14/09/2022
Ever wondered how the King got his name?
Elvis is the Anglicised version of the name Ailbe.
In the Liturgical calendar, 12 September is the Feast day of St. Ailbe, Bishop of Emly, Tipperary.
Saint Ailbe, usually known in English as St Elvis,
was regarded as the chief 'pre-Patrician' saint of Ireland (although his death was recorded in the early 6th-century). He was a bishop and later saint.
Little that can be regarded as reliable is known about Ailbe: in Irish sources from the 8th century he is regarded as the first bishop, and later patron saint of Emly in Munster. Later Welsh sources (from the 11th c.) associate him with Saint David whom he was credited with baptizing and very late sources (16th c.) even give him a local Welsh genealogy making him an Ancient Briton.
In a legend that goes back to the Vita, or 'Saint's Life', Ailbhe's father fled King Cronan before the child's birth and his mother's servants—ordered by the king to put the baby to death—instead placed him on a rock in the wilderness where he was found and nursed by a she-wolf.
Long afterwards, when Ailbe was bishop, an old she-wolf being pursued by a hunting party ran to the bishop and laid her head upon his breast. Ailbhe protected the wolf and thereafter fed her and her cubs every day from his hall.
Ailbe was discovered in the forest by visiting Britons: these British foster-parents were said to have planned to leave him in Ireland when they returned home but were constantly and miraculously unable to make the passage until they consented to take him with them
They then took Ailbe with them when they returned to Wales
A tradition also going back to the earliest Vita held that he went to Rome and was ordained as a bishop by Saint Hilary who was then pope. Upon being ordained in Rome, he was said to have fed the people of the city for three days before returning home.
At the end of his life, a supernatural ship came and he boarded to learn the secret of his death. Returning from the faerie world, he went back to Emly to die and be buried
