In the Steps of Saint Cuthbert
Saint Cuthbert’s Way I: A new travel series from the Peripatetic Historian
IF thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto II.
Having taken Walter Scott’s advice, I am standing in the half-light of a cool September morning, waiting for the sun to rise and light the ruined red sandstone pillars of Scotland’s Melrose Abbey. A relentless breeze harries the dying grasses at my feet, while wisps of cloud scurry past overhead. Winter arrives early in this part of the world, and even though autumn has barely begun, there is a touch of frost in the air.
Today marks the beginning of a pilgrimage: together with my stalwart companion, the Reverend David Albon, I am going to hike Saint Cuthbert’s Way, a modern pilgrimage route that connects Melrose, in the Scottish Borders, to the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, on the northeastern English coast. Fourteen centuries ago, the Celtic monk…
