Melangell
Welsh hermit and patron saint of hares
Feast: 31 January (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Melangell (Welsh: [mɛˈlaŋgɛɬ]), Latin: Monacella, lit. 'little nun') was a Welsh hermit and abbess. She possibly lived in the 7th or 8th century, although the precise dates are uncertain. According to her hagiography, she was originally an Irish princess who fled an arranged marriage and became a consecrated virgin in the wilderness of the Kingdom of Powys. She supernaturally protected a hare from a prince's hunting dogs, and was granted land to found a sanctuary and convent.
Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), until this page is written up in full.
The miracles
Limited information is available on this saint so far.
Why that counted as sanctity
Limited information is available on this saint so far.
- Butler's Lives of the Saints — St Melangell, or Monacella, Virgin — Butler's Lives: ‘ST MELANGELL, or MONACELLA, Virgin (Date Unknown)’. Stanton's Menology of England and Wales, 31 January: ‘In Wales, the festival of St. Melangell.’ Feast 31 Jan matches. Local corpus files: $S/butler/but
- Wikidata Q7225389 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Melangell (CC BY-SA)
Not yet written up in full. The Catholic source above names this person; the name, dates and step come from Wikidata and are not yet checked against Church records.