Report of Meetings. By the President. 451 



a home by King Oswald in 635, probably found it without a 

 name, the British Medicante or Medcaut having fallen into dis- 

 use, while the name of the stream Lindis, which had to be crossed 

 before firm land was reached, was still retained ; and the danger 

 and difficulty of traversing it and the sands, would force it con- 

 stantly on their attention as a source of solicitude. It might 

 thus happen that they would speak of the shore towards which 

 they had to journey through quicksands and an occasionally 

 flooded rivulet, as emphatically in their language, Fearann (pro- 

 nounced Fer-unn, McAlpine), (land, earth, country) ; or more 

 fully as the Fear ann-na- Lindis, the land of Lindis ; which term 

 afterwards, revised to suit the Saxon or English idiom, became 

 Lindisfarne. They do not at this time call it an island, because 

 it was dubious, as appears from Bede's expression, whether it was 

 an island or part of the mainland : ' bis quotidie instar insulae 

 maris circumluitur undis, bis renudato littore contiguus terrae 

 redditur,' Equally, if the island was granted by charter, would 

 the term Fearann apply to it, for Fearran signifies 'estate, farm,' 

 as well as 'land' (M'Leod and Dewar). We have no remain- 

 ing evidence of such a charter having once existed, but it is 

 within a century of Oswy, king of Northumberland (before 670), 

 and his nobles giving the Church at Lindisfarne numerous 

 donations of land on the river Bowmont, with stedes and 

 hamlets, which, from the preservation of their names, appear to 

 have been entered in a written deed (Hist. Sti. Cuthberti apud 

 X. Scriptores a Twysden, col. 67, apud Morton's Teviotdale, 

 note, p. 3). If there was such a grant, the lesser islands in 

 groups in the vicinity, which were also Church territory, would 

 be included in it, and would likewise take the familiar title of 

 Fearann, as satellites of the main possession." 



Like so many localities in these Border Lands of ours, the 

 Fames are intimately associated with ecclesiastical history and 

 ecclesiastical worthies ; but chiefly with the name of St 

 Cuthbert do we connect them. 



There are now no remains on the Fame or House Island of 

 the famous habitation, half cell, half oratory, in which for 

 more than nine years, lived the celebrated Northumbrian 

 Saint ; nor of the Hospitium which he built to accommodate 

 the numerous visitors who arrived for advice and devotion. The 

 latter, however, was in existence up to the 12th century. 



In later times there was on the island a monastic house, 



