Cuthbert’s Cordon
A man steals a mother sparrow from her chick, but St Cuthbert isn’t going to let him get away with it.
1165
King Henry II 1154-1189
A man steals a mother sparrow from her chick, but St Cuthbert isn’t going to let him get away with it.
1165
King Henry II 1154-1189
This post is number 27 in the series Miracles of St Cuthbert
In 1165, a priest came all the way to Durham from Lixtune (possibly Lytham) on the west coast. He told Reginald of Durham a number of remarkable stories about miracles performed by St Cuthbert, patron saint of his church, and the bond with his beloved birds called ‘St Cuthbert’s Peace’.
ONE hazy summer’s day, the priest of St Cuthbert’s church in Lytham despatched his servant to shoo some birds from the kitchen garden.* Passing through the churchyard, the servant noticed a sparrow darting to and fro, and further investigation where the grass was thickest revealed a nest and a little chick. At once, he forgot everything except catching the mother.
The poor bird took refuge in the church porch, but he easily reached her. “Much good has Cuthbert done you”, he chuckled gleefully, walking off with his prize.* Yet the path through the churchyard seemed longer than he remembered. Much longer. He was still stumbling through an apparently never-ending churchyard as dusk fell.
There the priest found him, almost witless. “What’s that in your hand?” he cried. “A bird,” came the dazed reply. “She claimed Cuthbert’s Peace. I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing.” The priest led him inside the church to hear his confession, before sending him home quite well.
Next in series: Cuthbert and Sheriff John
Reginald located the church in ‘Lixtune’, which has often been taken to be Lytham in modern-day Lancashire. He describes it as 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 servant was defying 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. See posts tagged St Cuthbert’s Peace.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did the sparrow fly into the church porch?
To evade capture and save her chick.