Got curious about St Elwyn and just googled it. Not many of 'em obviously, as most of the first page is made up of references to the church in my home-town. However, did find this rather lovely story:
Long, long ago in a green and pleasant land called Ireland there lived a man called Elwyn. He was a Bodger and as everybody knows a bodger is an expert in finding uses for things that other people throw away. One day Elwyn was eating his fish for lunch when suddenly he saw a huge, black, weathered, wooden ladle. Getting very wet he went over to the ladle and said, ?What shall I do with this?? Scratching his head he said, ?Maybe it belongs to the giants in Cornwall?? He asked his friends and neighbours who reminded him that St Petroc and others had travelled there & returned with strange tales. So he bravely decided to try and return the ladle to its rightful owner. Surely his ladle must be a giant?s ladle?
He climbed in the ladle and put a sheet as a sail on his home-made boat. (What a good Bodger he was!) That very day he pushed away from the beach and sailed out to sea with his fishing net. On his way there was a great wild storm. He survived two days and two nights without food. The next morning he was so hungry that he used his fishing net to catch some fish. Next he drank some some sea water but then he felt sick because of the salty sea water. He felt terrible. "Uh, I feel sick!" He started to get worried that he would never reach the land of the giants. ?I wish I was till in Ireland being a Bodger,? he thought sadly.
Eight days and eight nights later as he was being sick again, he was stranded on a soft, sandy beach. He was greeted by the village people of Porthleven. They were very surprised to see him in a huge, black, weathered, wooden, ladle. They stopped and stared with amazement. They greeted him with pleasure and treated him with great kindness. They were quietly proud to discover that he was a Bodger. (An expert in finding uses for things that other people throw away.) They thought he would come in very useful to their community. And so he did. He quickly settled in to eat and drink with the people of Porthleven.
After a while, when Elwyn had fixed all there was to be fixed in Porthleven he began to hear about the fabulous beach at Hayle. Unfortunately, it was in a terrible mess! No one had ever explained to the people of Hayle how to comb their beach and re-use and re-cycle the debris. Having heard about the wonders that Elwyn had performed in Porthleven the Hayle villagers sent for him and asked him to help turn their beach into something to be proud of. Elwyn was happy to help and showed the people how to re-use the washed up wood and objects left by shipwrecks.
The people of Hayle were so pleased with him that when they had a new church built they named it after him. You can see the church of St Elwyn in Hayle today.
However, although St Elwyn was pleased to help other Cornish villages his heart belonged in Porthleven where the people had welcomed him when he had first arrived in a huge, black, weathered, wooden ladle. So he returned to Porthleven where the villagers greeted him with chocolates and flowers.
St Elwyn spent the rest of his life being a most fantastic Bodger. That?s an expert in finding uses for things that other people throw away! And we don?t know if the giants of Cornwall got their huge, black, weathered, wooden ladle back.
Researched, written and told by the children of ¾ R Porthleven School Spring Term 2004. Kindly donated by Jean Webster.