THE Oxford Dictionary of Saints offers five different ways to spell his name, and is not sure whether it was in the sixth or seventh century that St Carannog did much to evangelise the middle part of Cornwall. Near Padstow, there was a church or chapel believed to be dedicated to him, this time as Sanctus Cradokus, because, according to William Worcestre, of "destroying worms where people drink the water of a well there".

But in Llangrannog, the village named after him in the diocese of St Davids, they put him in the fifth century, and, what is more, they have given him a statue.

To celebrate his feast day on 16 May, the Priest-in-Charge of Llangrannog with Llandisiliogogo and Penbryn, the Revd Trevor Copeland, invited the children from the primary school, Ysgol Gymunedol T. Llew Jones, to join the small congregation at St Carannog's, where he explained what a saint was.

The children sang in Welsh, and there was a dramatic interpretation of the story of St Carannog. They then went in procession from the church to the millennium statue of the saint, who overlooks the village and its beach and the bays around a lovely part of west Wales. The sun was shining, the children sang again in Welsh, and Mr Copeland led the prayers in Welsh.

Refreshments followed at a seafront café, and the children were all given a small memento of the occasion in the shape of a fridge magnet showing St Carannog's statue.