This invasion of Halfdene’s set in motion a pilgrimage which was full of significance for the ecclesiastical history of Northumbria, the memorable migration of the body of Saint Cuthbert. Now, at last, under the terror of the pagan hosts, the little isle of Lindisfarne, which for 240 years had been the spiritual capital of Bernicia, relapsed into its pristine loneliness. Seeing the widespread ravage wrought by the heathen men, bishop Eardulf resolved on flight, but could not bear to leave behind the uncorrupted body of the patron saint. He called into council Edred, abbot of St. Cuthbert’s monastery at Carlisle, who reminded him of the saint’s own words: “Dig ye up my bones and find a home elsewhere as God may direct you, rather than consent to the iniquity of the schismatics”. St. Cuthbert’s forebodings perhaps pointed to a recrudescence of the Easter controversy, but the churchmen rightly held that they were applicable to the far more terrible invasion of the Danes. Accordingly they took up the body of the saint (still incorrupt, according to the legend): they took also its companion relics, the head of St. Oswald, some bones of St. Aidan and of the three bishops who followed him; and provided with these precious talismans they set forth on their first great pilgrimage. For eight years they wandered: at first like sheep over the moors of Northumbria; then they came down to the western coast at Workington, and were on the point of setting sail for Ireland when a wind which sprang up, as if by miracle, drove them back upon the shore. In the hurry of the abortive embarkation they dropped into the sea the precious and beautifully illuminated _Lindisfarne Gospels_, but miraculously recovered the treasure after many days. This manuscript is still preserved in the British Museum, showing stains as if of sea-water on its pages. At last, in 883, five years after the peace which will mark the conclusion of this chapter, the uncorrupted body and its weary guardians found rest at the old Roman station of Chester-le-Street, eight miles south of Newcastle, under the shelter of the rule of a converted Dane, Guthred, son of Harthacnut. “He gave them,” says the chronicler, “all the land between Wear and Tyne for a perpetual possession, and ordained that the church which they were about to build should be constituted a sanctuary, that whosoever for any cause should flee to the saint’s body should have respite for thirty-seven days from his pursuers.” Such were the magnificent possessions and privileges bestowed on the minster which now rose at Chester-le-Street by the old Roman highway, and which, after a little more than a century, were to be transferred in 995 to the more famous sanctuary at Durham.