Saint John

St John was also present at the Great War of the Righteous. The scrolls say that he healed and tended the injured throughout the forty days and nights of the battle, working tirelessly to tend the wounds of the scarred and revive those with flagging spirits through song and tales of wondrous bravery. He carried out his duty to the end, unflinching, as the scrolls say "until thy last holy breath rattled in thy throat". As an Ancestor, John continued to assert his power as a god of healing and calm. It is said that when the bones of Saint Cuthbert were carried from The Holy Isle, the bearers of the casket became lost in the forests of the Tyne and the Wear. They were lead by the sounds of a lonely pipe for many days and nights, finally arriving at a peninsula on a bight of the river Wear. The casket bearers told of the music of St John leading them from the wilderness, and John was always to be remembered as the saint of travellers and bards as well as the lord of healers. A chapel was built on the side of the rock, which was years later to become Durholme, and a group of knights pledged themselves to his cause. The people of Durholme have great affection for St John, and pilgrimages travel from far and wide to worship at the shrine of St John and his ward St Cuthbert whose bones were buried at the top of the Elvet Peninsula.