Adrian of May

After the conclusion of hostilities, the island became an important symbol of national pride, and pilgrimages to May became a common feature of religious life for the Scottish people.

[6] Andrew Wood of Largo is said to have maintained a ship for the pilgrimages of James III and Margaret of Denmark to the shrine of St Adrian.

[7] His August 1513 charter for the free barony of Largo includes this service for James IV and his "dearest consort" Margaret Tudor and their successors.

[12] In October 1540 James V commissioned a reliquary for a bone of St Adrian of May from the court goldsmith John Mosman, to be made from Scottish gold.

[13] When the Scottish Reformation took hold in the 16th century, public devotion to the saints—and thus pilgrimages to the site—came to a halt and the Protestant bishop of St. Andrews soon decided to sell the island into private ownership.

Recently the island has become the site of archaeological excavations seeking the remains of the original monastic community which died at the hands of the Vikings.

[14] He was honored in a number of places in Scotland, including Madderty and Aberdeenshire[15] It appears that pilgrims came to the Isle of May to pray at his shrine for healing.

His cult is most likely a misremembering of Ethernan from a time when the Picts had ceased to function as an ethnic group within Scotland and ancient martyrdoms in Britain and Ireland were commonly attributed to Vikings.