The Day of Saints - Day 24, Constantine

A few weeks ago, I had planned to visit Constantine Bay to find any reference I could to Constantine, the Cornish Saint that gave his name to the area. On that earlier occasion I ended the day at the heart of a golf course in St Enodoc's Church. I was amused and bemused to find that the only remains extant for Constantine were also located on a golf course. Parking up, I asked permission to wander look, and was directed around the fairways and, once I had answered a golfer who suspected I was taking a short cut to the beach, arrived at Constantine's Well, a ruin nicely protected by a modern built sideless low hut. There wasn't much to look at, bar a few carved medieval stones lying to one side. Taking the waters there was said to bring rain during dry weather, but since it looked like rain was imminent anyway, I didn't bother!

Constantine's Well covered between the fairways

Further investigation, across the short course fairway, led to a path, overgrown with brambles, and a stone arch between two walls. This was the chapel, or what remained of it. I remarked to my wife that it was strange to think it had been there for a thousand or more years, and now was derelict and ignored amid the passing men and women on their way to the nineteenth hole.

Ruined remains of a chapel hidden amid the brambles.

Constantine is a difficult saint to identify because it was a common name in those ancient times, and there is confusion between (among others), Constantine of Strathclyde, and Constantine of Dumnomia. The latter is most likely the one to go with, and he is mentioned perhaps as a 'wealthy man' in the Life of St Petroc. It is said that in later life, and after suffering grief at the loss of his wife, Constantine was hunting a deer which took shelter in Saint Petroc's monastic cell at what is now Little Petherick, and Petroc protecting the deer so impressed Constantine that he and his bodyguard converted to Christianity. I have taken some of these images, but this time omitted any reference to golf courses! I have also tried not to be too 'Hound of Heaven' about it, too. (See https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hound-of-heaven/ )

FOR CONSTANTINE

Dearly Beloved

I'd looked on that look before,

Haunted and hunted,

Pursued through the thickets and thorns,

Only to end up there, cornered;

Such a frail and trembling thing.

My sweet knew it on her bed,

Beloved and yet benighted,

Outwitting apothecaries and incantation,

Graved in her eyes, departing,

And fearing no later arrival.

But he stood differently,

Untroubled, unflinching,

Between spear point and naked flesh,

With whispering lips, and eyes filled

with tears of reality condensed.

So I stood there, too,

Haunted and hunted by myself,

Out-pursued by constancy of rage,

But timely driven to that corner cell,

Wherein I trembled and wept.

Surely, the heart has its reasons,

But grace abounds.

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