Early medieval (7th century)
Feast: March 20
After a night of prayer standing waist-deep in the North Sea, otters came and warmed his feet. Eleven years after his death, his body was found uncorrupted.
A young monk once spied on Cuthbert to see where he went at night. He followed him down to the beach and watched as the bishop waded into the freezing North Sea up to his waist, arms raised, praying until dawn. When Cuthbert finally staggered out of the water, two otters came and dried his feet with their fur. The monk confessed what he'd seen; Cuthbert forgave him but told him not to speak of it until after his death. That mix of raw physical endurance and strange tenderness with animals runs through every story about Cuthbert. He scolded ravens for stealing thatch from a visitor's roof — and the ravens returned the next day with a piece of hog's lard as a peace offering. He protected eider ducks on the Farne Islands, making them possibly the first birds in history to receive legal protection. But Cuthbert was no recluse by nature. He was a shepherd's boy who became a monk after seeing a vision of Aidan's soul carried to heaven. He served as prior of Lindisfarne, walked the Northumbrian hills visiting remote villages, and was dragged out of his hermit's cell on Inner Farne to become bishop. He agreed on one condition: he could go back to his island to die. He did, in 687, after two months alone. When monks opened his coffin eleven years later, his body had not decayed.