Cork author's novel has its roots in a real-life story from 1,350 years ago

When I first picked up The Life Of St Cuthbert by the Venerable Bede, I had no idea where it would lead me.

I was about to begin an MA in creative writing in UCC, and was focussed on writing short stories set in the here and now of contemporary Cork.

The last thing I was thinking of was writing a novel about an iconic seventh-century saint who is synonymous with the Holy Island of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumbria in England, a place to which I had never been.

But I was fascinated with Bede’s account of St Cuthbert.

Bede is one of the greatest scholars of medieval times; he is also a great storyteller. He depicts Cuthbert as a charismatic preacher, a miracle worker, a healer, visionary, hermit and bishop, who became embroiled in key political events of plague-ridden, battle-torn Northumbria.

He also tells the dramatic tale of how Cuthbert’s body was found to be miraculously incorrupt 11 years after his death in 687AD.

The depiction of Cuthbert’s world, so remote in time and outlook, populated with saints, demons, miracles, visions and prophecies, took hold of my imagination.

In a writing class where I was supposed to be composing a poem, I found myself instead producing a short story about a traumatised young monk who is healed of his demons by Cuthbert and becomes a scribe in the scriptorium at Lindisfarne.

The story was published in Crannóg Magazine in 2013. Cuthbert was out of my system, and that was that.

Or so I thought.

I settled into the MA and returned to writing stories based in Cork, but I had been bitten by the bug of historical fiction.

Over the course of the next two years, almost every short story or basic writing exercise I completed was either set in the past or involved characters confronting the secrets and silences of the past.

One of these stories, The Shoebox, featured a woman whose discovery of a long-lost letter forces her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about her mother’s life.

It was published in the Holly Bough in 2016, and I was thrilled.

I loved writing these stories of bygone Cork. The city was a character in my stories; it was a place I knew and understood.

My aim, once I had finished the MA, was to work towards a collection of historical short stories based in the Real Capital.

However, all the while the story of St Cuthbert still niggled at me.

Every now and then, I would root around on Google or the shelves of the Boole Library in UCC, looking for more information.

I quickly discovered that Bede’s account of Cuthbert was not the first. An anonymous monk of Lindisfarne had written a version of Cuthbert’s life about ten years before Bede.

Bede used this man’s work as a template for his own version.

The characters who go unnoticed

When the opportunity to do a PhD in creative writing arose, I knew I had the perfect subject: a novel about Cuthbert.

But I wasn’t comfortable telling the story from the point of view of the saint himself. I remained more interested in the struggles of ordinary people, the characters who go unnoticed.

I thought about the monk who had written the first life of St Cuthbert, a man whose name has not survived. The poignancy of this struck me. I gave the anonymous monk a name – Wilfrid – and knew I had found my way in.

My novel, Let These Things Be Written, is rooted in the events of Cuthbert’s life, but it is narrated from the point of view of Wilfrid. It tells the story of Wilfrid, a young boy who is banished to a monastery on the windswept island of Lindisfarne.

Homesick and confused, haunted by vague memories and visions of a wolf, he is taken under the wing of Cuthbert, the monastery’s prior, who attempts to heal him of his demons.

As he comes of age, Wilfrid becomes entangled in the major political events that erupt around him: war, religious schisms, the king’s and queen’s desperate measures to conceive a son.

He must also piece together his own family history, and the aging Cuthbert’s part in it.

A journey to the remote parts of Northumberland

Research for this novel took me to the most beautiful and remote parts of Northumberland. I spent a few days on the tidal island of Lindisfarne where Cuthbert was the monastery’s prior, walking the land he walked.

I took a boat over choppy seas to the Inner Farne Island where he made his hermitage.

I climbed the Kyloe Hills to reach the cave where legend has it the monks carried Cuthbert’s incorrupt body, following Viking raids on the monastery.

And I also visited the magnificent cathedral at Durham where both Cuthbert and Bede now lie.

The novel is set in the remote age of seventh-century Northumbria, but its themes are, I hope, relevant to the world today.

Ultimately, it is the story of a young boy who has to make his way in a strange new world, while also coming to terms with his own past.

I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Let These Things Be Written, by Fiona Whyte, is available from Waterstones, Cork city, and Leaf and Bower, Ballincollig. It’s also available online with Eason, Dubray and Alan Hanna’s Bookshop, and can be ordered from any bookshop.