The Legend of St Cuthbert's Beads: A Palaeontological and Geological Perspective

Folklore, April, 2001 by N. Gary Lane, William I. Ausich

* A third possibility is that columnals were found in unmetamorphosed shales along the north shore. Crinoid columnals do weather free from such shale exposures, but these exposures are limited and would not provide an abundant source of columnals which would be expected to be readily noticed.

There are rare cross-sections of columnals in hard, dark, fine-grained limestones which crop out along the south shore. However, the columnals commonly weather out at various angles so they lose their bead-like appearance. The same is true for the more common columnals that occur in limestone beds on the north shore. Thus, we favour the possibility that the legend arose either from columnals weathered from glacial till along the south shore beaches, or from loose weathered columnals that were the result of ancient quarrying activities on the north shore.

Acknowledgements

We are especially indebted to Dr Robert Young, School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester for advice concerning the Green Shiel area of the Holy Island. Mr Edward Douglas, Tantalion, Holy Island, a retired fisherman and Lindisfarne native, first introduced us to the beads and identified areas where he and his granddaughter had found the beads.

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