At the feast of St Almedha early in August, people danced round the churchyard of her church near Brecknock with a song, then fell down as if in a trance. They leapt up and acted out, before the crowd, the work they had wrongly done on feast days, such as ploughing or weaving, until they were led to the altar and came to themselves. Peter Roberts gave Giraldus’s account and thought it had really been a festival of the working trades.
St Almedha’s dance near Brecknock
Printed under 1 August · Near Brecon, Brecknockshire
No longer kept
A solemn festival is annually held here, in honour of this saint, in the beginning of August. At this festival, you may see men or girls now in the churchyard, now in the dance, which is led round the churchyard with a song
From Roberts's Cambrian Popular Antiquities, p. 205. Read the original
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