Fillan
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SeeFillan, Norway for the Norwegian town in Hitra, Sør-Trøndelag
Saint Fillan, Filan, Phillan, Fáelán (Old Irish) or Faolan (modern Gaelic) is the name of (probably) two Scottish saints, of Irish origin. The career of a historic individual lies behind at least one of these 'saints' (fl. 8th century), but much of the tradition surrounding 'Fillan' seems to be of a purely legendary character.
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[edit] Name
The name Fillan probably means "little wolf" being formed on a diminutive of faol, an old word for the animal.
[edit] Feast
The St Fillan whose feast is kept on 20 June had churches dedicated to his honor at Ballyheyland, County Laois, Ireland and at Loch Earn, Perthshire.
The other, who is commemorated on 9 January, was specially venerated at Cluain Mavscua, County Westmeath, Ireland, at the villages of Houston and Kilellan, Renfrewshire, Scotland[1] and so early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland, where there was an ancient monastery dedicated to him, which, like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secularized. References to the feast of St Fillan being on 19 January occasionally appear and agreement upon which is correct has not been reached.[2]
[edit] Life
St Fillan of Munster, the son of Feriach, grandson of Cellach Cualann, King of Leinster, received the monastic habit in the abbey of Saint Fintan Munnu and came to Scotland from Ireland in 717 as a hermit along with his Irish princess mother St Kentigerna, his Irish prince uncle St Comgan, and his siblings. They settled at Loch Duich and later Fillan moved south. He is said to have been a monk at Taghmon in Wexford before eventually settling in Pittenweem ('the Place of the Cave'), Fife, Scotland later in the 8th century.[2]
St Fillan was the abbot of a Fife monastery and retired to Glen Dochart and Strathfillan near Tyndrum in Perthshire. At an Augustinian priory at Kirkton Farm adjacent to the West Highland Way, the priory's lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert I of Scotland (Robert the Bruce), and became a cell of the abbey of canons regular at Inchaffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a relic of the saint (an arm-bone) on the eve of the great victory over King Edward II's English soldiers at the Battle of Bannockburn. The saint's original chapel was up river, slightly northwest from the priory and adjacent to a deep body of water which became known as St Fillan's Pool.[3]
[edit] Folklore
St Fillan was credited with powers such as the healing of the sick and also possessed a luminous glow from his left arm which he used to study and write Scriptures in the darkness.[3]
St. Fillan was the patron saint of the mentally ill. As late as the 19th century, the mentally ill were dunked in St Fillan's Pool, bound and left overnight tied to the runied chapel's font, or some say to a bench in the old priory. If the bonds were loosed by morning it was taken as a sign that the cure had been successful.[3]
A story is told that while St Fillan was plowing the fields near Killin a wolf took the life of the ox. Fillan could not plow the field. A geis was put on the ox, which meant the wolf had to take the place of the ox and do the ox's work. [2] The story may be considered more of a parable but the connection with the origins of saint's name remains obvious.
[edit] Relics
The Mayne was an arm bone, now lost, enclosed in a silver reliquary or casket. Legend has it that The Bruce requested the bone be brought to the Bannockburn battle site. The deoir, or hereditary keeper of the relic, and the the abbot of Inchaffray left the bone behind and brought only the reliquary because they didn't want the relic to fall into English possession. Deoir became Anglecized to the name Dewar, the phonetic pronounciation of the Gaidhlig. On the eve of the Bannockburn battle, the deoir, abbot and The Bruce knelt in prayer. A noise came from the reliquary. They looked at the reliquary as the door opened and the bone fell to the floor. The Bruce won the battle the next day. He established a monastery to thank St. Fillan for the victory.
The Quigrich, or saint's staff, crozier, also known as the Coygerach. The crozier was long in the possession of a family of the name of Jore and/or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians in the Middle Ages. The Dewars, or deoiradh, certainly had the crozier in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by King James III in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze enclosed within it, is now deposited in the Museum of Scotland.
The Bernane, a cast bronze bell, is also preserved in the museum and was placed over a sufferer's head during healing rituals in order to heal migraine headaches at least. The bronze bell, in the Middle Ages relics was kept in the care of deoiradh at several Glen Dochart farms. Legend has it that the bell would come to St. Fillan when called. One day a visitor who wasn't used to seeing bells flying through the air was startled and shot it with an arrow, cracking it. Another story about this bell occurred only about 200 years ago. An English tourist stole it. The bell was recovered by Bishop Forbes of Brechin 70 years later, in 1869, and moved it to the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh for safe keeping. The Bernane was used in the coronation of James IV.
The Fergie and the Messer. No one knows what these were.
Still kept at one farm, or at the woolen mill in Killin, are a set of river stones which were believed to have been given healing powers by St Fillan and a particular sequence of movements of an appropriate stone around the afflicted area would result in a cure.[3] Each stone cured a part of the body.
[edit] Places
[edit] Shrines
St Fillan's Cave in Pittenweem has long been associated with the saint however there are several stories of saints with that name from the area. The cave contains a spring and a well named in his honour and has a colourful history. Pilgrims engaged with hermits inhabiting the cave (possibly St Fillan himself) on their way to nearby St Andrews, it was used by smugglers for some time, as a store room for local fisherfolk (Pittenweem has been a fishing village since the time of early Christian settlement and later a harbour was constructed) and it was used as a rubbish tip which probably resulted in its disappearance for some time. While plowing in the area, a horse apparently fell down a hole which allowed the cave's rediscovery. In 1935 the shrine was emptied of centuries of debris, then rededicated.[3] In 2000 the cave was again refurbished and reopened to visitors while, on occasion, the Holy Eucharist continues to be offered. The cave is owned by the Bishop Low Trust, is entrusted to St John's Scottish Episcopal Church in Pittenweem and its entrance can be found on Cove Wynd.[4]
 St Fillan's Cave showing internal structure and altar. |
 St Fillan's Cave showing stairwell up to priory grounds. |
[edit] Churches
The Celtic Apostolic Church of Saint Fillan (Celtic Orthodox) is established in Auckland, New Zealand.
An ancient church dedicated to St Fillan (now ruined) exists in the former Parish of Killellan (the name deriving from Kil, or cell, of Fillan) now part of the combined parish of Houston and Killellan in Renfrewshire, Scotland. In the other village of the parish, Houston, a Roman Catholic St Fillan's Church was established in 1841 and exists to this day. In the adjacent village of Kilmacolm, the local Scottish Episcopal (Anglican) church is also named after St Fillan.[5]
[edit] Monasteries
There was a monastery dedicated to St Fillan as early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland.
[edit] Villages
St Fillans, Perthshire is a village at the eastern end of Loch Earn near the remains of the 7th century Pictish fort of Dundurn.
St Fillans is a locality near the township of Mudgee in New South Wales, Australia.
[edit] References
- ^ BAE Systems and Redrow Housing (2006-05-01). "Royal Ordnance Bishopton: Site Gazetteer". Renfrewshire Council. http://ilwwcm.renfrewshire.gov.uk/pdfs/pt/ROFApplication1/pt-SiteGazetter0606.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
- ^ a b c http://www.saintfillans.org.nz/saint.html
- ^ a b c d e Sharp, Mick, The Way and the Light, Aurum Press Ltd, 2000. ISBN 1-85410-722-4
- ^ St Fillan's Cave in Pittenweem in the East Neuk of Fife - Scotland
- ^ http://www.episcopalkilmacolm.org.uk/
[edit] Primary
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
The legend of the second of these saints is given in the Bollandist Ada SS. (1643), 9th of January, i. 594-595; A. P. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 341–346; D. O'Hanlons Lives of Irish Saints (Dublin), n.d. pp. 134–144. See also Historical Notices of St Fillan's Crozier, by Dr John Stuart (Aberdeen, 1877).
