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The Anecdotage of Glasgow
Story of St. Thenaw, the Mother of St. Mungo


ST. Thenaw, or Tennoch (latterly corrupted into Enoch), is said to have been a believer in the Christian faith, but not baptised until after the birth of her famous son. Her earnest longing is said to have been to preserve her virginity, and to dedicate her life to the service of the Church, but her semi-Pagan father insisted on her marrying the Prince of Strathclyde.

Much obscurity rests on the early part of her history; but she seems to have incurred her father’s dire displeasure, and to have fled, or been driven, from his court. She returned to it, and her enraged parent is stated to have ordered her to be stoned to death. As the courtiers, or servants, did not wish to lift a stone against the daughter of the king, they placed her in a two-wheeled cart, and hurled it over a precipice, in order that she might be dashed to death against the stones beneath; but the cart, so says the story, descended with "a gently gliding motion to the ground," and she escaped unhurt, to the great joy of many.

St. Enoch’s Church, Square, and Burn, instead of being named after, and dedicated to the antediluvian patriarch, as many suppose, were, without doubt, so named in honour of the mother of St. Mungo.

It is also on record that the original name of Trongate was "St. Thenaw’s Gate."


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