Introduction
After many years of tramping about the Kingdom of Northumbria preaching the gospel and healing the sick, monk Cuthbert retired to the island of Inner Farne, just over a mile off the coast at Bamburgh. In 685, he reluctantly combined this with being Bishop of Lindisfarne, six miles further north; but he still managed to live out most of his days in his cell. He was buried on Lindisfarne, but seemingly left something behind.
BY the time he died on March 20th, 687, Bishop Cuthbert’s thatched hermitage on Inner Farne was in a sorry state. The stone walls were loosely patched with wooden boards,* and the new tenant, Ethelwald, found that the bishop had been obliged to plug various holes and gaps with straw and clay to keep out the weather. These remedies were hardly sufficient for the winds and rains that lashed the little North Sea island, and Ethelwald nailed up a calfskin beside the place where he was accustomed to spend his long hours in prayer, to minimise distractions.
When Ethelwald died twelve years later, Felgeld inherited the ruinous hermitage and it was he who took the decision to dismantle it and start again. The calfskin he chopped up into smaller pieces as relics of Cuthbert and Ethelwald, which were much in demand, and as he worked it occurred to him that here was his opportunity to resolve a problem that had been causing some anxiety.
* Bede describes Cuthbert’s hermitage in some detail. Cuthbert built it himself from undressed stone, which puzzled Bede very much because some of the upper blocks were surely too heavy for one man. The walls were barely a man’s height, but Cuthbert created a sunken floor so the height inside was much greater. The building was roughly round, thatched (with some difficulty, since birds kept pinching the straw until he asked them not to) and divided into an oratory and a living area. He also built ‘a large house’ on the shore for visitors from the mainland.
Précis
After the death of St Cuthbert in 687, his tumbledown hermitage on Inner Farne went to Ethelwald. To keep out the wind and the rain, Ethelwald pinned up a calfskin, but his successor in the little hermitage, Felgeld, acknowledged it was time for a complete rebuild, and cut the calfskin up for his fellow monks, to make mementoes of Cuthbert. (60 / 60 words)
After the death of St Cuthbert in 687, his tumbledown hermitage on Inner Farne went to Ethelwald. To keep out the wind and the rain, Ethelwald pinned up a calfskin, but his successor in the little hermitage, Felgeld, acknowledged it was time for a complete rebuild, and cut the calfskin up for his fellow monks, to make mementoes of Cuthbert.
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: because, besides, despite, just, unless, until, whereas, who.
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