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Biography
Saint Arilda, or Arild, was an obscure female saint from Oldbury-on-Severn in the English county of Gloucestershire. She probably lived in the 5th or 6th century and may have been of either Anglo-Saxon or Welsh origin.
Arilda was a virgin martyr who, according to John Leland, was slain by a youth named Municus when she refused to lie with him.
Two churches in Gloucestershire are dedicated to Arilda, one at Oldbury-on-Severn near her traditional home, a second ("St Arild's Church") at Oldbury-on-the-Hill. Both places were called 'Aldberie' at the time of the Domesday Book, suggesting that their names may be derived from the saint.
Leland claims that Arilda lived in Kington, a hamlet in the parish of Oldbury-on-Severn, where there is a holy well bearing Arilda's name. The waters from the well are said to run red with her blood, though a more prosaic explanation is the presence of a red algae of the Hildenbrandia genus.
There was a shrine to Arilda at St Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, which is now Gloucester Cathedral, but it was destroyed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
