St. Arilda (Arild) is the most venerated female saint of Gloucestershire. No early accounts of her life survive, and we can only rely on local traditions. She lived in the fifth or sixth century, and was a virgin dedicated to Christ from childhood. She was almost certainly a native Briton, rather than a representative of the first generations of the Angles and Saxons who had invaded Britain, but not yet reached Gloucestershire until later. If the latter was the case, her name could be of Germanic origin and mean “a maiden of the hearth.” In some late documents it is said that she thrice successfully fought with the power of sin and, according to John Leland (1503-1552), “the father of English local history”, she was beheaded by a tyrant named Muncius after rejecting his advances.
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