FRIDESWIDE

by Catherine Smith (Oxford)

Frideswide’s not a woman to be messed with. She builds a priory at the city gates and takes the veil with 12 young women; chaste, secluded. News of her great beauty reaches a Mercian prince. He wants her, body and soul.

She resists, pleading chastity; he persists, pleading lust. She finds a deserted boat, flees via the Thames to Bampton, hides in a forest swine-hut, prays for a fountain for survival. Lives there for three years, concealed, until it’s safe to return.

How the thwarted Prince fumes, threatens arson, destruction, war! He’s almost breaking into the city when she invokes Saints Cecilia and Catherine, who strike her persecutor blind. With their leader wounded, his army retreat. One-nil, Frideswide.

Compassionate, touched by his misery, she prays again and is instructed to hit the ground with her abbess’s staff. The ground parts to reveal a well, whose water cures his blindness. She’s not a woman to bear a grudge.

---

What Catherine Smith says about FRIDESWIDE:

Inspired by researching the story of Oxford’s patron Saint