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Introduction
In 1165, a priest came to Durham from Lytham, where his little parish had experienced a number of miracles at the hands of the patron saint, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. Reginald wrote them down as he heard them, and one tale in particular stands out for the level of eye-witness detail.
THE little church of St Cuthbert in twelfth-century Lytham was a wattle-and-daub affair,* and when one lad decided to climb onto the roof to raid a crow’s nest disaster beckoned. Scrabbling for a foothold, he reached for eggs with one hand while grasping a wooden peg with the other to steady himself. “Not even the church of Cuthbert” he vowed grimly “will protect you from me!”*
All of a sudden, the roof gave way, and he crashed down to the floor below. They took him up with almost every bone in his body broken, one hand still clutching the peg, the other, the one that had reached out for the nest, so tightly contracted that the nails dug deep into the flesh.* His condition grew dangerously worse, until on his friends’ advice he was taken back to St Cuthbert’s church, and there for three days the weakening boy sought the saint’s forgiveness in prayer.
The identification of Reginald’s ‘Lixtune’ with Lytham in modern-day Lancashire is not certain, but often made. Lixtune was a village on the west coast, at the far northern point of ‘Chester lands’, either mediaeval Cheshire or the Diocese of Chester. Reginald included the story in a section dedicated to events in Copeland, at the southwest corner of Cumbria.
The boy obviously knew about St Cuthbert’s Peace, the promise made to the birds of the Farne Islands by St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, before his death in 687. Perhaps he did not expect it to apply in twelfth-century Lancashire. See posts tagged St Cuthbert’s Peace (4).
Reginald goes into great detail concerning the exact nature of the boy’s wounds and especially the curvature of his fingers under severe muscular contraction, all strengthening the sense that he is passing on an eye-witness account.
Précis
A bird-nesting boy climbed onto the roof of a rickety church, and just as he was reaching out for the eggs, his hands went into spasm, and he fell through to the floor. The boy was so badly injured that his friends brought him back into the church to pray to the patron saint, St Cuthbert, for his cure. (59 / 60 words)
A bird-nesting boy climbed onto the roof of a rickety church, and just as he was reaching out for the eggs, his hands went into spasm, and he fell through to the floor. The boy was so badly injured that his friends brought him back into the church to pray to the patron saint, St Cuthbert, for his cure.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, if, must, not, otherwise, whether, who.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
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