264 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



shore, a cormorant approached and pulled at his skirt, 

 then led him to where one of its young had fallen into 

 a crevice of the rocks whence the good man rescued it. 



One of these rocky islets in the North Sea became 

 so famous during the next century that it has been 

 known ever since as Holy Isle, and the ruins of its 

 monastery and cathedral still remain and may be seen 

 from the railway train as it passes along the brink of 

 the lofty coast a little south of Berwick-on-Tweed. This 

 was the seat of the renowned Bishop Cuthbert of whom 

 many quaint stories are told, apart from the record of 

 his religious work. They attribute to his influence the 

 extraordinary gentleness and familiarity characteristic 

 of the eider duck, which is known to this day in North- 

 umbria as Cuthbert's bird. It was he, according to a 

 narrative of a monk of the 13th century, who inspired 

 these ducks with a hereditary trust in mankind by tak- 

 ing them as companions of his solitude when for several 

 years he resided alone on Lindisfarne. There is good 

 reason to accept this and similar traditions as largely 

 true, for a like ability in "gentling" birds and other 

 wild animals is manifested today by some persons of a 

 calm and kindly sort. 



Early in the eighth century a monk of intensely 

 ascetic disposition, named Guthlac, retired to a solitary 

 hermitage on an island in the dismal morasses of Lin- 

 colnshire, which afterward, if not then, was called Croy- 

 land or Crowland. He was sorely tempted by the Devil 

 we are informed, and had many battles with "demons" 

 — native British refugees hiding in the fens; but in the 

 intervals of his fasting and fighting he got acquainted 

 with the wild creatures about him. "The ravens, the 

 beasts and the fishes," says the record, "came to obey 



