Mr. J. Stuart o?^ St. Ehha and Coldingham. 209 



as we learn from Bede, came from Ireland for a life of strict- 

 ness and devotion, which could then be ill attained except 

 amid the seclusion of a monastic retreat. 



Bede has preserved to us the notice of a visit paid to the 

 Monastery of St. Ebba by the illustrious Cuthbert, which 

 alone must give an interest to the spot associated with such 

 an event. The great missionary then presided over the 

 Monastery of Melrose, and in consequence of a wish expressed 

 by St. Ebba, that he w^ould visit her establishment at Cold- 

 ingham, and enlighten its inmates by his exhortations, he 

 proceeded thither, where he remained several days.* On this 

 occasion St. Cuthbert is said to have performed his nocturnal 

 offices in the sea, a form of penance adopted by many saints 

 of the time, although few of them perhaps were favoured 

 with the attendance of the sea calves, or seals who, after he 

 came out of the water, began to chafe the saint's feet and 

 dry them with their manes. 



It may have been on this occasion that St. Ebba presented 

 to her visitor a piece of cloth. At all events, the gift was so 

 regarded by St. Cuthbeit, that the cloth was preserved, and 

 used as one of those in which his body was swathed ; and 

 seven centuries after his death, we find among the precious 

 relics at Durham, " a particle of the cloth which St. Ebba 

 gave to St. Cuthbert, in which he lay for 418 years and 5 

 months. "f 



If this fragment be the same as the one of which Reginald 

 has preserved a curious history, it must have commended 

 itself to the regards of the devout with double authority. 

 According to this legend, Hugh Pudsey, the Bishop of Dur- 

 ham, when about to repair his castle at Norham, employed 

 as architect, a man who had obtained from a monk at Durham 

 a fragment of Cuthbert's winding sheet. It so happened, 

 that the casket in which this relic was carried, being lost by 

 the architect at Berwick, was found by a French clerk, who 

 wondered to find a relic so mean in appearance in a casket 

 so fine. When among some jovial companions he produced 

 his discovery, and threw the bit of cloth into the fire, but 

 after being in the flames for two hours, it was rescued from 

 them unconsumed, and appeared to be brighter than that 

 of which it was a part, as Reginald testifies from his own 

 observation.:}: It is more probable, however, that the wind- 

 ing sheet here referred to, was formed of the fine linen sent 



* Vita S. Cudbercti, cap. x. \ Raine's St. Cuthbert, p. 123. 



X Reginald! Monach. Dunelm. Libell. cap. 47-54. 



