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A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

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November 17 · Bishop

St. Fergus

St. Fergus

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Traditional feast

November 17
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

September 8 (also listed: November 18)
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Bishop

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Keep their day. Remember them on November 17 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Dempster’s Scottish Menology. Adam King's Kalendar. Aberdeen Breviary on Nov. 18. David Camerarius on Nov. 18. Authority: — The Aberdeen Breviary.] Fergus, an Irish bishop, came to the west of Scotland, and after founding three churches near Strogeth, went on into Caithness, where he founded churches at Wick and Halkirk. After that he visited Buchan, and built a church at Lungley. Then he went on to Glamis, and there he died. At Glamis is S. Fergus' cave and S. Fergus’ well. At a council held in Rome in 721, under Gregory II., there were present Fergustus of Scotland,1 and “ Sedulius, bishop of Britain, of the Scottish race.” Sedulius must have been bishop of the Strathclyde Britons, who submitted to the Pope in 703. North Wales submitted in 768, South Wales in 777. The name was probably Siedhuil or Shiel. Fergustus is probably S. Fergus Cruithneach, commemorated in the Donegal and Tallaght Martyrologies on September 8. Fergus, who died at Glamis, is said by the Aberdeen Breviary to have been formerly a bishop in Ireland, and so these two are probably the same.

Feast days

Feast: September 8
Traditional: November 17

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Fergus's story, and a nudge to keep going.

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Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.