April 1 -- Feast of Saint Walaricus

He was French.  His countrymen call him Saint Valery.  Over there, that's a man's name.  On this side of the Atlantic, it sounds funny so I am going to keep calling him Walaricus, even if the town Saint-Valery-sur-Somme is named for him.

He worked as a shepherd for his dad, but entered a monastery as a boy over his father's objections.  He was too young to take the tonsure, but completed a course of studies.  He entered a few different abbeys, eventually winding up with Columban, the great Irish monk.  After crossing several members of the royal family, Columban found himself on a boat bound for Ireland.  Looking around, he found that every Irish monk within King Theodoric's jurisdiction was there with him.  What happened to them is a tale for November 23.  For now, suffice to say that, with his abbey dissolved, Walaricus found himself on the road again.

He started evangelizing northwest France, preaching and thaumaturging (nah, that's not really a verb) and planting monasteries.  He couldn't stick with one or the other, so his remaining years were split between abboting (administering the monastery) and evangelizing.  He died around 620.

St.V: at the mouth of the Somme

His relics made the rounds from Cornie to Montreuil to to Saint Bertin, and eventually to Leuconay.  They got a couple hundred years rest, but then were dragged back into the public by William the Tanner's Bastard in order to solicit favorable winds for the invasion of England in 1066.  William got good winds and successfully defeated Harold, the Rightful King of England, but I won't hold that against Saint Walaricus.  If I did, I'm just puerile enough to call him Saint Valery.