93. SAINTWALSTAN OF TAVERHAM
Our holy Father Walstan was born in East Anglia, either at Bawburgh in Norfolk or at Blythburgh in Suffolk, during the reign of King Aethelred, in the late tenth century. He was said to have been of noble lineage and related to the king's son, Edmund Ironside. Walstan's father is recorded as having been called Benedict, and his mother was Blide (or Blythe); the St. Blide who was buried and honoured at Marsham.
At the age of 12, Walstan renounced his patrimony, left home and travelled to Taverham, just north of Norwich, where he sought employment as a farm labourer. He was hired by a local farmer, who put him to work in the fields and woodland in the surrounding area near Costessey. There he laboured with great devotion and obedience, combining his toil with constant prayer and frequent fasting. He also took a vow of celibacy although he never received monastic tonsure. All the time he kept his true identity (as a nobleman) a secret. He was so charitable that he frequently gave his meagre rations to the poor, and sometimes even his shoes, going barefoot as a result. On one occasion he was severely punished by his employer's wife for what she had come to regard as his foolishness.
Eventually, the farmer wished to adopt St. Walstan as his heir. The saint refused this honour. Instead he asked that, at his death, he be given two oxen to draw his body wherever they wanted to its place of burial. This request was granted and two white ox calves were set aside for this eventuality.
Three days before his death, St. Walstan received an angelic visitation, witnessed by a companion, forewarning him of his death and translation to heaven. The priest of Taverham church who came to give him Holy Communion omitted to bring water with him to mix with the wine. At the prayers of the saint a well-spring miraculously sprang up. The site of this well can still be seen to this day.
St. Walstan died in a field, praying for all the sick and for cattle, at noon. His body was placed on a rough cart and was drawn by the two white oxen, which wended their way through Costessy Woods, across the River Wensum until they reached to what is now Costessey Park. At this point the oxen rested for a while, a sacred spring arising there. Then they set off again towards Bawburgh church, whose north wall miraculously opened up allowing the oxen, cart and body, together with all those accompanied it, into the church, after which the wall closed and became whole again. Inside, Bishop Aelfgar of Elmham with forty monks carried out the funeral service. (Bishop Aelfgar, known as «the almsgiver», had been a disciple of St. Dunstan, and died during Mattins on Christmas Day, 1021.)
This took place on May 30,1016 (or 1019).
The saint's shrine became a popular place of pilgrimage down the centuries, and many miracles were wrought there. Thus through the prayers of the saint a man who had lain drowned in a pond for two days was resuscitated. Many of his miracles relate to the healing of animals and the abundance of crops, and in 1989 he was declared «Patron Saint of British Food and Farming».
In the general destruction of the Reformation, the shrine was demolished and St. Walstan's relics were burnt and scattered. The wells were given over to secular and superstitious use. The wells at Taverham and Costessy eventually dried up, but the one at Bawburgh survived. However, there is now a revival of interest in, and devotion to, St. Walstan.
Although Walstan's name does not appear on any Anglo-Saxon calendar, the veneration of him in East Anglia has been strong and persistent since Orthodox times.
(Sources: Fr. Elias Jones, «The Life of our Father among the Saints, Righteous Walstan the Generous of Taverham», Orthodox News, vol. 12, no. 1, Eastertide, 1998, pp. 1, 5; The English Saints: East Anglia, Canterbury: Norwich Press, 1999, pp. 179–187; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, D, 1021; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, pp. 397–398)