Saint Gervadius (Garnat, Garnet, Gerardin, Gerardine, Gernard, Gernardius, Gervardius, Gervat) (d. ~934 AD) was an Irish saint. His feast day is celebrated on 8 November. He was an Irishman who established himself as a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite ( adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a C ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

, near Kenedor (present day Kinneddar,

Lossiemouth Lossiemouth ( gd, Inbhir Losaidh) is a town in Moray, Scotland. Originally the port belonging to Elgin, Moray, Elgin, it became an important fishing town. Although there has been over 1,000 years of settlement in the area, the present day town wa ...

, Moray). He may have emigrated to escape

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

raids in his native land. It is possible he may have been part of a Gaelic religious community that was present in Kinneddar in the 10th century, and who placed his cell in a cave in a rocky promontory to the east. The early maps give reference to his having been there by naming the area Holyman's Head near

Elgin Elgin may refer to: Places Canada * Elgin County, Ontario * Elgin Settlement, a 19th-century community for freed slaves located in present-day North Buxton and South Buxton, Chatham-Kent, Ontario * Elgin, a village in Rideau Lakes, Ontario ...

. His cave became a place of

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

right up to the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

and survived into the 19th century before being quarried out.

Legends

A legend states that he lit flaming torches at night to warn ships away from the dangerous rocks. Another states that once, when Gervadius needed wood to complete the construction of a church, he was miraculously assisted by a river, which washed

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including Beam (structure), beams and plank (wood), planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as fini ...

down to where he was working. An alternate version states that the river brought him food. The ''Life of Gervadius'' states that he met with Anglo-Saxon soldiers sent by Athelstan in 934.

References

External links

Saints.SQPN.com: Gervardius
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gervadius Scottish hermits Irish hermits Medieval Scottish saints 10th-century Christian saints Medieval Irish saints 10th-century Irish people Irish expatriates in Scotland 10th-century Scottish people