Contemporary interest in Hughes centred on her fast of almost six years' duration, during which time she refused sustenance other than spring water sweetened with a small amount of sugar or occasionally with a drop of weak ale.
The Chester Chronicle suggested the fast had originated in an illness which led to three days of unconsciousness, and to a subsequent dislike of the smell of meat.
In an intense piety, Gainor would shout and cry her praise of God, bearing witness through prayer to a spiritual world, Hughes reported.
Reports published in the Chester Chronicle suggest how Gainor may have become famous during her lifetime, with visitors travelling between forty and fifty miles to see her.
Later sources, including information apparently collected from elderly local people provides more detail about her abhorrence of food and its smell, and how every nook and cranny had to be blocked to prevent the steam from reaching her when soup was being boiled; or how she fainted after her sister Gwen came into her chamber with a loaf of white bread under her apron, so intolerable was the effect of the bread's smell.
It was notable enough to draw the attention of the artist Edward Pugh, who mentioned her in his posthumously published Cambria Depicta: A Tour through North Wales (1816).