Celtic Saints on the Teifi Faith Trail
The landscape of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire is marked by place-names and holy wells dedicated to local saints. Thirteen of the twenty-two churches on the Teifi Faith Trail appear to be dedicated to saints that could be regarded as Celtic; others are dedicated to biblical saints such as the apostle Peter and the Virgin Mary. The church at Pencarreg is dedicated to St Patrick and the patron of Tregaron is St Caron. Caron is also the name of the river that runs past the church and he was clearly regarded as a saint by the later Middle Ages, although the name might have been an alternative spelling of the famous Irish saint Ciaran.
Some of these church dedications can be traced back to medieval times, and the identification of St David as the patron of Llanddewi Brefi pre-dates any association of David with St Davids in Pembrokeshire. The dedications of churches at Llangybi and Llanbadarn Odwyn to St Cybi and St Padarn can also be traced back to the Middle Ages, as well as the dedication of Llanycrwys to David. Images of St David and other saints can be found in some of the Teifi Faith Trail churches.
We cannot be sure that current dedications of churches are the same as they were in the medieval period and nothing is known of saints such as Gartheli, Bledrws and Gwenog, the patrons of the churches at Gartheli, Betws Bledrws and Llanwenog.
An eighteenth-century antiquarian writer states that St Llwny was the patron of the church at Llanllwni, although the dedication is sometimes thought to be Llonio, or Luke, which is used today. The place-name was recorded as Llanllowni in 1535, and Llonio is known as the patron saint of Llandinam in Montgomeryshire.
