Kentigern

Kentigern (Mungo) (d. 612), monk and bishop, evangelist of Strathclyde and Cumbria. There are many legends but few known facts about Kentigern: all the sources date from the 11th and 12th centuries and most of them are from the North. They contain various folkloric elements which are considerably older than the 11th century, but have no historical value. From these traditions it may be assumed that he was the grandson of a British prince (Urien?) and of illegitimate birth; that he was educated by Serf at Culross; that he was a monk of the Irish tradition who practised the customary austerities, that he was consecrated bishop of the Strathclyde area by an Irish bishop; that he suffered from the political disorder of his kingdom and was exiled to Cumbria (and much less likely to Wales). Then he returned to Strathclyde and lived at Hoddam (Dumfries) and especially at Glasgow, as before; here he died and was buried: his relics are claimed by Glasgow cathedral.

Some of the more incredible elements of the Legends include his mother being thrown off a cliff in a wagon and being set adrift in a coracle before Kentigern's birth; Kentigern in later life telling the queen who had given her husband's ring to her lover not to worry, as one of his monks extracted it from a salmon which he caught (after the king had thrown the ring out to sea and told her to find it in three days). This story is the cause of the presence of the ring and the fish on the arms of the city of Glasgow. One of his biographers made him 185 years old when he died: perhaps he really lived to be eighty-five.

There are several ancient Scottish dedications to Kentigern under his pet-name of Mungo and nine in England, mainly in Cumbria. The story that he founded a large and important monastery in North Wales numbering nearly 1, 000 monks and that he became first bishop of St. Asaph's is exceedingly unlikely. It depends on only one late Welsh source and is unsupported by any trace of a liturgical cult in N. Wales or by church dedications. Less unlikely is the story that he exchanged pastoral staffs with Columba near the end of that saint's life. Feast: 13 January.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• The best modern critical study is by K. H. Jackson, ‘The Sources for the Life of St. Kentigern’ in N. K. Chadwick, Studies in the Early British Church (1958), pp. 273–357. The sources themselves are in A. P. Forbes, Lives of St. Ninian and St. Kentigern (1874; ‘The Historians of Scotland’, vol. V), in AA.SS. Ian II (1643), 98 ff. and N.L.A., ii. 114–27. See also: J. MacQueen, ‘Yvain, Ewen and Owein ap Urien’, Transactions of Dumfriesshire and Galloway Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Society, xxxiii (1956), 107 ff.; J. Carney, Studies in Early Irish Literature (1955) and J. W. James, A Vindication of St. Kentigern's Connection with Llanelwy (pamphlet, Bangor, 1960)

Also known as Mungo. Patron saint (d. 603) of Glasgow and early bishop of Strathclyde around whom many legends have accrued. According to tradition, he is the grandson of Urien of Rheged and a relative of King Arthur; his mother was Thenaw, the Christian daughter of King Lot of Lothian, brother-in-law of King Arthur. Kentigern survived two attempts to kill him. First, his mother was about to be executed for her pregnancy but escaped; she recited the psalter while standing in an icy stream. Later the child and his mother were set adrift in a coracle, but were miraculously saved. These associations with water may partially explain Kentigern's identification with the salmon. According to a well-known story, King Rhydderch found a ring he had given his wife on the finger of a sleeping knight. He removed it and threw it into the sea and asked his wife where it was. She turned to Kentigern for help, who proceeded to catch a salmon that had swallowed the ring. The ring and salmon are in the arms of the city of Glasgow. Kentigern was reputed to have baptized Merlin before his death, a possible borrowing from the Irish Buile Shuibhne [The Madness of Suibne] story. Kentigern is also credited with evangelizing Cumbria (Scottish Lowlands) and establishing the Welsh see of Llanelwy (or St Asaph). Stories about Kentigern indicate that he was austere and that he travelled widely in Wales and Ireland; his feast-day is 14 January. See LAILOKEN.

Bibliography

• “Joceline of Furness's 12th-century” Life of St. Kentigern, in W. F. Skene (ed.), Four Ancient Books of Wales (Edinburgh, 1874)
• A. P. Forbes, The Lives of St. Ninian and St. Kentigern (Edinburgh, 1868).
• The saint's link to Merlin is in the Welsh poem Lailoken and Kentigern, ed. H. D. L. Ward, Romania, 22 (1893), 514–25.
• also Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydain, rev. edn. (Cardiff, 1978), 319–21, 548