Credan

Saint Credan is commemorated in Cornwall on 11 May as a swineherd, a keeper of pigs. Tradition says he was a follower of Saint Petroc and that he accidentally killed his own father, which moved him so deeply that he abandoned the world and lived as a swineherd, with a life so exemplary that he was held to be a saint. Some scholars regard him as a legendary figure.

The name Credan is also borne by a saint of Evesham in England, Saint Credan, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Evesham in the time of King Offa of Mercia, who reposed on 19 August 780. No details of his life were preserved; his relics were put to the ordeal of fire in 1077, and according to tradition they survived and shone like gold. The church of Sancreed in Cornwall is sometimes linked with him, but the Cornish saint may be meant. The year 780 in our record belongs to the abbot of Evesham, not to the Cornish saint.