Saint Nectan

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There are other historic or legendary persons with the name Nectan.

Church of St Nectan at Stoke by Hartland

Saint Nectan, sometimes styled Saint Nectan of Hartland was a 5th century Celtic holyman who lived in Stoke-by-Hartland, in the English county of Devon, where the prominent parish church is dedicated to him.

1 Life
2 Veneration
3 Possible origins
4 External links

[edit] Life

The commonest legend holds that the saint was the eldest of the many children of King Brychan of Brycheiniog (now Brecknock in South Wales). Receiving a vocation to become a hermit, he sailed to North Devon and settled by a spring (now St Nectan's Well) at Stoke, in the then forest of Hartland. Although, he is also associated with St Nectan's Glen and Waterfall (or Kieve) at Trethevy, near Tintagel, in Cornwall, where it is claimed he spent some time as a hermit. At Hartland, he was attacked by robbers who cut off his head, but he picked it up and walked back to his well before collapsing and dying. It is said that wherever his blood fell, foxgloves grew up. He was buried in his chapel on the site of St Nectan's Church in Stoke.

[edit] Veneration

After Nectan's death, a cult grew up around his shrine and this continued to be popular throughout the Middle Ages, supported both by Saxon kings and Norman lords. The church was in the possession of the Augustinian Canons from the adjoining Hartland Abbey until such monastic orders were disestablished during the Reformation. His feast day is 17 June, the supposed day of his death (traditionally around 510), and there is still a tradition of taking foxgloves to his well on that day. A number of other churches in Devon are dedicated to St Nectan, but only two ancient ones: Welcombe, just south of Hartland, and probably originally Ashton (now St John the Baptist). There is also a medieval chapel of Saint Nectan near St Winnow in Cornwall.

[edit] Possible origins

The earliest association of the name Nectan seems to be with an Irish water-god, Nechtan, probably identical to the Romano-British god, Nodens. He may have been the patron of St Nectan's Well at Stoke, later being christianized to make worship at the site more acceptable.