Cuthman from boyhood had been put to work as a shepherd for another man’s flock. This was in the low tidal fields around Bosham in the kingdom of the South Saxons. It was a seeping nether land of mudflats, marsh and tussocky grasses. It gave the mutton a salty tang, much favoured by the Thane. He had fashioned a hut from flint and mud. There he lived with his mother, whose legs had withered.

About that time there were Irish monks making their way around the coastline and down the drover’s paths to bring the Gospels to the pagans. Dicul was one of them, however, his dancing words made little impact on the solid Saxons. Their old gods had the tang and must of wood and iron. Woden of the deep oak - the middle day of the week was named after him. Thunnor of the troubled skies - he hurled his crashing bolts on stormy nights. You could visit his windswept mound that reared bluntly on a hill above the sea. Against these dreadful, yet palpable deities Dicul’s elaborate, chancy salesmanship carried no weight.

It was Wilfrid the Apostle of Sussex who finally converted the Saxons. Wilfrid may have come from Northumbrian nobility, and he had been to Rome, but he also had a canny gift of speaking about salvation and the Blessed Realm in ways that the Saxons understood. In a pasture near Bosham Wilfrid sat down with Cuthman. There, among the grazing flock he told of another good shepherd in a far-off land who had brought certain hope to the world. Cuthman, with his square face and long steady gaze took Wilfrid’s hand and welcomed the good news.

Now, this fresh and expectant faith had nothing at all to do with worldly riches and, if anything, Cuthman’s meagre condition worsened. One day the Thane gave his work to another man. Cuthman and the crippled mother fell into raw destitution. Yet Wilfrid’s gift was well suited to a certain steadfast, even cussed strain in the Sussex constitution, of which Cuthman was the embodiment.

As if summoning a call which he could not decipher he decided to take to the road. He found an old rickety wheelbarrow to serve as his mother’s carriage. From supple withies he built a harness for his shoulders with loops around the barrow’s handles. Then they set out eastwards towards the sunrise, along the moss-grown flags of the roman old road.

They begged for bread and slept in the ditches. The withy ropes bit at Cuthman’s skin. Yet, since his mother did not complain of her ailment, why should he. In any case the slow embers of resolution were glowing in his mind.

The Tribe of the Stones were a people who lived inland near the river Adur. One afternoon Cuthman trundled into view. He was groaning with his load. Doors were flung open and people came out to mock his ungainly progress. He seemed impervious to the hoots of derision and children hurling stones. He held his head high. Just then, as flung gravel scratched his cheeks there came a brisk clear crack that caused the tormentors to make a sudden pause. The withy bindings around Cuthman’s shoulders had snapped cleanly, nearly throwing his mother from the barrow.

Looking on were men with their hands on their knees who were just setting themselves up for the laugh of the century, but the mirth died in their bellies as they saw Cuthman sink to his knees with a joyful expression.

‘Father Almighty you have given me the desire to be a builder. Make up for my lack of skill and help me raise a holy house to completion in this place.’

The people of the Stone Tribe were still poised, ready to laugh, but seeing how Cuthman went straight to work on his church they never did. They never helped him either. Yet as they craned their necks at the rising tower and walls curiosity set in. Cuthman found them crowding at the new west arch. He climbed down from the scaffolding and tried to tell them that the interior would soon see such frescoes and dazzling glass that they would think a door had opened onto Heaven. They faded away, not quite ready to enter.

Later that night Cuthman was struggling by candlelight with a roof-beam high above the nave. He had raised the beam all on his own by means of a pulley, tying it off when as he tried to find the pedestal niches. It struck him, the shepherd of Bosham, that this was a task beyond his ability and he was not the least surprised when the end of the beam began to slip from his tired fingers.

However, the weight of the dense wood steadied and then was lifted from his grasp. He turned to see a man standing on the scaffolding, shouldering the load. The stranger took the full weight and the beam was secured. ‘Who are you?’ asked Cuthman.

‘I am He in whose name you are building this church,’ Said the man as went out into the moonlight.