Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/256

192 a man in whose face your venerable father has spat—not if you have any self-respect.

A little further down the river is Golant, or S. Samson. This is a foundation of a man better known than S. Winnow. His story deserves telling, at least so much of it as pertains to Cornwall.

Samson was son of Amwn the Black, Prince of Bro-Weroc in Brittany, that is to say, the country about Vannes which had been colonised by British settlers. There ensued a little family brawl, which obliged Amwn to fly for his life. He escaped into Wales, where he married Anne, daughter of the Prince of Glamorgan. Samson was educated by S. Iltyd in Caldey Isle, and was taught "all the Old and New Testament, and all sorts of philosophy, to wit, geometry and rhetoric, grammar and arithmetic, and all the arts known in Britain."

He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical state, and spent many years in Wales. He paid a visit to Ireland, inspected the monasteries there, and then returned to Wales, where he was ordained bishop. After a while he considered that he might just as well try to get back to Brittany, and see whether he could recover some of the authority and the lands and position of which his father had been deprived. Accordingly he crossed to Cornwall and landed at Padstow, where he dedicated a little chapel, where now stands Prideaux Place. Here he was visited by S. Petrock on his arrival, as also by S. Winnow, not the Winnow of the Fowey river, but another, a brother of S. Winwaloe, who had settled at Lewanick. He was related to Samson through his mother.