mother Melangell, pray to God for us!