Often, too, he seems to have retired to the little island which still bears his name and which lies at a short distance from the ruined abbey on Holy Island, being like Lindisfarne itself island or peninsula according to the state of the tide. There, while apparently still holding the office of prior, he “began to learn the rudiments of a solitary life,” and when his education was completed and his spirit braced for the great renunciation, he gave up his office of prior (676) and withdrew to the more utter seclusion which was afforded by one of the little group of Farne Islands, about five miles from Holy Island and two or three miles from the rock of Bamburgh. These rocky islets, some thirty or forty in number, are now furnished with two lighthouses; and the memory of Grace Darling, the courageous daughter of an old lighthouse keeper, rivals but does not eclipse the fame of St. Cuthbert. Countless flocks of sea-birds make these rocks their breeding place; and there are seen the eider ducks, bold in their gentleness, which calmly hatch their young within a few feet of the intruding wayfarer, and whose tameness, attributed to the miraculous working of the saint, has procured for them the name of “Saint Cuthbert’s Chickens”. Was it the loneliness of these weather-beaten rocks or the sad cry of the sea-birds that procured for them the evil reputation of being “unfit for human habitation by reason of the number of malign spirits by whom they were haunted”? Howsoever that may be, it is admitted that at the approach of the man of God the evil spirits departed and the place at his prayer became completely habitable. Here then Cuthbert built for himself a little round cell made of large unwrought stones and turf, and so constructed that he could see from it nothing of earth or sea, but was forced to keep his eyes ever fixed on the heaven above him. Here, after dismissing the few brethren who had helped him in his labours, Cuthbert lived absolutely alone for eight years, enjoying the heavenly visions, but also wrestling with the awful spiritual terrors, which have ever been the portion of the anchorite.