SAINT ABB'S HEAD

promontory on the North Sea in the Scottish Borders council area, historic county of Berwickshire, southeastern Scotland. It is located about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England. St. Abb's is a sheer headland with cliffs some 300 feet (90 metres) high. It is a national nature reserve administered by the National Trust for Scotland and the Scottish Wildlife Trust and serves as a reserve for nesting and migrating seabirds. St. Abb's Head was the site of a 7th-century convent founded by Ebba, a Northumbrian princess who escaped shipwreck there. The convent was burned by Norsemen in the 9th century. About 1098 King Edgar established a priory in the village of St. Abb's; its remains still stand. With neighbouring Coldingham and West Loch, St. Abb's, now a fishing village, forms part of a summer resort area. Additional reading H. Ringgren and A.V. Strom, Die Religionen der Vlker (1959; Eng. trans. from the 3rd Swedish ed., Religions of Mankind Today and Yesterday, 1967), gives information on the significance of saints. The cult of saints is dealt with in connection with the phenomenology of religion by G. Mensching, Die Religion (1959). See also W.J. Burghardt, Saints and Sanctity (1965). The characteristics and the actions of holy men in non-Christian religions are treated in R.A. Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (1914, reprinted 1963); W.T. de Bary et al. (comps.), Sources of Chinese Tradition (1960); and G. Von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, 2nd ed. (1953). In the realm of Christianity, P. Molinari, I Santi e il loro culto (1962; Eng. trans., Saints: Their Place in the Church, 1965), gives information concerning the veneration of saints in folk piety. The veneration of saints in the Eastern Church is canvassed by D. Attwater, Saints of the East (1963).