To celebrate the city of Glasgow’s official 850th birthday in 2025, the council ran a poetry competition, taking as its starting point the life of the ‘co-patron saint’ of the city, known as Teneu (alternatively Thaney, Thenova, and even Enoch). The legend has it that Teneu was raped and battered, and thrown out of the family home because she was pregnant and not married. Her father, who was king of a tribe in Gododdin (later known as Lothian), is reputed to have thrown her out of his hillfort, i.e. off the hill known as Traprain Law. She miraculously survived the fall and managed to sail across the River Forth in a flimsy coracle to Culross, where she was cared for by monks. Her baby son is known by two very different names – Mungo and Kentigern. The Glasgow coat of arms incorporates four objects which are part of his and the city’s story, i.e. a bird, a tree, a fish and a bell. He and his mother are now regarded as joint patron saints, and there are lovely modern murals of them on city buildings.

The poetry competition was open to poems in English, Scots and Gaelic, and was won by Caroline Strong, Christie Gourlay and Rody Gorman. I couldn’t resist having a go at writing my own poem about Teneu, so here it is…

 

Kindness. Kin.

 

Her father is a hard man, barnacled with trauma,

barnacling his daughter in return –

salt in her hair, skin crusting as she’s tossed

in this flimsy coracle, over the Forth

as sea dries, scabbing over grazes, stinging eyes. 

 

They’re not all bad, all men. But did she deserve

this wrath? Cast out because she didn’t have a ring.

 

Once, when he was battle-weary, half-asleep, beer blowsy,

drowsy, as the flames’ light peopled walls

with dancing figures and fire sparks, she

was a child cross-legged by his feet, aware

of the gruffness, stink – the brute of him – his mass,

coarse clothes, stout boots. Leather and metal

secured, securing the girth of him.

 

She remembers a burning log shift, crumple

in the hearth. Alarmed awake, her father

seized her. She sees his eyes –

the flaring of his love; warmth beyond warmth.

 

The bard tells of distant tribes – one side

evicting the other from their homes.

A woman, pregnant. The donkey’s torturous trek.

No food. No bed. No shelter. Women endure.

Babies are born whenever the womb dictates.

 

Is that a light she sees? Does she hear a bell?

 

Hurled out of the hillfort at Traprain she flew

like a bird – tweed cape and skirt her wings –

birch trees in full leaf breaking her fall.

 

Saltwater rocks her. Fish rise in the tide.

She can’t know where she’s bound, but sun

slides to the west, highlights dearest green. 

 

Barnacled with trauma. She won’t forget

the nurture in her father’s eyes; the curl of his hair.

The graze of playful beardies on her cheek

when she was wee and he was not a monster.

 

Vowing to pass hope on, she’ll birth her boy

and raise him to her mouth to deeply breathe

the scent of him, the freshness of his skin.

She’ll let him suck her nipple though she’ll wince,

and will her body to let down milk because

he needs it. Kindness. Kin. And she needs him.