Shepherd, Monk, Hermit, Bishop

Cuthbert was a Northumbrian, born around 634, and by the account Bede gathered from those who knew him he was keeping sheep in the Lammermuir hills one night in 651 when he saw a soul carried heavenward in light, learned it was the hour Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne died, and went to the monastery at Melrose to take the habit. He was formed there in the Irish tradition Aidan had brought from Iona, became guest master at Ripon and prior at Melrose, and after the Synod of Whitby in 664 settled the Roman usages at Lindisfarne itself as its prior, winning over a reluctant community by patience, the virtue every source makes his signature.

The pull of solitude ran deeper than office. Around 676 he withdrew to the Inner Farne, a bare island in the North Sea, built a cell whose walls cut off every view but the sky, and lived as a hermit, praying, it was said, through the night in the sea with the otters warming his feet at dawn, and protecting the eider ducks that still bear his name on those coasts. In 685, against his will and at a king's and synod's insistence, he was consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne. He served two years, returned to the Farne sensing his death, and died there on 20 March 687, signalling the moment by torchlight to the brothers watching from Lindisfarne.