St Deiniol's church in Hawarden stands on a rise near the castle, and it was dedicated to the 6th century saint who, tradition says, planted his staff where the church now stands. The strangest story attached to it is the trial of the Holy Rood.
It was published in 1822 by Richard Willett in his history of the parish, who said he had translated it from an old Saxon manuscript; nobody has seen the manuscript since. The tale is set in about the year 946. There had been a terrible drought, and the people of Hawarden crowded into the church to pray for rain before the Holy Rood, a great crucifix that stood in the rood loft held by a figure of the Virgin. Among them was Lady Trawst, the wife of Sytsylht, who governed Hawarden Castle. As she knelt and prayed, the cross toppled from the loft and fell on her, and she was killed.
The parish decided that the rood had committed murder and put it on trial. The jury was made up of local men whose names were preserved in a jingle: "Hincot of Hancot, Span of Mancot, Leech and Leach, and Cumberbeach, Peet and Pate, with Corbin of the Gate, Milling and Hughet, with Gill and Pughet". They found the rood guilty. There was some argument about what to do next, since hanging a crucifix was out of the question. In the end it was carried down to the sands of the Dee estuary and left for the tide. The river carried it upstream to Chester, where it was washed ashore, and the people there set it up with an inscription. The meadow by the river where it landed became the Roodee, the rood island, now Chester racecourse.
Willett's claimed manuscript, the names of the rulers and the date do not fit what is known of the 10th century, and the story is best taken as a local legend built round the name of the Roodee.
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