(ABOUT A.D. 723.)
[Menardus on Jan. 6th. Edward Mayhew in his Trophæa Cong. Anglic.
O.S.B. on March 23rd. So Heronymus Porter in his Flores Vitarum Sanct.
Angliæ, Scotiæ, and Hiberniæ. The revised Anglican Martyrology of
1640, on same day. Authority:--Bede in his life of S. Cuthbert.]
S. Ethetwold, or Ethelwold, was for some time a monk at Ripon, "where
having received the priestly office," says Bede, "he sanctified it
by a life worthy of that degree. After the death of that man of God,
Cuthbert, this venerable priest succeeded him in the exercise of a
solitary life, in the cell which the saint had inhabited in the islet
of Farne, before he was made bishop." He found the oratory of Cuthbert
so rudely put together, that the sea-wind shrieked in through the
joints of the planks, and though patched up with clay and stubble, the
chapel was so full of draughts that Ethelwold asked for and obtained
a calf's skin, and this he nailed against the wall where he was wont
to pray, to keep the wind from blowing into his ear. Bede says, "I
will relate one miracle of Ethelwold, which was told me by one of
the brothers who was concerned, and for whose sake it was wrought,
Guthfried, the venerable servant and priest of Christ, who afterwards
presided in quality of abbot over the church of Lindisfarne, in which
he was educated. I came, said he, to the islet of Farne, with two other
brothers, desiring to speak with the most reverent father Ethelwold;
and when we had been comforted by his discourses, and having asked his
blessing, were returning home, when on a sudden, as we were in the sea,
the fair weather that was wafting us over changed, and so great and
furious a storm fell on us, that neither sail nor oars availed, and we
despaired of life.
"Having a good while struggled in vain with the wind and waves, we
looked back at last to see if by any means we might return to the
island, but found that we were equally beset with the tempest on all
sides; but we could perceive Ethelwold at the mouth of his cavern,
contemplating our danger. For, hearing the howl of the wind, and the
roar of the sea, he came forth to see how we fared. And when he saw our
desperate condition, he bent his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to pray for our life and safety. As he finished his prayer, the
swelling sea immediately abated its violence, and the rage of the winds
ceased, and a fair gale springing up bore us over the smooth waters
to the shore. But no sooner had we arrived, and drawn our boat out of
the water, than the same storm began to rage again, and ceased not all
that day; to the end that it might plainly appear, that this small
intermission had been granted from heaven at the prayer of the man of
God, that we might escape."
S. Ethelwold spent twelve years at Farne, and died there; but he was
buried in Lindisfarne, in the Church of S. Peter, near the bodies of
SS. Cuthbert and Eadbert. His bones were afterwards taken up in the
time of the Danish ravages, 875, and were translated to Durham in 995,
and more honourably enshrined in 1160.
[Illustration: THE TWO THIEVES. see p. 456.
S. Dimas, Penitent. With Angel bearing his happy Soul to Paradise.