Page 18 - LOTN Summer Issue 47 2021

FAITH AND CULTURE

manuscript into a booklet, reproducing the clergyman’s third- implies intention, unlike what comes next: ‘A few backed seats
person account. Seat rents featured early: ‘The first step that Mr were found necessary for the accommodation of the gentry,
Reid took was to institute a quarterly collection to be continued and a few more were thought proper for the sake of a certain
for two years. To do this in an orderly manner he divided the symmetry. . . In order to avoid every appearance of partiality,
Parish into thirteen districts and appointed two collectors for and to give every individual an equal chance for them, they
each district. Everyone who wished to have a seat in the Chapel were to be set up to public auction.’ Mr Reid made a point of
was ordained to pay ten shillings ster: for his seat. touching no money, but oversaw it being counted by collectors
‘If a man should want to possess one seat and pay for it Sunday by Sunday and handed over to Sir James Gordon of
quarterly for two years, it would behove him to pay one shilling Letterfourie: ‘The first quarterly collection amounted in all to
three pence for each quarter and the double of that for two £51 sh10 d6.’
seats, &c &c. Every seat will be eight feet long, and will occupy
two feet of ground in breadth, that is sixteen square feet.’ This You can discover more about St Gregory's, Preshome in our
series on the Churches of the Diocese of Aberdeen on p20.

Around that time it was re-purposed as a memorial stone
commemorating one Admiral Rodney and his victory in the
Battle of the Saints, in 1782. However, there is a conflicting
story that the gravedigger who found it was also named
Rodney! It is locally referred to as ‘The Rodney Stone’.
Nevertheless, it is a key holy stone which defines the
most northerly point at which we can place Ethernan.
It would be presumptuous to assume that this may be the
Holy StoneS birthplace of this early saint, but it did cross my mind. There

is no supporting evidence, and so I am going to follow the
suggestion that Ethernan came back from Ireland, not to
Moray, but to the Buchan area where he is known to have
been and from where he is thought to have migrated south
at a later point in his life.
The Aberdeen Breviary refers to him as ‘Sancti Ethernani
In the second part of her series on the "Holy" stones which episcopi' as he is known to have been a bishop in Buchan,
mark our faith history in Scotland, Tina Harris examines the based at Rathen near Fraserburgh.
legacy of Saint Ethernan. On Day two I am more than fifty miles to the south east of

Tracing the path of Brodie where an ancient chapel at Rathen is dedicated to St
Ethernan. It is said to have been built on the site associated
with the saint and his ministry. Nothing remains of the
Pictish Saint Ethernan original building although its outline can be detected in
the burial ground. The present-day church, a landmark
structure, can be seen for many miles.
he story of this Pictish Christian missionary About three miles away, on the eastern approach to
may well begin in Moray. He is documented to Mormond Hill, Ethernan reputedly had a hermitage, known
have belonged to a noble Pictish family, and as as Eddran’s Slacks. This proved to be prohibitively difficult
Tdid many aspiring early Christians, journeyed to locate, and the weather on this day was particularly
to Ireland, where he was ordained, and came back to inclement. There is no evidence to be seen.
Scotland as a bishop. Seventy miles further south, on day three, I find another
Day one of my pilgrimage begins on a chilly morning inscription, ‘P. Idarnion’, which has been translated as
beside a Pictish stone at Brodie, near Forres, which bears ‘Peace of Ethernan’. This is incised on a Pictish stone found
a weathered inscription, carved in a mix of Ogham and at Fordoun, and although no further evidence is known,
Roman characters, forming the word, EDDARRNON, which this place could not have been far from the route taken
has been translated as Ethernan. One face of the stone by Ethernan from Buchan to Fife. This journey would have
bears a magnificently preserved cross which identifies it been punctuated by ministry to various groups of Picts
as a Christian Pictish monument. It is dated to the ninth throughout Angus and Strathearn, and could have taken
century, and may have been carved as a memorial or months.
dedication to Ethernan. At the close of day three I have crossed the Tay and
For many centuries this stone was lost, and found again arrived where the coast of Fife meets the Forth estuary. The
in 1750 when local excavations for a new church were ancient name for this village is ‘Kilretheni’, which bears a
underway, just a few miles from its present location at the certain similarity to the name Ethernan!
entrance to Brodie Castle, where it has stood since 1832. There is strong evidence that settlements in this area have
Apparently it had also been in use as a recumbent grave been linked to the Picts as well as early Christian missions,
slab, with additional lettering. and it is probable that Chapel Cave, on the shoreline, was
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