ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS AUGUST 18 St. Daig Maccairaill, St. Hugh the Little, St. Evan

ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS AUGUST 18 St. Daig Maccairaill, 586 A.D. Monastic founder and bishop, also called Dagaeus and Daganus. He was the son of Cayrill and a disciple of St. Finian. Daig Maccairaill founded a monastery at Iniskeen, Ireland. He is called “one of the Three Master Craftsman of Ireland.” St. Hugh the Little, 1255 A.D. Martyred nine year old of Lincoln, England, reportedly a victim of ritual killing by English Jews. King Henry III conducted the investigation of the crime which resulted in eighteen or nineteen Jews being hanged. Hugh had been scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified. Miracles supposedly accompanied the recovery of the lad’s body from a well, and the martyrdom became part of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The feast of the saint is no longer kept by the Church, and the entire account of the young saint is considered an example of the anti Semitism which was rampant throughout the Middle Ages. In art, he was depicted bound in cords, kneeling before the Blessed Mother. St. Evan, 9th century. A Scottish hermit in Ayrshire, Scotland, also listed as man. Churches in the region bear his name.