Gwen Teirbron

Saint

Gwen Teirbron
Saint; Gwen Teirbron
Born	Brittany
Died	5th or 6th century
Venerated in	Catholic Church; Western Orthodoxy; Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
Feast	3 October (Catholic Church); 18 July (Russian Orthodox Church Abroad)

Gwen Teirbron (French: Blanche; Latin: Alba Trimammis or Candida; possibly English: Wite) was a Breton holy woman and wife of Fragan who supposedly lived in the 5th or 6th century. Her epithet is Welsh for '(of the) three breasts'.

Veneration[]

Popular devotion interpreted Gwen's unusual physical and spiritual fecundity by God's gift to her of a third breast. Her iconography followed suit. Gwen is invoked for women's fertility. She is commemorated on 3 October in the Catholic Church (although this has been transferred from Saint Candidus of Rome), and on 18 July (NS) by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Australia.^[1]

Possible identification[]

She is interpreted by Dyfed Lloyd Evans as having been a euhemerized mother goddess.^[2]

Children[]

Winwaloe, son of Prince Fragan (or Fracan) and Teirbron^[3]^[4]
Jacut (or James), son of Prince Fragan and Teirbron^[3]^[4]
Wethenoc (or Gwethenoc or Guethenoc), son of Prince Fragan and Teirbron^[3]^[4]
Creirwy (or Creirvy), daughter of Prince Fragan and Teirbron^[3]
Cadfan, son of Eneas Ledewig (or Aeneas of Brittany) and Teirbron^[5]

References[]

^ Canberra Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church (Abroad). Brief Lives of Saints, 2007.
^ Nemeton: Gwen Teir Bron
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Butler, Alban. The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints, volume 1, p. 275 (Henry & Co. 1857).
^ ^a ^b ^c Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 3, p. 38 (1911).
^ Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 2, p. 9 (C. J. Clark, 1908).

[Russian-1] Canberra Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church (Abroad). Brief Lives of Saints, 2007.

[2] Nemeton: Gwen Teir Bron

[Butler-3] Butler, Alban. The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints, volume 1, p. 275 (Henry & Co. 1857).

[Baring3-4] Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 3, p. 38 (1911).

[5] Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Volume 2, p. 9 (C. J. Clark, 1908).

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