Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume VII: July. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
July 31St. Helen of Skofde in Sweden, Martyr
| SHE was a lady of quality in Westrogothia, whom Saint Sigfrid, apostle of that province in Sweden, who died in 1045, converted to the faith. She made a pilgrimage to Rome, and upon her return was martyred by her own relations about the year 1160, at her own estate of Skofde or Scœude, in Westrogothia in Sweden. She was honoured on the 31st of July, with extraordinary devotion in that country, and in the isle of Seland in Denmark, especially in the church which bears her name, where her body was kept in a rich shrine, eight miles from Copenhagen, near the sea, in which place there is a famous miraculous well still resorted to by the Lutherans, and called to this day St. Lene Kild, or St. Helen’s well. She was canonized by Alexander III., in 1164, and her feast fixed on the 31st of July. See the Bollandists ad 31 Julii. END OF VOL. VII. | 1 |