Today is St Dwynwen’s Day. It's like a Welsh Valentine’s Day only kind of bleaker.

Dwynwen was a 5th century Welsh woman who became the patron saint of lovers. She was renowned for being the prettiest of King Brychan Brycheiniog’s 24 daughters. Enraptured by her beauty a man named Maelon Dafodrill fell madly in love with the young princess,

and she returned his feelings just as ardently. Unfortunately, as is often the case with cruel fathers of legend, the king had already arranged that his daughter should marry someone else.

Dwynwen was so upset that she could not marry Maelon that she begged God to make her forget him. That night she was visited by an angel, who appeared carrying an elixir designed to erase all memory of her unrequited and turn him into a block of ice.

God then gave three wishes to Dwynwen. Her first wish was that sweet Maelon be defrosted - obvs -, her second that God fulfil the dreams of true lovers everywhere, and third that she should never have to marry anyone else.

In gratitude Dwynwen devoted herself to God’s service for the rest of her life. The well at the convent she founded in Llanddwyn, on the island of Anglesey, became a place of pilgrimage for the love-lorn after her death in 465AD.

It is believed that magical eels that live inside the well can tell whether prospective romantic entanglements will have a happy ending or not.

In a less poetic version of the legend, though Dwynwen was indeed deeply in love with Maelon Dafodrill, things soured when he made premarital sexual advances. She rebuffed him and he became enraged and left her.

This time it was a prayer of sadness and fearfulness at the prospect of her compromised virtue that Dwynwen made to God, and soon enough her former suitor’s ardour was cooled.

Writing in the 14th century the great poet Dafydd ap Gwilym implored Dwynwen to help swell the passions between him and his married lover Morfudd. As that sort of thing is frowned upon Dafydd promised the saint that she wouldn't lose her place in heaven by helping them out.

He also called on God to keep Morfudd’s interfering husband from interrupting the lovers in their woodland trysts.

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