Cuthbert was greatly honoured by the gushing forth of springs, both during his lifetime and after his death. While at Lindisfarne, he was seized with a desire for still greater retirement, and accordingly withdrew to Farne Island, one of the Fern group, two miles distant from Bamborough, and six from Lindisfarne. This island was then haunted by evil spirits; but these he drove away, as Guthlac did from the marshes of Crowland, in Lincolnshire. Cuthbert set about building a cell in Farne Island, and, with the help of angels, the work was satisfactorily completed. Unfortunately, there was no fresh water to be had; but the want was soon supplied. In response to the saint's prayers, a spring arose in the floor of his cell. Bede says, "This water, by a most remarkable quality, never overflowed its first limits, so as to flood the floor, nor yet ever failed, however much of it might be taken out; so that it never exceeded or fell short of the daily wants of him who used it for his sustenance." The miracle did not end here. When Eistan of Norway was ravaging the coast of Northumberland in the twelfth century, he landed on Farne Island and destroyed the property of the hermits, whose retreat it then was. The spring, unwilling to give help to the robber bands, dried up. Thirst, accordingly, compelled them to quit the island. No sooner had they left than the spring reappeared and gladdened the spot once more. After Cuthbert's death, his body was carried from place to place for safety. In his "History of St. Cuthbert," Archbishop Eyre remarks, "There is a legendary tradition, that when the bearers of St. Cuthbert's body journeyed northwards from Yorkshire and came to Butterby, near Croxdale, they set down the coffin on the right bank before crossing the river, and immediately a saline spring burst out upon the spot. After fording the river they again rested the coffin, and a spring of chalybeate water rose up where they had laid down the body. A third time the weary travellers, struggling up the rugged pass, were compelled to lay their precious burden on the ground, and a sweet stream of water gushed out of the rock to refresh them." Prior to this, Cuthbert's relics had rested a while at Melrose. Tradition says that, on resuming their wanderings, they floated down the Tweed in a stone coffin as far as Tillmouth, on the English Border. The fragments of a sarcophagus, said to be the coffin in question, are still to be seen there beside the ruins of St. Cuthbert's Chapel. This incident is thus referred to in "Marmion":-- "Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore. They rested them in fair Melrose: But though, alive, he loved it well, Not there his reliques 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, Downward to Tillmouth cell."