But, if the great name in the Cumbrian Church was that of Kentigern, that which left its greatest impress in Lothian, and one with which the monastery of Mailros was peculiarly connected, was that of Cudberct, popularly called Saint Cuthbert. Several Lives of him have come down to us; but undoubtedly the one which, from its antiquity, is most deserving of credit, is that by the venerable Bede. In this respect Cudberct was more fortunate even than Columba, for this Life was written within forty years of his death. Bede, too, was born in the lifetime of the saint whose life he records, and must have been about thirteen years old when he died; and he tells us himself that he had frequently shown his manuscript to ‘Herefrid the priest, as well as to several other persons who, from having long dwelt with the man of God, were thoroughly acquainted with his life, that they might read it and deliberately correct or expunge what they judged advisable.’ ‘Some of these amendments,’ he adds, ‘I carefully adopted at their suggestion, as seemed good to me; and thus, all scruples having been entirely removed, I have ventured to commit the result of this careful research, conveyed in simple language, to these few sheets of parchment.’[386] Bede tells us nothing of the birth and parentage of Cudberct; and, though he relates an incident which occurred when the saint was in his eighth year, and which he says Bishop Trumuini of blessed memory affirmed that Cudberct had himself told him, he does not indicate where or in what country he had passed his boyhood. When he first connects Cudberct with any locality, he says that ‘he was keeping watch over the flocks committed to his charge on some remote mountains.’ These mountains, however, were the southern slope of the Lammermoors, which surround the upper part of the vale of the Leader, in Berwickshire; for the anonymous history of St. Cuthbert, which, next to his Life by Bede, has the greatest value, says that ‘he was watching over the flocks of his master in the mountains near the river Leder.’[387] There ‘on a certain night, when he was extending his long vigils in prayers, as was his wont,’ which shows the bent of his mind towards a religious life, he had a vision in which he saw the soul of Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne being carried to heaven by choirs of the heavenly host; and resolved in consequence to enter a monastery and put himself under monastic discipline. ‘And,’ says Bede, ‘although he knew that the church of Lindisfarne possessed many holy men by whose learning and examples he might well be instructed, yet, allured by the fame of the exalted virtues of Boisil, a monk and priest, he chose rather to go to Mailros. And it happened, when he arrived there, as he leaped from his horse and was about to enter the church to pray, that he gave his horse to an attendant, as well as the spear which he held in his hand (for he had not as yet laid aside his secular dress), Boisil himself, who was