Melangell

Saint Melangell
Sketch of Melangell on the rood screen at Pennant Melangell by John Ingleby, 1795
Abbess, Hermit
Born	Ireland
Died	Kingdom of Powys (modern-day Wales)
Major shrine	Saint Melangell's Church, Pennant Melangell
Feast	27 May[1]
Patronage	Hares

Melangell (Welsh: [me`laŋeɬ], Latin: Monacella, lit. 'little nun'^[2]) was a Welsh hermit and abbess. She possibly lived in the 7th or 8th century, although the precise dates are uncertain. According to her hagiography, she was originally an Irish princess who fled an arranged marriage and became a consecrated virgin in the wilderness of the Kingdom of Powys. She supernaturally protected a hare from a prince's hunting dogs, and was granted land to found a sanctuary and convent.

Melangell's cult has been closely centred on her 12th-century shrine at St Melangell's Church, Pennant Melangell, which was founded at her grave. The church contains the reconstructed Romanesque shrine to Melangell, which had been dismantled in the aftermath of the Reformation. Since the medieval period, she has been venerated as the patron saint of hares; for many centuries, her association with hares was so strong that locals would not kill a hare in the parish of Pennant Melangell.