Chris Kenny
St Samson
Construction with found twig
£365.00 (framed)
8cm x 18cm
July 28th
Samson was brought up in the abbey of Llantwit ruled by St Illtyd. Everybody liked him except Illtyd's nephew who tried to poison Samson, unsuccessfully.
He was ordained and worked as a bursar on the holy island of Caldey. He became abbot when the former abbot St Pyr fell down a well while drunk.
Samson set about evangelizing Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, where one of the islands is named after him.
He persuaded his father to become a monk and his mother to become a nun and himself lived as a hermit near the mouth of the Severn before travelling to Brittany to build a monastery at Dol. Here he planted fruit groves, in reclaimed marshland, that still bear his name.
He founded other abbeys and had jurisdiction over the Channel Islands.
The Samson pillar at Llantwit is one of the oldest Christian monuments in Britain.
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