Venerable Dryhthelm, Monk of Melrose

Melrose Abbey

The first of September is the feast-day of Saint Dryhthelm, a man of Tyninghame in what is now East Lothian but which was then under the control of Northumbria. This was originally a sæcular head of a household who underwent a near-death experience, and subsequently became a monk. The sole account of him we have is from Saint Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Church and People. What follows is drawn from Book Five of that work.

Dryhthelm was a freeholder of some means near Tyninghame (called by Bede Incuneningum), who had a wife and children. He fell suddenly ill with a grave illness, which grew worse and worse until at last he died at dusk. His wife and children sat mourning at his side in a night-long vigil, but when the dawn broke, he suddenly sat up and began to breathe, again alive. His children fled from him, afraid. But his loving wife stayed by his side despite trembling for fear. Dryhthelm turned to his wife and comforted her, telling her: ‘Fear not, for I am now indeed risen from death, and permitted again to live among men; nevertheless, hereafter I must not live as I was wont, but after a very different manner.’

Thereafter he went into the town kirk and knelt there in prayer the whole day. Upon his return Dryhthelm divided his whole substance, all of his property, into three parts. A third part he gave to his wife; a third part he divided amongst his children; and a third part he distributed among the poor. Having thus amicably severed his family ties, he then went to Melrose and asked to become a monk. The abbot received him and, having received him, set aside for him something like a hermit’s dwelling, where he lived, as Bede has it, ‘in so great contrition of mind and mortifying of the body, that even if his tongue had been silent, his life would have declared that he had seen many things either to be dreaded or coveted, which were hidden from other men.’

He thereupon related the tale of what he had seen. An angelic messenger took him, his countenance and robes shining, at speed toward where the sun rises. As he went overhead he saw two immense chasms, one on either side. The first one was filled with scorching, searing fire, in which souls were being tormented; and the second was frozen in a bitter chill, blasted with rime, to which these souls fled when they were able only to suffer from the cold. Dryhthelm mistook this for Hell, but the angel told him that ‘this is not the Hell you have imagined’. The angel drew him near to a black abyss yawning before him, where flames spouted forth from the very bottom of his vision to the very top, rising and falling, so that he could see no end of them, and from them erupted a stench fouler than any he had known in life. And he saw that the souls of the dead were trapped within these flames, flitting around them as powerlessly and as helplessly as sparks from a billowing hearth. He heard the mixed screaming and lamentations of human souls, mixed with the hideous cackling laughter of the evil spirits, and they rose as one great cacophony such that he could not distinguish between them. Then the evil spirits beheld him, and rushed at Dryhthelm to grab him and to prod him with their burning weapons and implements of torture. He cried aloud for help, but the only help he could see came from behind him – the way he came in. A light like a distant star pierced the gloom, and his angelic guide came back to his side.

The angelic messenger led Dryhthelm out away from the foul pit, and led him off to the southeast, where he beheld a wall before him that scaled higher than he could see, and off into the distance on either side so far that he could see no end of it. The angel brought him somehow to the top of the wall, and he peered beyond. Within he saw a great flowering garden like a paradise, with smells sweeter than any he had known in life, and everything was filled with light and colour, and happy human souls clad in shimmering white played happily in the garden. But, said the angel: ‘This is not the heaven you believe it is.’ The angel then led him upwards, where Dryhthelm perceived a light still clearer and more beautiful, that grew purer and more alluring the closer he drew. The beauties of the flowering field he saw, and the happiness of the people within, seemed to pale in comparison to the sweetness of the music he could now hear, and the enchantment of the fragrance that now met him. He longed to see more, to be drawn within, to shed everything he had and was in order to be close to the source of that bliss. But the angelic guide stood between, and spoke to him.

The angel told him that those in the first two chasms he saw, were those who had not repented and confessed their sins in life, but who had only on their deathbed felt contrition. At length, they would be allowed into the kingdom, through the prayers and alms and fasting of those still living. But the black pit that he had seen beyond that – that was the fate of those who did not and would not repent. The field beyond the southeastern wall, that he had seen – that was the fate of those who had done good works in life, but who had not yet fully perfected themselves to have deserved yet the kingdom, though they would be admitted to Christ’s presence at the day of judgement. And the final vision he had beheld: that was a mere foretaste of the kingdom.

The angel told Dryhthelm that he must now go again among the living, and that he had been brought here only to see and observe what sort of choices he would now make. And thereupon he left, and Dryhthelm once again awoke to what had been his life.

Dryhthelm did not speak of this vision to just anyone. In fact, the three people to whom Saint Bede knew he told it in full were: an Irish monk named Hæmgils; the half-Irish Ealdferð King of Northumbria; and Saint Æþelwold of Lindisfarne. But he continued to live in his little hermitage near Melrose, and whenever the brothers would come and visit him they would be amazed at the way of life he led. They would say to him: ‘Brother Dryhthelm, how can you endure such cold?’ to which he would reply: ‘I have felt worse cold.’ Or else they would say to him, ‘Brother, how can you observe such a hard ascetic rule?’ and he would tell them: ‘I have seen harder things.’ Bede tells us that all his fasting and labours were meant for two things. First, Dryhthelm desired to speed himself toward that vision of Christ’s kingdom he had seen at the end. Second, to lessen and ease the suffering of tormented souls both living and dead, upon whom he took pity.

Dryhthelm lived and flourished sometime around the turn of the eighth century; Bede does not give us exact dates. However, his feast is observed on the first of September, and it seems reasonable to assume that he reposed at Melrose Abbey. Venerable Dryhthelm, beholder in part of the life of the world to come, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!