It is said that the body of the saint floated down the Tweed in its stone coffin. Sir Walter Scott has referred to this legend in Marmion:—
"From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore.
They rested them in fair Melrose;
But though alive he loved it well,
Not there his relics might repose,
For—wondrous tale to tell!
In his stone coffin forth he rides,
(A ponderous bark for river-tides),
Yet light as gossamer it glides,
Downwards to Tillmouth's cell."
Surtees wrote on the subject of the coffin itself:—"It is finely-shaped, ten feet in length, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick, and has been proved by experiments to be capable of floating with a weight equal to the human body."
The remains of St. Cuthbert rested at length at Chesterle-Street, where Guthrun, the Christian king, built a church for the wanderers, and richly endowed it. Both Athelstane and "Edmund, the Magnificent," visited the tomb, and rendered homage to the saint. The latter brought valuable presents to the shrine, consisting of Byzantine workmanship, and two bracelets, which he took from his own arms. Edred also followed their example.
In the year 995, the Danish pirates again compelled the monks of Lindisfarne to leave their resting place, taking with them the precious relics of their saint. They sent to Ripon, where they remained for a few months, and then were making their way back when, as they said, in a certain fertile spot, the body became immovable.
Not knowing what to make of this they held a solemn fast, and, on the third day, the saint communicated his wish that they should go to Dunholme, where a permanent church should be built for him. There, accordingly, they went; first erecting a temporary booth to contain their treasure, and afterward building the first Durham Cathedral.[1]
The remains of St. Cuthbert were then enclosed in a costly shrine, and placed in the Cathedral, where they remained until the Reformation.
In 1827, the grave was opened, when, in the innermost of three coffins, his skeleton was found, wrapped in five robes of embroidered silk, some of the fragments of which may still be seen in the Cathedral library.
A cloth, which it is said he used in celebrating mass, was made into a standard, which was believed to bring victory. That gained at Flodden Field was ascribed to it. The banner is said to have been burnt by the sister of Calvin, who was the wife of the first Protestant Dean of Durham Cathedral. No one in our day can read of all the wonders ascribed to St. Cuthbert without incredulous and pitying smiles; and it is very amusing to see how one of his peculiarities has been avenged in later times.
He was an intense woman hater, and his antipathy to the gentle sex was so great, that he would not allow one of them to come near to him, and scarcely tolerated their presence in the religious services which he performed; and he actually built a chapel for them at the extreme end point of the Island of Lindisfarne, where they might worship, instead of presuming to enter his church. He does not seem to have accepted of any favours from them but one. Veria, who was Abbess of Tynemouth at the time that he was at Lindisfarne, gave him a piece of fine linen or silk, which he condescended to keep for his winding sheet. It was a little too bad of him to keep up his antipathy even after his death; but he seems to have done so, for until the Reformation no woman was permitted to approach his shrine. A cross of blue marble was let into the Cathedral floor, beyond the limits of which no female foot might pass under pain of immediate severe punishment. And yet it was a woman who drew the admiring eyes of the modern world to the Farne Islands, where the remains of his priory are still to be seen.