Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 33, Vol. I, August 16, 1884

Synopsis

In the biographies of the saints of the early Celtic Church it is frequently recorded that towards the close of their lives they left their monasteries and sought the seclusion of some lonely island or mountain solitude, in order to pass the evening of their days in undisturbed devotion and freedom from worldly cares. Joceline in his Life of St Kentigern also records that it was his custom to retire to a cave during Lent, so that, ‘removed from the strife of tongues and the tumults of this world, he might hide himself in God.’ Such retreats, whether they were used for periodical and temporary seclusion or for permanent retirement, were called in the ecclesiastical language of the day Deserta; and the frequent occurrence of this term in the topography of Scotland and Ireland—in its modern form of Dysart or Disert—shows how common the custom must once have been. Sometimes the recluse erected a habitation for himself of stones and turf, as St Cuthbert did in the island of Farne;.

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