THE monks who cared for the coffin and body of St Cuthbert decided (this was in 995, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready) that they would take the saint back from Ripon to Chester-le-Street, where he had rested through much of the previous century.
They had reached Warden Law, not six miles from home, when their waggon suddenly stopped, and defied every effort to move it. Abbot Aldhun urged them to prayer and fasting for three days, and they were rewarded with the revelation that the coffin must be carried to Dunholm.*
Unfortunately, none of the monks had ever heard of it.
They decided to strike a westward path. After some miles, they heard a dairy-maid tell a neighbour that her cow had wandered off, and the neighbour reply that a loose cow had been seen in Dunholm. So Aldhun and his companions followed the dairy-maid to Dunholm, where they built the White Church as a new home for their beloved saint.
Dunholm is made up of ‘dūn’, an Old English word meaning a wide-topped, low hill, related to ‘dune’ and ‘down’ (as in the Sussex Downs); and ‘holmr’, an Old Scandinavian word for an island or promontory. Durham Cathedral stands on just such a low hill within a bend of the River Wear. ‘Dun’ in the phrase ‘dun cow’ is a different Old English word, meaning ‘dull brown’.
Précis
In 995, monks looking for a home for the body of St Cuthbert learnt by prayer that they must take him to Dunholm, not Chester-le-Street as they intended. They had no idea where Dunholm was, until they overhead a dairy-maid talking about it. They followed her, and Durham Cathedral now stands on the spot they chose for their church. (58 / 60 words)