The vertiginous cliffs of Inner Farne are congested with all kinds of birds, including terns, shags, and these puffins.
SAINT Cuthbert loved all the birds of Inner Farne, and feared for them after he was gone. So he bequeathed to them a legacy, which is called ‘St Cuthbert’s Peace’. The birds were bound to live in peace with one another, but they were also promised that no other man or beast would harm them and go unpunished.
Many years later, a monk named Aelric lived in the same cell on Inner Farne.* One day when Aelric was away on the mainland Leving, the monk who was looking after his cell, grew peckish, so he killed and ate one of the eider ducks that nested nearby.
To avoid detection, Leving scattered the skin, bones and feathers on the sea as widely as possible. But his precautions were in vain. When Aelric returned he found bone, skin and feathers all neatly rolled up into a ball, and deposited accusingly on the step of St Cuthbert’s old chapel by the indignant tide.*
This was in about 1150. Aelric’s nephew Bernard was sacristan at Durham Priory, now Durham Cathedral, which was Aelric’s monastery too.
See also Cuthbert and the Weary Hawk.
Précis
A monk staying in what centuries before had been St Cuthbert’s hermitage on Inner Farne fancied duck for dinner. He scattered the leftovers all around the sea so no one would know, but the outraged sea gathered them up and deposited them at the chapel door, keeping St Cuthbert’s promise to punish anyone who harmed his beloved birds. (58 / 60 words)
