Bega of St. Bees: the Irish princess, nun, or pagan relic?

Viking silver armlet from Cuerdale Hoard, copyright British Museum

The official line on St. Bega¹ is that she was the Irish princess in whose name St Bees’ Priory was founded. Bega decided at an early age that she would devote her life to the church, whereupon an angel gifted her a holy arm-ring as a symbol of her dedication to Christ. Needless to say, Bega was also a very beautiful Irish princess and she was soon in demand for marriage and her father, an Irish king, accepted the proposal of the King of Norway. This was the last thing Bega wanted, so whilst the kings were feasting, Bega used her arm-ring as a magical key to open all the castle’s locks and she escaped across the Irish Sea. She landed near the Cumbrian promontory that is now St. Bees Head and lived a hermit’s life in a hut on the sea shore.

Perhaps the best-known story about Bega is how she came to own the land upon which her priory was built. There are two versions of this tale. The commonest-heard is that Lord Egremont said she could have all the land covered by snow on Midsummer’s Day; of course, it snowed on St. Bees Head on that day. Bega’s life of peace and devotion was shattered with the arrival of the vikings. On invitation from Oswald of Northumbria, she fled her hermitage and crossed England to take her vows at Hackness Priory, near Scarborough. In the 12^th century, her body was discovered and translated to Whitby Abbey.

Over the next hundred years ago, a series of nine Bega-related miracles took place in Cumbria. These were recorded by the brand-new Priory of St Mary and St Bega, which was established at St. Bees under the sponsorship of St Mary’s Priory of York in around 1120. One of these is an earlier version of the tale of unseasonal snow, but this one has a ring of reality about it. Ranulf le Meschin,² the local landowner, fell into a dispute with the monks about boundaries. On the day the bounds were to be settled, snow fell everywhere around except for the headland at St Bees where the priory lay. Anyone who lives near any British coastline – never mind St Bees – will know that it’s not that unusual for a strip of land near the sea to escape the worst of the weather.

The priory had a famous relic, an ancient arm-ring or bracelet, inscribed with a cross, which they believed once belonged to Bega herself. The description from the days of the priory sounds very much like the three arm-rings found in the Cuerdale Hoard³, from Preston; each silver ring is made to fit the upper arm and carries a saltire cross at the widest part. They are Norse viking and have been firmly dated to before 910CE. People gave money to the priory in the name of the ring and many important oaths were sworn upon it in much the same way as people swear oaths upon a bible. The priory lost the arm-ring in a Scottish raid some time in the early 1300s.

St Bees Priory copyright Doug Sim

And here is the difficulty. In the 1860s, William Bell pointed out that the name, Bega, could be derived from the Old English word for ring: beāg. As people became more interested in pre-christian religions, the story grew. Vikings used arm-rings for oaths sworn in pagan religious and legal ceremonies.The ring ‘…should lie on the altar of every major temple.: a ring every chief should have on his wrist…and which he should hold and redden in the blood of an ox that he has sacrificed there himself. Every man… should take an oath by that ring and invoke two or more deities.’⁴

It is a fact that Irish-Norse people settled in West Cumbria in the 10^th century.⁵ There is a gap between Bega’s lifetime and the writing of the Life in the mid 13^th century, in which all manner of facts could have been forgotten or changed. St Bega’s Well⁶ is opposite the reputed remains of a St Michael Chapel (St Michael often having been called in to christianise pagan sites). She had nine miracles – nine being a holy number in Norse pagan culture – and according to the Life, she died on 31^st October, that is, Halloween, or the pre-christian festival of Samhain. Therefore, according to supporters of this theory, this is another example of christians appropriating a pagan religious site/relic and/or holy person.

I have to divert here. When I was an undergraduate umpty years ago, we had to sit a module called, ‘The history of history’. This is because, contrary to common thinking, our understanding of history changes. Sometimes this is due to fashions in thought, and sometimes it’s a result of new discovery – historical, and, increasingly, archaeological – or new analysis. This is why, whilst I collect antiquarian editions of folklore, all my history books are as modern as I can get, and I bug academic friends for unpublished, brand-new papers. If you don’t do this, you’re in danger of promulgating that poisonous combination of Chinese whispers and wishful thinking that comprises much popular history, especially in remote regions like Cumbria.

Unfortunately, the more we look into Bega the more the ‘appropriated pagan’ theory falls down. It requires Bega, or the person with the 9^th/10^th century beāg, to arrive in Cumbria with their pagan Norse viking ideas, probably in the earliest wave of Norse settlement on the Cumbrian coast in the years after 902CE – although recent analysis suggests that these ex-Dublin vikings may have been christian by this point.⁷ She presumably cannot have been an Irish princess, either, or she would have been christian. This line of thought also requires the Life of St Bega to be largely incorrect, as many of the dates precede the appearance of vikings in Ireland and Cumbria: it mentions Bega’s link to Oswald of Northumbria (604-642 CE) and conflates her with a Hackness nun, St Begu (d. 660CE), who was mentioned by Bede (673-735CE). I should add that’s entirely possible that the Life contains nonsense as it was written in the mid 13^th century, centuries after whichever death date you choose, but if you’re willing to discount parts of the Life on those grounds you can’t then insist that other aspects listed there must be correct.

More damningly, ‘the Old English word beāg cannot be easily reconciled to any known spelling of Bega’⁸ and, for heaven’s sake, it’s Old English, not Old Norse, not Irish Gaelic, and not Brythonic, or the language of any other of the contemporary players. In fact, the oldest spelling of ‘Bega’ that we have is in a 12^th century charter and it uses quite a different word: it called St. Bees, Kirkebibeccoch. A signatory to the foundation of the abbey is a certain Gospatic Gillebecoc and the village was still Kirkby Becoc at the Dissolution. Becóc is a personal name seen elsewhere in the Gaelic/Celtic world and the -óc suffix is a diminutive added to names within the Celtic church. The Gaelic Becóc is not the Old English beāg. 

Even that sexy date for her feast – 31^st October – falls down. The Life said that was her date of death, and it’s often repeated that this was her saint’s day. It’s not, unfortunately. A manuscript that once belonged to the priory’s mother-house, St. Mary’s of York, was found in the Bodleian in the late 20^th century and it states very clearly that the feast day was 7^th November.

So where does that leave us? It appears that Becóc is probably a person, not a ring, and she may well have been Irish, and singled out by the Celtic church in the 7^th century. If she is the same as the Begu mentioned by Bede, she wasn’t fleeing Norse vikings, and she wasn’t the owner of that Norse arm-ring venerated by the priory dedicated to her five hundred years after her death. There is no evidence of a pagan cult in her name in Ireland, and, indeed, we have nothing  to track her between her life – whenever that was – and that 12^th century place name. And if, on the other hand, she was fleeing the vikings, why does she have that piece of viking jewellery? And if she was a Norse viking, what is she doing with an Irish name given the pet treatment by the early Celtic church? As for the arm-ring itself,  it need not be a pagan artefact, as the saltires on the Cuerdale examples suggest. But then, what the heck was a christian monastery doing flaunting the oath-swearing powers of an arm-ring, anyway, when it presumably had bibles to hand?

Personally, the only way I can assemble the information into one person is to suggest that Becóc was indeed an early christian from Ireland, whether or not she ended up in Hackness. As for the arm-ring? I can easily imagine the founders of the 12^th century priory digging it up and believing fervently that it was St. Bega’s, and a sign of her blessing. And a great way to fame and fortune.

But, she doesn’t entirely fit anyone’s agenda. And I quite like her for that.

© Diane McIlmoyle 30.04.13

PS. Like many of my friends, I love the ‘aha’ moment when we find remnants of ancient, pre-christian history and I’m sorry this isn’t another one. I suggest popping over to the more rewarding posts featured under ‘Cumbrian gods and goddesses’ (look in the right hand column!).

Bibliography

St Bega – Cult, Fact and Legend by John M Todd, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1980.

St Bega – myth, maiden or bracelet? An Insular cult and its origins by Clare Downham, Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) pp33-42

Religious and Cultural Boundaries between Vikings and Irish: the Evidence of Conversion by Clare Downham, draft article October 2012. Love the phrase, ‘salt water bandits’, by the way.

Oxford Dictionary of Saints, ed. David Farmer (1997)

Some of you may enjoy the counter argument posited by Alex Langstone in his books, Spirit Chaser: The Quest for Bega (2012) and Bega and the Sacred Ring: Restoring a Goddess Archetype (2011).

1. Life of Saint Bega, written sometime in the mid 13^th century.
2. History tells us that it was in fact William le Meschin.
3. See the British Museum’s entry. Please note the picture is their copyright. Don’t pinch it from me – you can get a free copy yourself if you just ask them.
4. See Authority: Construction and Corrosion by Bruce Lincoln (1995), p111. Quote appears to be sourced by Hermann Guntert.
5. A contingent of Norse vikings kicked out of Dublin in 902CE ended up in Cumbria. The district of Copeland appears to be derived from kaupland, or bought or bargained land. The theory is that those Norse vikings bought or negotiated the land from the Kingdom of Strathclyde.
6. See Alan Cleaver, who has tracked down this and other holy wells in Cumbria. Buy his books!
7. See Clare Downham, Religious and Cultural, as above.
8. See Clare Downham, St Bega, as above, p36.

Tourist trinkets, Roman-style

Copyright Dominic Coyne (see details below)

See this lovely thing? It’s quite small – 47mm high and 94mm in diameter – but simply glorious. The colours are vivid shades of red, blue, turquoise and yellow, enamelled in a swirling native ‘celtic’ design of roundels, petals, and what the British Museum cutely call, ‘whirligigs’. The metal encasing the enamel is a copper alloy, so it would originally have been a lustrous reddish-gold shade. It’s actually more like a pan than a bowl as it would originally have had a dinky bow-shaped handle. And it’s about 1850 years old.

It was found by a metal detectorist in Staffordshire in 2003, but experts believe that it was made here in Cumbria as a very early visitor souvenir. The writing near the rim is in Latin and says,

The genius cucullatus, or the Original Hoodie

Genius Cucullatus from Tullie House

Picture time! See this fella? He’s a genius cucullatus, to give him his Latin name, but whether he was a Roman import or a native, his original owner wouldn’t have called him that. Genius cucullatus just means, ‘spirit in a hood’. This one, which was found at Birdoswald on Hadrian’s Wall, is the only one in Britain which is a single standing statue. They’re usually carved in relief on a flat stone, and in Britain, they are often depicted in groups of three.I wish it was simple matter to tell you what he represents, but that’s not possible. He’s often linked with

Free healthcare for all, 1880s-style

I found out recently that my mum was born in Workington Hospital. You may think that’s not a startling revelation, but mum was born in 1941, before the National Health Service, and in those days most babies – unquestionably so, if you were from an ordinary working family – were born at home with the assistance of a midwife.

A certain Cumbrian baby with her mum, 1942

I then thought that this must be another example of my Cumbrian family’s belt-and-braces approach to life. Everything was insured, under warranty, serviced and any other

Dobbies, boggles, ghosts and the 19th century journalist…

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but it’s very rare for me to include ghost stories on Esmeralda’s. It’s not that I haven’t looked at a few – always ones supposedly rooted in an historical event – but with one exception¹, they don’t pass the simplest test of veracity. Some simply don’t marry up with historical events, like the Claife Crier², and others, such as the Beckside Boggle³ and Hutton-in-the-Forest’s headless horsewoman⁴, are demonstrably fiction, with authors, publishing dates and so on. 

I’ve also chosen not to spend a lot of time with our assorted otherworldly creatures – dobbies, boggles, barguests, elves, fairies, cappels, hobs and bogarts – partly because there are others tackling these⁵ but mostly because they’re almost impossible to define. Let’s look at a few attempts at definition by other historians: Henderson⁶, writing in 1866, suggests that ghosts and ‘bogles’ are interchangeable, although a ‘dobie’ is a ‘mortal heavy sprite’, which appears to be 19^th –century Borders code for a ghost that’s none-too-clever. Sullivan⁷, in 1891, on the other hand, is confident that a ‘dobbie’ is ‘a kind of household fairy’ somewhat like a hobgoblin (and indeed similar to the one in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series). On the other hand, the more recent (2009) Geoff Holder⁸ has collected evidence to suggest that both boggles and dobbies are associated with murders and suicides. I, in my turn, have come across a dobby which

Twelfth Night, Candlemas, and ‘the greener box for show’

I know what you’ll be doing on Sunday morning! Half of you will struggle down to the garden centre with the Christmas tree to have it chipped and the other half will be wondering how the box has shrunk by three inches since you got the tree out a month ago. All of you will find that one glass ornament has been broken, and all pet owners will find a stretch of tinsel that has had all the dangly bits chewed off it.

Buxus Sempiverens (copyright Tomasz Górny)

Popular lore has it that Christmas decorations have to be taken down on the evening of Twelfth Night ( ie. the evening of 5th January, before Twelfth Day, 6th January) or you will have bad luck in the following year. I assumed this was several-hundred-year-old folklore, but it seems not. I started on a trail to the truth when I was listening to a Christmassy CD1 by the folk singer, Kate Rusby, and was surprised to see a song called ‘Candlemas Eve’. ‘Ho!’ thought I. ‘Someone doesn’t know their history, or was one song short of an album’. But I was wrong. It seems that for a large stretch of history you didn’t take decorations down until Candlemas Eve, that is, the evening of 1st February.I also found the words quite strange, to the extent it took me quite a while to work out what they were. It turns out they are a 17th-century poem written by Robert Herrick.

The Christmas/Midwinter round-up!

When you’ve been blogging for a while, you realise that there are very few subjects left uncovered and there are experts in everything (…and some who specialise in opinion, perhaps…). Anyway, here’s a round-up of festive posts for your reading delight.

Copyright D McIlmoyle

For a summary of the ancient origins of Christmas and midwinter customs, you could visit my post or pop over to Medievalists for their very thorough summary of Christmas in the Middle Ages.

One of my favourite blogs which seems to get nowhere near the coverage it should is Ferrebeekeeper. Here you will find

“A Mass of Indecent Vulgarity” : Christmas Mummers in 1820s Whitehaven

‘The comedians, of which there are many companies, parade the streets, and ask at almost every door if the mummers are wanted. They are dressed in the most grotesque fashion; their heads adorned with high paper caps, gilt and spangled, and their bodies with ribbons of various colours, while St. George and the prince are armed with ten swords. The mysterie ends with a song… I am satisfied you will join me, in surprise, that for so great a number of years, such a mass of indecent vulgarity as “Alexander and the King of Egypt” should be used without alteration.’

The doctor revives the patient – Mummer’s play

(Letter from William Hone of Whitehaven to The Every Day Book; dated 4^th September 1826.)

‘On the eve of the 25^th, a party of mummers, dressed in most fantastic costume… were admitted to the