Baglan - Myths and Legend

Myths and Legends

St Baglan

Baglan is said to have been a 6th century Breton prince who studied at Saint Illtud's monastic school at Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major). He later travelled to the Vale of Neath as a missionary and founded the church at Baglan.

Legend has it that Baglan demonstrated his holy power by carrying fire in his robe without burning it. On seeing this, Illtud gave him a crozier and instructed him to build a church on a site where he found a tree that bore three fruit. Baglan found a tree at current day Baglan, near the estuary of the River Nedd, that had a beehive, a crow's nest and a litter of pigs under it.

Baglan, however, preferred a site nearer the coast but when he began the construction of the church, the building materials were either washed away overnight or mysteriously moved to the original site by the tree. Baglan then realised that the church was meant by God to be built by the tree. St Baglan's church was rebuilt later in the medieval period and burned down in 1954 leaving it as a ruin.

'Traditions of the Welsh Saints' by Elissa Henken

'An informant in 1976 tells a story told her by her grandmother in the 1950s concerning Pistyll Baglan, a small spring in the woods near the church. The legends is that when Baglan built the church, he could not find any water, so imitating Moses, he struck a rock with a stick. The rock split in two and produced a spring. Then 'a king from the North' came with many soldiers, who with their horses, drank all the water despite Baglan's pleas for them to stop. Baglan thereupon, pointed at them with his staff, which grew until he could push them away. The informant has forgotten some of the following details but remembers that the king apologised and took his men away, promising never to reveal the spring's location. Baglan struck the rock, so that the spring again flowed, and it has never failed since.'

The Baglan Giant

Our whole school have recently read the story of The Baglan Giant. Pupils in the Infants have written acrostic poems and newspaper reports, used JIT to draw Hywel the giant on the iPads and have recreated an image of the giant by using materials from around the school. The Juniors have created story maps, cartoon strips, character descriptions, front covers and book reviews.