Hidden Window
Continuing on from my post The Accidental Pilgrim I just wanted to offer along with the new poem some of the photos I took in St Bees — the small settlement I arrived at on the west coast of Cumbria after two weeks walking following Wainwright’s Coast to Coast path (albeit in the opposite direction) — and an anecdote about my experiences at the key site.
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The statue of St. Bega, St Bees. Photo by K. Manwaring, 2019.
Praise Song to St Bega
You fled your soft green home
to escape the unwanted attention of men.
In a scrap of a boat you braved
the wild Fenian sea.
You made landfall here
on this hard Cumbrian coast
that juts its grizzled chin
out in defiance at all
seabound invaders.
Yet welcomes stray saints
— though you were an errant Princess then,
until you asked haughty Lord Egremont for
some land to create a place of prayer.
He laughed, said, have all that you can see
that is covered by snow on the morrow.
The next day was midsummer
and the snowflakes fell —
angel fists,
claiming this as
Holy Ground.
(the above poem I composed after my arrival in St Bees, footsore and exhausted from my long trek – I found the lovely statue in a garden by the station, sat down and wrote this).
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Stained glass window depicting St Bega, hidden from public view. Photo by K. Manwaring, 2019.
The next morning, Midsummer’s Day, I visited the church dedicated to St Bega before getting on my train back home. I couldn’t find any shrine (presumably destroyed in the Dissolution) or icon of her, but sat in silent contemplation and found that a meaningful experience in itself. As I got up to leave the sexton came in, turning on the lights – I had been sitting in the gloom without realising it. I asked him if there were anything associated with the saint on display. He said no, but … there was a stained glass window – hidden from public view, in the corner of what is now a kind of utility area. I was thrilled to see it, and take a photo. When I explained my deep delight at being there (a two week impromptu pilgrimage, serendipitously timed to arrive on Midsummer’s Eve, and ‘St Bega’s Day’) he immediately dismissed the saint tale as nonsense – which seemed rather thoughtless, considering my effort. The same could be said, it could be argued, about the far-fetched foundation of his faith (the story of Jesus being the ultimate saint tale), but I didn’t want to be gauche or ungrateful after he had kindly showed me the window. Of course, believing in these saint tales literally is missing the point. It is the imaginative engagement (or act of faith) which is the key – they are, after all, only symbols of the profounder truths they point to, and to literalise them is to confuse the sign with with the signifier. I still felt a visceral response to making it to St Bega’s church on her ‘day’ — it was a private epiphany earned the hard way, and perhaps one that can’t be shared, except with fellow pilgrims. Of course, the very nature of my singular ‘pilgrimage’ made that impossible. I hadn’t met a single hiker walking east-to-west like me, and how many have made the long journey for Midsummer, in honour of St Bega? Very few, I imagine, but with the 900th anniversary of the church’s founding next year perhaps a few more would be willing to honour her on the 23rd and 24th June? The Coast to Coast route seems like a ready made ‘El Camino’ awaiting the feet of the faithful or foolish.
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The Priory Church of St Mary and St Bega, founded in 1120. Photo by K. Manwaring, 2019.
