Lives Of The Saints Saint Cuthbert

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My recent visit to Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire revealed that the remaining chapel there is dedicated to The Virgin Mary and Saint Cuthbert. The mother of Jesus has an often told if unlikely story. Cuthbert’s life is rather less well known. He lived between 634 and 687, mostly in Northumberland. He was a shepherd during the reign of Northumbria’s monarch, King Oswald. A vision seen while tending his flock led Cuthbert to join a monastery, initially in the Scottish border area of Melrose before becoming a prior on the Northumbrian causeway monastery at Lindisfarne. Cuthbert seemed to have a Francis Of Assisi affinity with animals. When a pregnant eider duck nested on the altar at the church in Lindisfarne, Cuthbert refused to let anyone move the nest and even conducted services with the duck there, until her eggs hatched. Eider ducks are still sometimes called Cuddy Ducks, Cuddy being short for Cuthbert. Monks depend on food and cash donations from the faithful and during a period of low takings when he was hungry, Cuthbert prayed to God who sent a seagull with a large fish for him. Cuthbert cut the fish n half, allowing the seagull to have the other half. On another occasion, Cuthbert got wet feet from praying in the surf, but some sea otters became living towels and dried his feet with their fur. Though declared a Bishop in Lindisfarne, without being asked, Cuthbert became a recluse and a hermit. Neighbors got at best a cheery wave from him when he retired to the village of Inner Farne. He died in 687. He was only 53. Viking raiders desecrated the graves and corpses of many Catholic saints and Saxon dignitaries. The body of King Oswald received such desecration. Monks took to moving Cuthbert’s coffin round the country, hiding him to spare him such a fate, before giving him a final resting place in Durham Cathedral in 995. He is still there. The head of King Oswald was buried with him for Cuthbert to protect. A quiet unassuming shepherd who never really wanted to do more than care for nature ended up having more adventures and responsibilities in death than he ever had alive. Arthur Chappell