Æthelwold (hermit)

was a late 7th-century hermit who lived on Inner Farne, off the coast of the English county of Northumberland.

Being desirous of some solitude, he succeeded to the tiny hermitage of Saint Cuthbert on Farne, after the latter's death in 687.

He, however, found it so drafty that he was obliged to make much needed repairs using a calfskin.

The best-known story about Æthelwold, relates how the future Abbot Guthrid visited him on his island with two Lindisfarne monks and, on his journey home, was saved from shipwreck by the saint's prayers.

He was buried with Cuthbert and, like him, was eventually enshrined in Durham Cathedral.