Cuddy is the affectionate name for Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (c634-687), a shepherd boy born in the Border country who rose to become prior of Melrose Abbey and who ended his life as a hermit on a tiny, inhospitable island off the coast of Northumbria. Cuthbert is one of Britain’s most popular saints, widely venerated for his affinity with animals, his sympathy for ordinary working people and his association with the landscapes and holy places of the north of England. At the time he died, Christianity was a relatively new religion in Britain. Following his interment on Lindisfarne, Cuthbert’s remains were removed to the mainland in order to prevent their desecration by invading Danes. Loyal monks and shifting bands of followers conveyed Cuthbert’s coffin to Chester-le-Street, where it remained until 995, when Viking invaders again made it necessary to move it to safety. It is on the final leg of this journey that Benjamin Myers’s novel opens, with the great cathedral, founded in Cuthbert’s honour in 1093 at what will later be Durham, still nothing but a holy vision of his most fervent disciples.
Cuddy is divided into four parts, with an additional prologue and interlude. In order to fully disentangle the mostly factual from the possibly fictional, you would need to immerse yourself in the surfeit of sources liberally quoted by Myers in his construction of this literary edifice. You may well be inspired to do so, if only to prolong your acquaintanceship with its landscapes and people; but you might equally embark on this journey as I did, knowing next to nothing about the titular figure, and find yourself swept along on a tide of pure literary sensation.
