Abstract
IT may interest some of the readers of Captain Wharton's paper on this subject to have their attention called to a curious narrative in Bede, illustrative of the power of oil over troubled waters. When a certain presbyter, Utta, was sent from the North of England by Oswiu to fetch his bride from Kent, he applied to Aidan, the greatest teacher of his day, for his blessing. Aidan gave him not merely his blessing, but some consecrated oil, and told him that on his way back from Kent by sea he would encounter a storm, and thereupon he was to pour the oil on the sea, which would immediately become calm. It happened as St. Aidan had foretold. Utta and his fair charge were duly overtaken by a fearful tempest; the waves were breaking over the ship, when Utta bethought himself of Aidan and his oil. “Assumpta ampulla, misit de oleo in pontum, et statim, ut prædictum erat, suo quievit a fervore” (“Historia Ecclesiastica,” lib. iii. cap 15). Aidan had been brought up at the monastery of Iona. Did the boatmen of the Western Islands in the seventh century know of this use of oil? and did Aidan bring the knowledge from thence that saved from shipwreck Utta and the bride Eanfleda?
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FRY, E. Oil on Troubled Waters. Nature 37, 463 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/037463a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037463a0
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