The Copy Book

Cuthbert and the Barley Reivers

Bede is reminded of another great Christian saint when St Cuthbert shoos some troublesome crows from his barley crop.

AD 676

Anglo-Saxon Britain 410-1066

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By Vincent van Gogh, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

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Cuthbert and the Barley Reivers

By Vincent van Gogh, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source
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‘Wheat-field with Crows’, by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), painted in the last year of his life. Bede’s Northumbria was evangelised by Irish monks, but in 664 the Synod of Whitby decided that the Kingdom would henceforth prefer the less punishing monastic traditions found across the Mediterranean world, and Cuthbert was one of those tasked with phasing them in. By matching up Cuthbert and Anthony, the acknowledged father of desert asceticism, Bede shows that a Northumbrian monk in the kindlier Benedictine tradition is still a true desert father.

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Episode 13 of 29 in the Series Miracles of St Cuthbert

Introduction

A good example of the way Bede uses miracles comes from the story of Cuthbert’s barley. Some later chroniclers took a story about Anthony of Egypt and some wild asses and transposed it, donkeys and all, onto more recent saints. Bede, however, was content to draw parallels with a quite different miracle attributed to St Cuthbert.

SAINT Anthony retired to an oasis in the Eastern Desert in search of solitude;* and to become more self-reliant, decided to tend his own kitchen garden beside a pleasant stream. However, when a troop of wild asses that visited the stream began helping themselves to Anthony’s vegetables, the monk felt justified in reproaching them. ‘Why do you reap where you did not sow?’ he asked mildly.* The donkeys thereafter drank at the stream, but let the garden alone.*

Cuthbert, says Bede, had a similar experience. For much the same reasons as Anthony, he tried raising wheat and then, when that failed, barley. But as his crop ripened nicely deep into autumn, Inner Farne’s numerous birds began to raid it.* So Cuthbert had it out with them. If God had given them permission, he said, then that was alright; otherwise they should not reap where they had not sown. The birds, abashed, took it to heart, and did not trouble Cuthbert’s barley field again.

Next Cuthbert and the Sorrowful Ravens
Based on ‘A Life of Cuthbert’, by St Bede of Jarrow (?672-735).

St Anthony the Great (251-356). The Eastern Desert is an eastern portion of the Sahara, between the Nile and the Red Sea. Anthony was Bede’s example of a monastic saint from the Greek-speaking East; for a saint of the Latin-speaking West, he turned to Benedict of Nursia. See A Tale of Two Springs.

A reference to Matthew 25:24, part of the Parable of the Talents. It tells of a wealthy man who gave three servants some cash to invest. One of them merely buried his, excusing himself by saying that he was afraid to take a risk as his master was ‘a hard man’ who reaped where he did not sow. The silly fellow overlooked the fact that his master had ‘sown’ his money by getting his servants to invest it, and they were the ones ‘reaping’ profit from another’s risk. In the case of the asses and the crows, however, the animals really could not say that they had contributed anything to the two little gardens they were so cheerfully raiding.

The same story is nowadays told of St Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), but it will be seen that it originated with his namesake.

The word ‘reiver’ in the title is a Northumbrian and Scottish word for a robber, nowadays rarely used for anything but the murderous Border Reivers of the 13th-17th centuries. ‘Reive’ and its Standard English spelling ‘reave’ (past tense and past participle ‘reft’) are now archaic, but ‘bereave’ and ‘bereft’ are still common.

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Word Games

Spinners Find in Think and Speak

For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.

This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.

1 Reason. Retire. Same.

2 Pleasant. Sow. Trouble.

3 Become. Helping. More.

Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)

Homonyms Find in Think and Speak

Each of the words below has more than one possible meaning. Compose your own sentences to show what those different meanings are.

This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.

1. Desert. 2. Own. 3. Let.

Show Suggestions

For each word above, choose one or more suitable meanings from this list.

1. Belonging to oneself. 2. Umpire’s call in tennis. 3. Admit. 4. A wide region naturally lacking water. 5. Possess. 6. Abandon. 7. Make available to rent. 8. Allow.

Homophones Find in Think and Speak

In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.

This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.

1. Troop. Troupe. 2. Sewn. Sown. 3. Desert. Dessert. 4. Yew. You. 5. Raise. Raze. 6. Sew. So. Sow. 7. Knot. Not. 8. But. Butt. 9. Him. Hymn.

Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak

Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.

pttng (5)

See Words

patting. petting. pitting. potting. putting.

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The way St Cuthbert found water for his island retreat confirmed that Northumbria’s church was the real thing.

Cuthbert and the Sorrowful Ravens

The Northumbrian monk was touched by two thieving birds who repented of their misdeeds.

Cuthbert, the Eagle and the Fish

St Cuthbert reminds a young monk that the labourer is worthy of her hire.