Three years ago I wrote about the three villages which contend as the site of the martyrdom of St Wystan. Today I visited one of them - Wistanstow in Shropshire.
The guidebook for Holy Trinity, Wistanstow, describes the stained glass in the boy saint's honour:
St Wystan stands in a window as a golden haired boy in a red cloak taking the crown from his mother, who is dressed in blue, white and gold. Below is the scene of his martyrdom. Above is a group of buildings by a river which may be to investigate his home and final resting place in Repton.After that it would be churlish to point out that Wistow in Leicestershire has a much stronger claim to be the site of his martyrdom.
So that's where WH Auden got his first name from. It seems he was predisposed from his christening to his sexual orientation.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be churlish (is that possible of the fairer sex?) but even
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wistowvillage.info/wistowpedia/
doesn't attempt to make a weak claim, let alone a strong one... chuckle!
Did you notice the unusual family name (DUPPA http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/44/22/1442249_4e12860d.jpg, linked as keyword search http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=5881033) on one of the tomb flagstones while you were there? - quite a dapper Dubba it would seem.
Enjoy!