The apostle of Northumbria, Hence

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  1.  (St.) Cuthbert’s beads. A popular name, originating on Holy Island and the Northumbrian coast, for the detached and perforated joints of encrinites there found. Cf. Scott, Marmion, II. xvi.

        St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame
The sea-born beads that bear his name.

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1697.  Phil. Trans., XXVII. 467. The same place afforded also some variety of Fossil Shells, and plenty of Cuthbert’s Beads.

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1792.  Gentl. Mag., LXII. I. 130. St. Cuthbert’s beads … are a species of entrochi picked up among the rocks [of Lindisfarne] by the children, who sell them to travellers.

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1831.  J. Hodgson, in J. Raine, Mem. (1853), II. 222.

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  2.  (St.) Cuthbert’s duck. Also Cuthbert duck. The eider duck, which breeds on the Farn Islands, and figures in the legend of St. Cuthbert.

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[c. 1165.  Reginaldus, Libellus, etc. (Surtees, 1835), 62. Aves illæ Beati Cuthberti specialiter nominantur.]

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1674.  Ray, Coll. Words, Water Fowl, 96. The Cuthbert-Duck: Anas S. Cuthberti, building only on the Farn Islands upon the Coast of Northumberland.

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1845.  Yarrell, Brit. Birds (ed. 2), III. 300. The Eider Duck is also called St. Cuthbert’s Duck.

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1849.  Eyre, St. Cuthbert, 44 n. The eider or Cuthbert duck arrives at its full growth at the fourth year.

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  Hence † Cuthbert down, eider-down.

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1397.  Status Offiicij Feretrarij (Soc. Antiq. MS.). Item ij parva pulvinaria quorum j est de Cuthbert doun.

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