... some very important information from Michael Hodges's magnificent recently published The Golden Legend. It relates to the Norfolk Saint Walstane, born of local royal stock. He died in 1016, and was buried at Bawburgh. Miracles led to him becoming a ...Saint 'by acclamation',
John Bale, an unfriendly 'reformer', wrote:
" ... both Men and Beastes which had lost their Privy Parts had new Members again restored to them, by this Walstane. Mark thys kynd of Myracles. For your Learnynge, I thynke Ye have seldome redde the lyke."
Mr Hodges lists some ten surviving paintings of S Walstane in Norfolk churches; his feast day, apparently, was (is?) on May 31.
He is usually shown with a scythe and with cattle.
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Wikipedia has a story of how he came to be buried at Bawburg:
“ Walstan is associated with Norfolk, but the Latin Life gives his birthplace as Blythburgh in Suffolk and not Bawburgh, as stated in the English Life. Described as the son of Benedict and Blida, he is said to have "received a pious education". At the age of 12 he determined to devote his life to one of prayer, and became a farm worker for a man at Taverham, near Norwich. After being told of his forthcoming death, he made his confession, stopped working and instructed that his two bulls were to pull his body in a cart wherever God willed. After his death on 30 May 1016, his hearse left Taverham and passed through Costessey before reaching Bawburgh, where he was buried; along the route springs miraculously appeared. A small chapel dedicated to Walstan was built at Bawburgh.
Atheists say that they only accept missing body part restoration miracles, so obviously St. Walstane is an evangelistic sort of miracleworking saint.
Walstane has an obvious claim to be the patron saint of detransitioners.
Neither the 1956 (Newman Press trans., 1961) nor the 2004 edition of the Martyrologium Romanum includes him. The bibliography in the Wikipedia article may be of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Walstan
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