Saint Cadoc

However, the invasion of the idolatrous S axons, with all the horrors and profanations that accompanied it, successively reached the banks of the Severn and the Usk, which bounded Cadoc's monastic domains. He felt obliged to leave Cambria and set sail for Armorica, where so many illustrious refugees had preceded him, having become the apostles and legendary patrons of that glorious land. There, he founded a new monastery on a small, deserted island in the Morbihan Archipelago, which is still shown near the Ilhuys peninsula; he trained numerous disciples there. This island is in the current parish of Belz (arrondissement of Lorient); it is still called *Saint-Cadoc Island*, and its chapel is the destination of a pil grimage.

After a stay of several years in Armorica, Cadoc left his flourishing new community under the governance of another pastor, and returned to Great Britain to console the many Christians who had survived the massacres of the conquest and were living under the yoke of a pagan race. He settled in Weedon (Northamptonshire): martyrdom awaited him there. One morning, as he was celebrating the divine sacrifice, a marauding band of Saxon warriors on h orseback entered the temple and rushed toward the altar. The Saint continued the sacrifice: a Saxon chief, spurring his horse and brandishing his spear, went straight to him and struck him in the heart. Cadoc fell to his knees, and his last wish, his last thought, were still for his dear compatriots. He is honored as a Martyr, in Vannes, on September 21.

He is depicted: 1° driving away the snakes that infested the coasts of Morbihan and disturbed his solitude; 2° pierced by a lance by a Saxon soldier, at the moment he was offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Excerpt from The Monks of the West, by t he Count of Montalemb ert, and from Local Notes.