Baglan is said to have been a 6th century Breton prince who studied at Saint Illtud's monastic school at Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major). He later travelled to the Vale of Neath as a missionary and founded the church at Baglan.
Legend has it that Baglan demonstrated his holy power by carrying fire in his robe without burning it. On seeing this, Illtud gave him a crozier and instructed him to build a church on a site where he found a tree that bore three fruit. Baglan found a tree at current day Baglan, near the estuary of the River Nedd (Neath), that had a beehive, a crow's nest and a litter of pigs under it.
Baglan, however, preferred a site nearer the coast but when he began the construction of the church, the building materials were either washed away overnight or mysteriously moved to the original site by the tree. Baglan then realised that the church was meant by God to be built by the tree. St Baglan's church was rebuilt later in the medieval period and burned down in 1954 leaving it as a ruin.
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