“…Aella, the leather-worker, Father Abbot.”
“Ay, I was told to expect you, my son. This is what you must do…”
So, at last, he revealed the mystery of why I’d been ordered to appear in Lindisfarena and not in Babbanburgh, directly before the king.
Remarkably, Aldfrith’s orders, as delivered through the abbot, coincided with an impulse of mine, germinating ever since the Abbot of Lismore had planted a seed in my unconscious mind. On my journey to Northumbria, the persistent thought that nobody more than I had enjoyed the confidence of that saintly man, Cuthbert, blossomed into a decision to produce the Vita Sancti Cuthberti: the true account of my friend’s life as spoken by him to me.
Vita Sancti Cuthberti:The king had ordered me to Lindisfarena based on the glowing reports received from
