HALIWERFOLC

More on St. Cuthbert's banner!

2012-02-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

Textile artist Ruth O'Leary updates us on the St. Cuthbert Banner, to be dedicated on his Feast Day March 20th AD 2012.

Amazing Stuff from Newcastle Bloggers

2011-12-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

I 've never seen this blog before, but this was quite a fascinating piece. Read the rest of the story at the Amazing Stuff Blog. -- DonnaF

2011-08-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

Archeologists believe they may have found the relics of St. Edburg. Read the full story here.

Edburg or Eadburga, like St. Cuthbert, lived in the 7th Century. She founded a monastery in what was then the kingdom of Mercia.

More about the St. Cuthbert Gospel

2011-07-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

This site describes a 2007 bookbinding workshop where facsimiles of the St. Cuthbert Gospel were created.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the net, Michelle of Heavenfield writes a post about Lindesfarne and the Gospel of John

The British Library wants the St. Cuthbert Gospel book...

2011-07-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

13/07/2011

British Library announces £9m campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel – the earliest intact European book

* National Heritage Memorial Fund makes major grant of £4.5m
* Bid to save 7th century masterpiece for the nation
* Substantial grants offered by the Art Fund and other foundations
* £2.75 million still needed to acquire Gospel

The British Library has announced an ambitious fundraising campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel for the nation. Created in the 7th century and intimately associated with one of Britain’s foremost saints, the Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book and one of the world’s most significant books.

Read the rest of the story HERE

A lovely Stained Glass Cuthbert

2011-04-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

(Photographer: Andy V Byers, Stained Glass Window, St Michael Church, Workington) via Wikimedia Commons

You will notice that Cuthbert is portrayed in this modern window as a middle-aged man with dark hair and beard. This accords with the description in the dream of King Alfred. Cuthbert carries the crozier which marks him a bishop, and wears a simplified version of the famous pectoral cross that was found with his relics and is now in the crypt of Durham cathedral.

Bearing the Saint in podcast now!

2011-02-26T16:09:00.001-08:00

Update: Podcast reading is now up to Chapter 6-- see this page for all episodes

Dr. Chrissi Hart of Readings from Under the Grapevine has begun the podcast version of my young adult historical novel, Bearing the Saint. I haven't heard it yet myself, still haven't fixed my speakers (not missing them that much, to tell the truth!) So I would love to hear what you think of the reading....

This program focusing on children's books is found on Ancient Faith Radio, where you will also find my husband's regular Bible Study series, The Coffee Cup Commentaries, along with numerous other enlightening programs. There is one track for talk and another for some of the most glorious music you will ever hear anywhere.

If you like what you hear of Bearing the Saint in the podcast, you can buy the book from several outlets including Amazon.com.

Lindisfarne Haven in the East Kootenay...a dream begins

2011-02-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

A self-sustaining, intentional community proclaiming Jesus Christ through daily worship in the Orthodox Christian way, and daily acts of charity for those in need, regardless of ethnicity, creed, or gender.

This dream of a very special community in the British Columbia interior, named for the Holy Island of St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, is just beginning. Visit the website to learn more.

http://www.lindisfarnehaven.com/

Sleeping in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, Darlington UK

2011-01-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

May Saint Cuthbert be with them.

Historic Image from England's Northeast

VOLUNTEERS will be raising awareness of the dangers of sleeping rough by spending the night in a churchyard where a homeless man was killed.

The group of volunteers, staff and residents of Tees Valley YMCA will bed down in St Cuthbert’s churchyard, in Darlington, to raise awareness of youth homelessness.

The sleep-out, on Friday, January 28, will launch Poverty and Homelessness Action Week.

Thousands of young people under the age of 18 become homeless, which makes them vulnerable to unemployment and dropping out of education.

St Cuthbert’s churchyard was the location of an attack last year in which roughsleeper George Akers, 59, died.

Read the rest of this story in The Northern Echo

Fun and wonderful Cuthbert Products!

2010-09-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know what the saint would think, I really don't. But I'm enjoying the very existence of these items!

Lindesfarne Mead from Saint Aidan's Winery, Holy Island

Cuddy's Cave Cheese by Doddington Dairy

Saint Cuthbert Beer by Durham Brewery

Lindesfarne Gospels mimcube from the British Library

Plainchant for the Translation of St. Cuthbert

2010-09-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

at his church in Norham by Cappella Novocastriensis

Plainchant for St. Cuthbert, followed by William Byrd "Ego sum panis vivus", performed in the St. Cuthbert Church at Norham.

My (Classical) Latin is far too rusty to make anything much of this medieval hymn, and sadly I discover that the online translation pages can make even less of it than I can....:-) I can however tell you that this is for the September 4th feast of the Translation of Saint Cuthbert's body from Chester-le-Street to its final resting place in Durham cathedral. The text appears in a missal according to the use of York

Text of the Plainchant:

De sancto Cuthberto.

Verbum Pater eructavit,
Verbi rore germinavit
Cuthbertus ut lilium;
Regnum tenens et supernum,
Ibi floret in aeternum
Ante Dei filium.
Iste suis in diebus
Mundus, mundi carens rebus,
Carens labe criminis,
Lege fulsit in divina,
Quasi stella matutina
Medio caliginis.
Carne vivens, carnem mori
Fecit usu graviori
Victus, vestis asperae;
Sic Cuthbertus promeretur,
Caro nitens quod videtur
Nunc post mortem vivere.
Hic expertes sanitatis
Omnis sexus et aetatis
Saluti restituit,
Caecis visum, claudis gressun,
Ad loquendum dat regressum
Quibus sermo defuit.
Sunt et patris infinita
Quae post mortem et in vita
Protulit miracula,
Cuius prece Deo grata,
Stola nobis vitae data,
. Cuius prece Deo grata,
Stola nobis vitae data,
Vivamus in saecula. Amen

Time Team at Bamburgh

2010-07-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

The bone pendant that came up in finds washing this week, with a twenty pence coin for scale.From the Bamburgh Research Project blog
Bamburgh was a royal stronghold in Northumbria in St. Cuthbert's day and later. The castle is of course from a later time, but Tony Robinson's Time Team have done a program about the current archeological work being done on the Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

More than 85 graves from the 7th and 8th centuries, have been uncovered. Graeme Young, director of archaeology for the Bamburgh Project, said that the cemetery could number up to 1,000 burials.

The Bamburgh Research Project has its own blog here.

Saint Cuthbert in Canada

2010-07-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wishing all a Happy Canada Day!

Today is a special Canada Day for me, as it is the official release date of Bearing the Saint, my novel about the pilgrimage of the Company of Cuthbert with his body about the north of England and Scotland in the face of the Viking invasion in the late 9th Century AD.

But what does a saint from early medieval Northumbria have to do with Canada? As it happens, there are quite a few churches bearing his name in this fine country, and a few schools. They are Anglican, Old Catholic, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian and perhaps others.

It appears that the oldest St. Cuthbert church in Canada gives its name to the community of Saint-Cuthbert in Quebec. My French is very rusty, and the Google translation is poor, but as near as I can figure out, one James Cuthbert, aide-de-camp to General Wolfe, was in at the fall of Quebec to the British in the late 1700s. James Cuthbert appears to have been one of that ancient family in the north who trace their lineage to the very people my novel is about, the company of Cuthbert, who were made up of both layfolk and monastics, and some of whose earliest members and their children and grandchildren are named in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto.

One source I've found seems to suggest James Cuthbert's family was Roman Catholic, and the page below seems to be talking about an RC church:

" C’est en 1766 que la localité reçoit le nom de Saint-Cuthbert, lorsque le seigneur James Cuthbert, aide de camp du général Wolfe qui a fait l’acquisition de ces terres quelques années plus tôt, en fait don à la fabrique, à condition que son nom soit donné à la nouvelle municipalité.
L’année suivante, on y érige une petite chapelle en bois et en 1879, l’église en pierre est bâtie à l’initiative de l’abbé Kerbério, curé de Berthier. L’église existe toujours et a été classée monument historique, ainsi que le presbytère, en 1980.

but another page I've found says he had a Protestant chapel built in memory of his wife:

CUTHBERT CHAPEL

The oldest Presbyterian sanctuary in Quebec can be found at the junction of routes 138 and 158. Cuthbert built the chapel to honor the memory of his wife in 1786. It has been protected as a historical monument since 1958, and currently hosts a very convenient visitor’s bureau, open from May to October. Travelers will find an informative guide here to over 20 other heritage buildings, including the original Berthier Grammar School (1880-1917) at 562 rue Montcalm and the last of the Cuthbert manor houses in Berthierville at 710 rue Frontenac.
The house built in 1821 by Lanoraie seigneur Ross Cuthbert to accommodate servants stands west of Berthierville on Route 138 (701 Grande-Côte Est.) It was occupied until the 1970s by the last descendant of the Cuthbert family to live in the area, Margaret Bostwick.

If anyone can clarify all this for me, I would love to hear from you. Meanwhile, it's just nice to know that Cuthbert's name appears in Canada from a very early time by Canadian standards. Of course, 1766 is still more than a thousand years after Saint Cuthbert's death...

Meanwhile, I offer this picture of the lovely stained glass St. Cuthbert's cross, taken and cropped from the web page of St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church, Delta BC. I hope they won't mind...I have been to this church a number of times when my daughters took part in music recitals in the bright beautiful space of the church nave.

Bearing the Saint Chapter One is Online

2010-06-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Publisher's back cover copy:

Edmund is just an ordinary fisherman¹s son from the island of Lindisfarne, whose one great talent and joy is running as a messenger for his bishop. But when Viking invaders threaten the holy island and its great treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert, Edmund¹s life changes forever. Along with his whole village, he must accompany their beloved saint on a perilous pilgrimage that will carry him across England, through adventure, heartbreak, miraculous deliverance, and love, all the way to manhood.
Bearing the Saint brings to life the late ninth century in Northumbria, a turbulent period of invasion and conquest that concluded with an uneasy peace between Saxon and Dane. This gripping story, infused with the holy breath of St. Cuthbert, will hold readers of all ages spellbound.

Read Chapter One

The book is currently gone to press and will be in the publisher's warehouse in a few weeks. Review copies are being sent out to a number of outlets in the UK and North America.

Meanwhile, you can Order from Amazon.com

The Ravens and Saint Cuthbert

2010-06-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is a detail from a sample illustration sent to my publisher by Heather Hayward, before she was chosen to illustrate my children's picture book, The Ravens of Farne. I think it's quite beautiful!

The final illustration in the picture book, though, shows the raven bringing the piece of lard to St. Cuthbert in its beak, not its claws. Heather, my editor Jane Meyer and I all worked hard to make sure the details were accurate. We wanted the ravens to look natural, but have just a touch of anthropomorphism, humour and character that would suit the narrative given by Bede in his Life of St. Cuthbert. In the story, Cuthbert relates how ravens stole straw from the roof of the guest house of St. Cuthbert's island hermitage. The saint scolded the birds, who returned next day with a gift of lard, laying it at his feet.

In the course of my raven research, I of course turned to the work of the foremost expert in the field, Bernd Heinrich, author of The Mind of the Raven. This interesting quote about this noted researcher appears at the PBS site:

from pbs.org Raven site:

"Heinrich ... flushed a bird off a frozen chunk of suet and observed upon inspection that the raven used its beak to carve a precise groove around the fat, allowing it to carry off a large chunk at once instead of several small morsels to eat one at a time. Heinrich commented that “the raven not only had thought ahead, but also had acted on that thought and shown intelligence.”

Preliminary sketch of St. Cuthbert & Raven by illustrator Heather Hayward.

Sermon: Ministers of St Cuthbert

2010-05-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

I've just now discovered a fine sermon from the Eve of St. Cuthbert (March 19th) this year by the V. Rev. Michael Sadgrove, Dean of Durham Cathedral, the shrine of St. Cuthbert. He relates a fascinating miracle story from the 15th century, and goes on to talk about the vocation of the cathedral parish and indeed the vocation of all Christians. Here is a short excerpt:

In the Cathedral collect for today ‘we rejoice with all our hearts in Cuthbert, glory of our sanctuary and ever-living symbol of our apostleship'. What is ‘glory'? The prayer goes on to explain. ‘Help us to follow his example by the simplicity of our lives and by the power of our witness.' In our reading from St John, which the young Cuthbert first learned from his prior Boisil, Jesus says, ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.' St John tells us that the glory of Jesus is his self-giving love, his life laid down for the world. This passion and death we shall soon celebrate in Holy Week. Cuthbert strove to live it out as a leader of the church, evangelist, pastor and man of prayer. He did it by renouncing wealth, privilege and power in order to cultivate simplicity and walk the path of the cross.

This reminds me of the tropar to St. John Chrysostom, which says "You have revealed to us the riches of poverty/ and shown to us the heights of humilty." Saints are people who show us truths in paradox, and Cuthbert's story is one of the finest for such teaching.

you can read Dean Michale Sadgrove's full sermon here.

P.S. Coincidentally, the Dictionary of Old English Word of the week is heafodmynster, which means cathedral. :-)

Ma Bonny Lad

2010-05-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

Traditional Northumbrian song, on the traditional sad subject of losing a young man who has gone away to war, by The Onion House Band, with scenes around Holy Island. The 'coffin of St. Cuthbert' you see near the end is of course not the original.

Ravens of Farne Podcast read aloud on Ancient Faith Radio

2010-05-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Ancient Faith Radio now features a podcast of The Ravens of Farne: A Tale of Saint Cuthbert being read aloud by Dr. Chrissi Hart on her program of children's book readings "Readings from under the Grapevine".

I hope you will enjoy my retelling of this story recounted by the Venerable Bede in his Life of Saint Cuthbert. The book, illustrated by Heather Hayward in beautiful full colour, is available from Conciliar Press or through Amazon.com

St. Cuthbert's Day Pilgrimage AD 2010

2010-04-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

pilgrims crossing the sands

Grant us your help against the enemy, •
for earthly help is in vain.
12 Through God will we do great acts, •
for it is he that shall tread down our enemies. – psalm 60

This is the text taken by The Rt. Rev. Mark Bryant, Suffragan Bishop of Jarrow (Church of England) for a pithy sermon given to pilgrims from the Diocese of Durham
this past St. Cuthbert's day (March 20th.) You can read the full text by clicking the link on that page, where you will also see some nice photos and a lovely poem by one David Grieve. Since this was a one-day celebration, the participants had to take coaches to Durham, but they began as pilgrims have done by centuries, by walking the route across the sands at low tide from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to the mainland.

Another regular Pilgrimage is held in Holy week, by pilgrims who travel -to- Holy Island. This event is led by the Northern Cross ecumenical group who come to celebrate Christ's resurrection by walking to Lindesfarne via several locations on the mainland.

The COVER of Bearing the Saint

2010-04-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

Illustration by Sarah Marina. Release date July 2010.

more info coming soon.....

Old English Word of the Week

2010-04-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Dictionary of Old English Word of the Week at Uof T

In the right sidebar of this blog you will find a section called "The Languages".

In my upcoming book about 9th Century Northumbria, Bearing the Saint, there are three languages of importance: Old Norse, Medieval Latin, and Old English.

The last is the one of most interest to me, as it is the language spoken by my protagonists (and by my own personal ancestors, in fact). Like many others today, I first became interested in this ancient tongue via J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was of course a philologist and the fantasy world he created is woven together with his invented languages. But in the case of one group of people in Lord of the Rings, he uses an actual ancient language in which he was expert-- Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, though the latter now usually refers to the people who spoke Old English in the period before the Norman conquest in AD 1066. Tolkien has the Rohirrim speak what is virtually the Mercian dialect of Old English, and portrays them as a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon warrior culture.

Saint Cuthbert spoke the Northumbrian dialect of this same language, as did the Haliwerfolc company who carried his body away from Lindisfarne in the face of Scandinavian invasion.

The University of Toronto, where I studied Old English at the introductory level in the late 1970's, maintains the online Dictionary of Old English.

A page there is dedicated to an Old English Word of the Week, and this is what I have linked in the sidebar on this blog. I don't know who chooses these words, but here's an interesting choice they've made for the week after Easter this year:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hell-dēofol
Att. sp.: heldeofol | heldiobul (CorpGl)
2 occ.

devil, glossing Orcus ‘god of the infernal regions’
ClGl 1 4502: Orcus orc, þyrs ł heldeofol.
CorpGl 2 13.231: Orcus ðyrs, heldiobul.
Lat. equiv. in MS: Orcus
See also: hell, dēofol; cf. helledēofol
OED2 helldeoful s.v. hell n. note after sense 11.a, hell-devil s.v. hell n. sense 12. Cf. MED helle devel s.v. helle sense 2(b).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does the connection of 'devil' with "Orcus" sound familiar? Here is a brief excerpt from Wikipedia's article on "Orcus", an Etruscan and Roman mythological figure:

From Orcus' association with death and the underworld, his name came to be used for demons and other underworld monsters, particularly in Italian where orco refers to a kind of monster found in fairy-tales that feeds on human flesh. The French word ogre (appearing first in Charles Perrault's fairy-tales) may have come from variant forms of this word, orgo or ogro; in any case, the French ogre and the Italian orco are exactly the same sort of creature. An early example of an orco appears in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, as a bestial, blind, tusk-faced monster inspired by the Cyclops of the Odyssey; this orco should not be confused with the orca, a sea-monster also appearing in Ariosto. This orco was the inspiration to J. R. R. Tolkien's orcs in his The Lord of the Rings. In a text published in The War of the Jewels, Tolkien stated:

Note. The word used in translation of Q urko, S orch, is Orc. But that is because of the similarity of the ancient English word orc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connexion between them. The English word is now generally supposed to be derived from Latin Orcus.

Also, in an unpublished letter sent to Gene Wolfe, Tolkien also made this comment:^[2]

Orc I derived from Anglo-Saxon, a word meaning demon, usually supposed to be derived from the Latin Orcus -- Hell. But I doubt this, though the matter is too involved to set out here.

Cuthbert's Early career and social standing

2010-04-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Michelle of Heavenfield provides a very intriguing post about St. Cuthbert's early career and social standing.

Saint Cuthbert and Saint Herebert

2010-04-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Saint Cuthbert's day on the Old (Julian) Calendar, still followed by many Orthodox Christians. As it is also Holy Friday for both Old and New Calendar Orthodox, and this year Good Friday for the Western Church as well, I am a little busy for a post of my own today; but happily The Ochlophobist is more diligent than I and has already made a wonderful post about St. Cuthbert and St. Herebert here.

Call Renewed for Return of Lindesfarne Gospels to the Northeast

2010-03-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Some St. Cuthbert's Day activities last weekend included this year's walk from Chester-le-Street to Durham (retracing the final translation of the relics to their current resting place) and a renewed call to return the Lindisfarne Gospels to the Northeast, where they were created in honour of Saint Cuthbert.

You can read a bit more about this campaign via the post I made about it last year.

Saint Cuthbert's Day March 20th: Peter Ustinov on Cuthbert's remains

2010-03-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today is St. Cuthbert's Day, and to celebrate I thought I'd post this lovely little YouTube clip.

Splendid view of St. Cuthbert's isle, the tiny islet just off the Holy Island of Lindisfarne where St. Cuthbert occasionally spent time in solitude until he felt the need to remove to the more isolated location of Inner Farne.

The ruins you see in this video are of a later medieval chapel. On my visit there many years ago, I sat where Sir Peter sits in the video, pondering on the life of Cuthbert. I remember being sad to find trash and beer cans in the little sacred space. Still I think probably the number who visit St. Cuthbert's isle in a respectful manner outnumber the occasional barbarians.

And then there is the contrasting segment showing Cuthbert's grand tomb at Durham. Food for thought.