12th June - St Ternan, Bishop (AD 431)

Ternan was born in the Mearns in Kincardineshir of noble parents. St Palladius, who evangelised that district, is said to have been directed to the child by an angel, in order that he might baptise the child.

Ternan was a priest, and in due time, a bishop who is said to have settled at Abernethy in Perthshire, where he died in AD 431. He was buried at the place now known as Banchory-Ternan, Kincardineshire, where a fair is still held annually on his festival.

More than a thousand years after his death the head of the saint was venerated Banchory-Ternan where it was recorded that 'the skin remained upon his skull in the place where it had received the episcopal consecration'.

Up until the Reformation two other valuable relics of the saint were preserved in that same church. One was the copy of St Matthew's Gospel which belonged to St Ternan, encased in a cover adorned with gold and silver and the other was the saint's bell which is thought to have been identical with an ancient bell which was dug up near the railway station at Banchory when the railway line was being built. Unfortunately no trace of it exists today.

The churches at Slains in Aberdeenshire and Arbuthnott and Upper Banchory, in the Mearns, were dedicated to St Ternan. At Taransay in Harris, and at Findon in the Mearns, chapels were dedicated to the saint. There was also a holy well at Findon named after him, and there was another holy well at Slains.