Saint Samson of Dol

Saint Samson was born into a noble family and sent to Llaniltud Fawr in Wales to train under Saint Iltud. Samson was ordained a priest, and then went off to live in a monastery nearby on Caldey Island. He became abbot there, visited Ireland, and on his return was invited to become abbot of Llaniltud Fawr as the previous abbot had died falling down a hole while drunk. Samson was made a bishop before leaving to live a quieter life in a ruined fort on the banks of the River Severn.

Samson eventually felt called by God to travel to Cornwall. Landing probably at Padstow with Saint Samson a small group of monks, nuns and relatives, he journeyed up the Camel estuary to the monastery of Landocco, a place now called Saint Kew. The monks there had grown so lazy and lax that, not wanting to be shown up by Samson, they asked him not to stay there. So Samson moved further inland.

There he met a group of pagans and their king worshipping an idol on a hill. Samson asked them to stop and to return to faith in Christ, but they refused. At this point, a boy fell off a galloping horse, and apparently was killed. Samson prayed over the boy for hours until he was restored to life. The startled pagans and their king then returned to the Christian faith, and Samson carved a cross on a standing stone they had been using for pagan worship nearby.
The king was so impressed, he later asked Samson to deal with a serpent that had been terrorising his people. In Golant by the railway tracks is a small cave thought to be where the serpent lived. Sampson went to the cave and commanded the serpent to come out and to leave that place, which it did, never to be seen again.

Samson was then invited by the grateful people to be their bishop. Samson, however, moved on to found a monastery, probably at Fowey, before leaving his father in charge and departing for Brittany. There he founded many other important monasteries, the most famous being that at Dol. His signature has been found on church documents signed in Paris in 553 and 557.
Golant Church is dedicated to Samson and his holy well is right by the church porch. Just a couple of kilometres away is Castle Dore Fort, where it is thought the king in the story lived. We do not know his name, but in Arthurian legend King Mark was father to Tristan who went to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult to be queen. Tristan, however, fell in love with her himself and an adulterous affair was to ensue. Wagner was to set a later embellished medieval Arthurian version of this Cornish love story to music in his famous opera. Tristan’s inscribed grave stone once stood in a field near Castle Dore, but it is now to be found on the main road just as you leave Fowey. The bones of a man and a woman were found beneath it at its original site. The inscription on the stone read, ‘Here lies Drustanus, the son of Cunomorus’. Cunomorus means ‘hound of the sea’ and was another name for King Mark.