Our righteous Father Guthlac of Crowland.
Saint Guthlac was of noble race and enlisted in the army of Ethelred of Mercia, but at the age of 24 he became a monk at the double monastery of Repton. After progressing in the spiritual life he desired to live as a hermit, and hearing of a desolate dismal island in the Fens said to be haunted, he was taken there in a fishing-boat and lived there to the end of his days. The place was called Crowland. He endured great conflicts with demons, but was greatly consoled by Angels and wild beasts. Fishes would swim towards him when he called, and birds ate from his hands and sat on his shoulders as a friend. He reposed in 714. His sister, Pega of Peakirk, is also among the Saints.
A nineteenth-century translation of the Anglo-Saxon Life of Saint Guthlac by Felix is available here.
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