Her mother was Wenlo, a niece of Saint Beuno, and a member of a family closely connected with the kings of south Wales.

Seeing the murderer leaning on his sword with an insolent and defiant air, Beuno invoked the chastisement of heaven, and Caradog fell dead on the spot, the popular belief being that the ground opened and swallowed him.

Beuno left Holywell, and returned to Caernarfon; before he left, the tradition is that he seated himself upon a stone, which now stands in the outer well pool, and there promised in the name of God "that whosoever on that spot should thrice ask for a benefit from God in the name of St. Winefride would obtain the grace he asked if it was for the good of his soul.

Given the late date of the earliest surviving written accounts of Winifred's life, her existence has been doubted since the 19th century.

According to historian Lynne Heidi Stumpe, the reliquary provides "good evidence for her having been recognized as a saint very soon after her death",[8] and thus of her historicity.

She is mostly venerated in England, not in Wales, which led Caesar Baronius to list her as an "English saint" in his Roman Martyrology of 1584.

[4] Prior Robert is generally credited with greatly promoting the cult of St. Winifred by translating her relics from Gwytherin to Shrewsbury Abbey and writing the most influential life of the saint.

St Winefride's Well in Flintshire, originally formed from a mountain spring, is housed below the town on the side of a steep hill.

According to legend, it is thought that on her way to Shrewsbury Abbey, Winifred's body was laid there overnight and a spring sprang up out of the ground.

She is listed as follows: "At the spring located at Holywell in Wales, St Winefride the Virgin, who is outstanding in her witness as a nun".

[22] Winifred is officially recognised by the Vatican as a person with a historical basis, who lived an exemplary religious life, but with no discussion of miracles which she may have performed or been healed by.

Winifred's representation in stained glass at Llandyrnog and Llanasa focuses on her learning and her status as an honorary martyr, but the third aspect of her life, her religious leadership, is also commemorated visually.

On the seal of the cathedral chapter of St. Asaph (now in the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff), she appears wimpled as an abbess, bearing a crozier, symbol of leadership and authority and a reliquary.

[3] St. Winifred's Well, termed "þe Holy Hede", is mentioned in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (in Passus II).

Throughout the series, the protagonist, Brother Cadfael - a Welsh monk at the English monastery at Shrewsbury - develops a "special understanding" with the saint, whom he affectionately calls "The Girl".