St. Winifred

I'm reading about priest holes and came across the story of St. Winifred.  She is a new one for me although she has been referred to in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a drama entitled St. Winifred's Well.  Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael books mention her frequently.  How come I haven't come across her before?

Winifred was a beautiful maiden and her holiness made her even more beautiful.  Legend has it that a rebuffed suitor chopped her head off.  (See the mark on her neck, in the picture.)  A spring of water sprung up where her head fell on the ground.  Winifred's uncle, Saint

Depiction of Gwenfrewy.

Beuno, managed to put the head back on her shoulders.  Winifred entered a convent and eventually became Abess.  She is the patroness of virgins and female infertility.

Pilgrimages to her well were popular.  People walked barefoot for the last mile.  Many miracles happened at her well.  One legend says that many pilgrims on their way to well fell through the ice into the stream.  They were immersed for a while until they were rescued.  Yet,  they were not cold afterward, in spite of wearing dripping wet clothes.