Fillan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See Fillan, Norway for the Norwegian town in Hitra, Sør-Trøndelag

Saint Fillan, Phillan, Fáelán (Old Irish) or Faolan (modern Gaelic) is the name of (probably) two Scottish saints, of Irish origin. The career of a historic individual lies behind at least one of these 'saints' (fl. 8th century), but much of the tradition surrounding 'Fillan' seems to be of a purely legendary character. The name Fillan probably means "little wolf" being formed on a diminutive of faol, an old word for the animal.

The St Fillan whose feast is kept on 20 June had churches dedicated to his honor at Ballyheyland, Queens County, Ireland, and at Loch Earn, Perthshire.

The other, who is commemorated on 9 January, was specially venerated at Cluain Mavscua, County Westmeath, Ireland, and so early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland, where there was an ancient monastery dedicated to him, which, like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secularized. The lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert I of Scotland (Robert the Bruce), and became a cell of the abbey of canons regular at Inchaffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a now lost relic of the saint (an arm-bone, enclosed in a silver reliquary) on the eve of the great victory at the battle of Bannockburn. Another relic was the saint's staff or crozier, which became known as the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the possession of a family of the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians. They certainly had it in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by King James III in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within it, is now deposited in the Museum of Scotland. The saint's bronze bell is also preserved in the museum.

The legend of the second of these saints is given in the Bollandist Ada SS. (1643), 9th of January, i. 594-595; A. P. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 341-346; D. O'Hanlons Lives of Irish Saints (Dublin), n.d. pp. 134-144. See also Historical Notices of St Fillan's Crozier, by Dr John Stuart (Aberdeen, 1877).

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.