St Frideswide

Today is also the feast of St Frideswide on some local English calendars. She was the patroness of Oxford. There is a long relation of her legenda here and an historical analysis of it here.

The second nocturn as related in the Anglican Breviary contains a tale that makes her a sort of anti- St Valentine:

And to rid herself of her suitor's attentions, she invoked God's aide, who struck him with blindness, from which he recoverd only when he firmly resolved to leave the maiden in peace. Which story so frightened the men of England that for many years those with similar illicit passions avoided the shrine of Saint Frideswide, who died in the peace of God about the year 735, after having lived in retirement for a long time in a cell near the town of Thornburg.