Non of Wales

Saint Non, also called Nonna or Nonita, is honoured by Christian tradition as the mother of Saint David, patron of Wales. She is remembered in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, where chapels and holy wells keep her name.

Life

The main source about her is the Life of Saint David, written around 1095 by the Norman cleric Rhigyfarch, whose father had been bishop of the place. He says that Non was a nun at Ty Gwyn, "the White House", near Whitesands Bay in Pembrokeshire, although she may have entered monastic life later as a widow. Some versions make her the daughter of the nobleman Cynyr of Caer Goch. Breton traditions count her instead as a daughter of Saint Brechan and a granddaughter of Conan Meriadoc.

According to tradition, Non was seized and violated by one of the princes of the land. Rhigyfarch names him as Sant (Sanctus), king of Ceredigion, who came upon her while travelling through Dyfed. Though she conceived, she remained chaste before and afterwards and lived on bread and water alone. It is told that a preacher could not speak in the presence of the child in her womb, which was understood as a sign that the child would himself be a great preacher. A local ruler, perhaps Vortiporius, learned of the pregnancy, feared the child to be born and plotted to kill him at birth. On the day of the birth, however, a great storm arose, so that no one could go out of doors. Only the place where Non groaned in her labour was bathed in light. By tradition her fingers left marks in the rock she held, and the stone split in sympathy with her. A church was built on the place of the birth, and the stone is now walled into the foundations of the altar.

Other versions say that she was married to Sant before or after David's birth, that she raised her son at Henfynyw near Aberaeron, and that she founded a convent of nuns at the place now called Llanon, after her. Later she is said to have travelled to Cornwall and at last to a convent in Brittany. The Breton tradition places her in the forest of Talarmon, which then covered much of the Landerneau region, where she took shelter, and says she spent the rest of her life at Dirinon in Finistère. Another version makes her the wife of Gedelic, a powerful chieftain of Cornwall, driven out because she was with child outside marriage, giving birth in a terrible storm in the year 520. Some sources, more rarely, remember Non as a male companion of David, and one legend has her slain by druids at Bradstone in Devon. In Brittany it is also told that David (Divi) was born on a rock that grew soft as wax to become his cradle.

Veneration

The place where Non gave birth to David is now called Capel Non, and the chapel of Saint Non stands there. Close to its ruins is her holy well, and nearby are a retreat house and a chapel to Our Lady and Saint Non, built in 1934. The ruins are easily reached from the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. Other churches bear her name in Devon, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.

Her relics were at first venerated at Altarnun in Cornwall, but were destroyed at the Reformation. Fragments of medieval glass above the altar may show her, and a holy well nearby has a long tradition of bringing the mentally afflicted to be bathed in it, in hope of healing. She is also patron of Pelynt in Cornwall, where Saint Nonna's holy well is found.

Non reposed at Dirinon in Brittany, about ten miles east of Brest, and is buried there. Her shrine can still be seen in the parish church of Dirinon, and a church and chapel nearby carry her name. In Brittany an old religious drama in the Breton language about the life of Non and her son has also been preserved, published in 1837. Her feast is kept on 2 or 3 March.