Page 19 - LOTN Summer Issue 47 2021

FAITH AND CULTURE

used for early worship.
Prominent in the estuary is the Isle of May,
which was for many hundreds of years a noted
place of pilgrimage, thanks to Ethernan, who was
the pilgrim who stayed!
Ethernan’s life on the island may well have
been seasonal, wintering on the mainland, where
he would have made landfall at Kilrenny. It was
near this place that a symbol-bearing cross-slab
was found with an Ogham inscription referring
to ‘Ethernanus’. The church there is dedicated to
him, and is a prominent landmark for mariners.
According to a local information board it was
consecrated in 1243 to St Ethernan.
Although his death is mentioned in the
Annals of Ulster in 669AD we can with certainty Rathen Kirk, the site associated with a 6th century church founded by St
determine that in his latter years he became a Ethernan. © Colin Smith / Creative Commons Licence
hermit monk, on this small island five miles off
the coast of Fife. an important shrine and centre of healing for at least two
Ethernan built a cell made of stones and also a chapel hundred years.
for the few monks who accompanied him. A charter was At some time in the Middle Ages accounts of Ethernan
granted by Alexander Comyn, Mormaer (or Earl) of Buchan became conflated with that of Adrian, whose death
which allowed for a stone of wax, or forty shillings, yearly to occurred in 875. However, in the Aberdeen Breviary the
‘Blessed Mary and Saint Ethernan of the Isle of May, and the two saints appear as two distinct individuals, and it appears
monks serving God and St Ethernan’. more than likely that Adrian was the first Abbot of the small
Such a generous donation suggests a close relationship priory built by Ethernan, and later strengthened by King
between the Mormaer of Buchan and the early church (or David I. The stones had been re-purposed into a larger and
with Ethernan himself). Also, around this time, land at Deer more substantial building.
had been gifted to St Drostan for a monastic settlement. In the 1990s an excavation laid bare a small rectangular
Ethernan also received a grant of a "toft" (plot) of land by stone structure on the Isle of May which once reputedly
an Earl of Dunbar, to ‘Sancto Ythernic de Mai et fratribus’. housed the remains of St Ethernan. It is possible that there
King David I of Scotland later became instrumental in were two burial sites, one on top of the other. The re-use
the veneration of Ethernan. He raised these humble stones of such a site is a characteristic feature of early Christian
on the Isle of May to monastic status in 1153 when they burial places. The more recent, it is suggested, belonged
housed at least nine Benedictine brethren. This became to Adrian, and took the form of a huge cairn made up of
millions of pebbles. It was unusual in those
ancient times to build with stone, and
so we are indeed blessed with a lasting
memorial to both holy men.
St Ethernan died in 668AD, safe in his cell
on the Isle of May.
There is a distinct pathway of missionary
activity which can be attributed to this
intrepid Christian Pict between Moray and
Fife, a range of some two hundred miles,
and marked by a trail of holy stones. Some
of these are now no longer Pictish symbol
stones in their own right, but part of the
fabric of the churches dedicated to the
saint in Moray, Aberdeenshire, Angus and
Fife.
On the fourth and last day of my
excursion I completed the journey of
Ethernan, albeit on roads unknown to
medieval saints, from Brodie to the Isle of
May.

The last resting place of St Ethernan on the Isle of May

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