Ratian

Saint Ratian (also called Ratiau) is a saint of Brittany, commemorated on 10 January (new style, Western calendar). He was a disciple of Saint Guénolé and, according to tradition, protected Elliant, Tourc'h, Langolen and the surrounding settlements during an epidemic of plague. A song of the Barzaz Breiz, said to date from the sixth century, mentions him.

Malo-⁠Joseph de Garaby, in his book of 1839, presents him as a hermit who left the abbey of Landévennec, where he had been a zealous monk, to shut himself away in solitude at the place called Pleturch. When a dreadful plague was laying Brittany waste, Ratian offered himself as a sacrifice so that the others might be spared; the Lord accepted his wish and spared him and his neighbours. He is a saint of the undivided Church, honoured locally.