Thenew

Saint Thenew (Teneu, Thaney, Theneva) is a legendary saint venerated in medieval Glasgow, the mother of Saint Kentigern (Mungo) and, together with him, patron of the city. Tradition makes her a sixth-⁠century Brittonic princess of the kingdom of Gododdin (in what became Lothian), while the calendars place her in the seventh century; her repose is reckoned around 603.

According to the Life of Kentigern, written around 1185 by the monk Jocelyn of Furness from older legends, Thenew became pregnant through the deception of the Welsh prince Owain, son of Urien. Her father, King Lleuddun, condemned her to death and she was hurled from Traprain Law, yet survived. She was then set adrift in a coracle across the Firth of Forth to Culross, where she was received into the community of Saint Serf. There she gave birth to and raised Kentigern, whom Serf nicknamed Mungo, "very dear one". Welsh legends give her other sons; the earliest surviving reference to her, in the Life of Saint Winifred of about 1140, calls her "Theonia".

Saint Enoch Square in Glasgow is said to mark the site of a medieval chapel dedicated to her, the name "Enoch" being a corruption of "Teneu". She is commemorated on 18 July as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.