January 11th: St Hernin

January 11th: St Hernin aka Hern ('strong summit').

Born in England, Hernin came to Armorica in 528.

He settled in the parish of Duault (future parish of Locarn), where the lord of Quelen

accepted his presence on his land, asking Hernin to mark the boundary of his hermitage

with a ditch.

Hernin was given only one day to do this, and a gap of half a mile was left in the

perimeter, where he hung his stick.

He spent the rest of his life there, and was buried there, his grave marked with a stone.

The story is told that after his death Albert le Grand, a count of Poher, was out hunting

deer on the site of the hermitage, which had been forgotten by most people.

Approaching Hernin's grave, the hounds and horses were unable to move until the deer

hunt was called off.

Learning about the old hermitage from local people the count decided to build a church

on the place.

At the time of its construction, a flock of birds are said to have built a dome over the

grave.

Hernin is the patron saint of Locarn and Saint-Hernin, and the fountains of both villages

are ascribed to him for healing from paralysis.

Hernin is mentioned in the C12 cartulary of Redon (a collection of charters) and it is said

he is invoked as a confessor in the Celtic Litany in the library of Salisbury Cathedral.

His attributes are a stick and a book.

In Celtic mythology, a deer accompanied the deceased in death in the hope they would be

reborn, and is understood to be a sign of resurrection.

...And so we close our eyes when we pray to seek the blindness
that offers a window into the world, & the world within this one,
sudden rain so fine it could be just a trick of the wind & the light,
there & gone, as the deer move off, through the silky wilds
of Queen Anne's lace, through clover scatter-brushed in the grasses,
the long grasses that hold the traces of their passing

for a moment only,

& beneath the old pear trees already heavy with their suns,
with the cities of clouds the caterpillars have spun for their tombs
as they move from this life & into the next one.
And we, with our rain-limned bodies, listening

for the echoes of our prayers to return,
to the aethereal bodies drifting so close & out of sight,
listening hard for the sound of our own disappearance.

Mark Wagonaar (from 'Deer Hour Gospel')