Saint Goulven de Léon

Saint Goulven de Léon (also Golven, Golvinus, Golvenus) was a saint in Brittany in the 6th-7th century. Any knowledge of his life is derived from his vita, of which only a copy of a transcription of the original remains and whose historical accuracy is in question. According to that vita, he was the bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon in the seventh century, after having acquired a reputation as an ascetic and anchorite whose prayer and presence cured people and had helped fight off a Viking invasion. When he was elected as bishop, he tried to avoid that responsibility by going to Rome; after intervention by Pope Gregory I he returned and served for over a decade. He died in Rennes (on the other side of Brittany from Saint-Pol-de-Léon), where he was buried in the cathedral. He continued to be venerated in various parts of Brittany, most notably in the small commune of Goulven and other communes nearby in the Pays de Léon, the very western part of Finistère. According to his vita, collected by Albert Le Grand in the 1637 Lives of the Saints of Armorial Bretaigne, Saint Goulven was the son of immigrants from the British Isles who landed in 540 at Plouider. His father, Glaudan, and his pregnant mother, Gologuenn, landed in Plounéour-Trez Cove (also called Goulven Cove) in Brengorut when night fell; a local farmer, though he saw they were poor and in need, refused them lodging. That night Goulven was born, in a place called Odena. The next morning Glaudan asked at a nearby house for water to wash the child and refresh the mother but was rejected. A peasant gave him a bucket and showed him the way to a spring, but Glaudan lost his way in the forest and wandered around all day, until he found himself back with his wife and child. In agony, he prayed, and a spring with sweet water miraculously appeared. The spring (the Feunteun Sant Goulven), near which later the saint's church was built, was claimed to cure people miraculously.