3rd February - St Fillan or Faolan, Abbot (8th century)

Fillan was the son of St Kentigerna, of Irish birth, and is said to have taken the monastic habit at Taghmon, in Wexford, under the rule of St Fintan-Munnu. He later came to Scotland.

After spending some time with his uncle St Comgan at Lochalsh, where Killillan (Kilfillan) bears his name, the saint devoted himself to the evangelisation of the district of Perthshire around Strathfillan, which is called after him, and where he was greatly venerated. The success of the Scottish army at Bannockburn was attributed to the presence of the arm of St Fillan, which was borne by its custodian, the Abbot of Inchaffray, on the field of battle.

The Crozier of St Pillan is is preserved in the National Museum, Edinburgh. This also, as one of the sacred battle-ensigns of Scotland, is said to have been present at Bannockburn. A small bell which formerly hung in his church in Strathfillan is now in the museum of the Antiquarian Society in Edinburgh. Several traces of the saint are to be found in the district in which he preached. Killallan, or Killellen, in Renfrewshire, which took its name from him; it was originally Kilfillan (Church of Fillan).

Near the ruins of the old church near Houston, there is a stone called Fillam's Seat, and a spring called Fillan's Well existed there until it was filled up, as a remnant of superstition, by a parish minister in the eighteenth century.

Other holy wells bore his name: at Struan in Perthshire, Largs and Skelmorlie in Ayrshire, Kilfillan in Wigtonshire) and Pittenweem in Fife. A fair used to be held annually at Houston and another at Struan, both known as Fillan’s Fair.

There are ruins of St Fillan’s chapel in Strathfillan and nearby is the Holy Pool in which the insane were said to have bathed in order to obtain a cure by the Saint;s intercession. Sir Walter Scott refers to it in Marmion (Cant. I. xxix): "St Fillan's blessed Well, Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel, And the crazied brain restore." Pope Leo XIII re-established the Saint's feast in Scotland.