Died c. 724. Saint Voloc was an Irish missionary bishop who laboured in
Scotland
(
Benedictines).
The higher reaches of the Don valley have been inhabited since Bronze Age
times as far west as Corgarff. Lower down, an offshoot of the Don, the
waters of the Buchat, have created a fine and fertile glen to the north of
the ancient holy mountain of Strathdon - Ben Newe.
Saint Walloch was a celtic missionary whose principal church was at
Logie-in-Mar amongst the pictish settlements of what became known as
Cro-mar. Far to the north of Glenbuchat we see a solitary glimpse of the
presence of the Celtic church at Kilvalauche, somewhere in the forest of
Badeneoin (NJ 333190), which is mentioned in a charter of
1507.
1 This name
can hardly mean anything else than the church of St Walloch. From the same
document we learn that Culbalauche, St Walloch's retreat, was in the
neighbourhood. Prior to 1473 the Chapel of Glenbuchat was a dependancy of
Logie-Mar, the link with St Walloch thus being given the strongest argument
conceivable in its favour. Incidentally, confirmation seems to be obtained
from a statement
2 that St Walloch, in addition to his other church
foundations, at Dunmeth in Glass and at Balvenie, had a church site in
Strathdon.
We have no trustworthy guidance as to the date of St Walloch's labours. The
Aberdeen Breviary places him in the fifth century, while Camerarius fixes
his death in the year 733. In the Breviary we are given an interesting
account of St Walloch's mode of life, coupled with a highly unflattering
picture of the folk he strove to convert:-
He preferred a poor little house, woven together of reeds and wattles, to a
royal palace. In this he led a life of poverty and humility, on all sides
shunning the dignities of the world, that he might achieve to himself a
higher reward in heaven. But the race whom he preferred to convert to the
faith of Christ, and whom actually by his preaching and exhortation he did
convert, no one would hesitate to describe as fierce, untamed, void of
decency of manners and virtue, and incapable of easily listening to the word
of truth, and their conversation was rather that of the brutes that perish
than of men.
St Walloch is said to have been among the last of the missionaries to be
sent to the north-east from St Ninian's centre at Whithorn (Candida Cassa).
Though familiarly called "Walloch the foreigner", his origin and nationality
are actually unknown. At his foundation at Logie-in-Mar there stands, at the
gate and just outside the churchyard, a rough monolith about 5' 6" tall,
known as Walloch's Stone. "Walloch's Fair" was a popular event in the
district and was held on his Feast Day - 29th January.
One source
3 gives us a very different history saying that the saint whose
name appears in a corrupted form as Wolok, latinised Volocus, is believed to
be Faelchu, 13th abbot of Hy (Iona) from 716 till 724. He sprang from the
race of Conall Gulban, the ancestor of the famous lineage of Cenel Conaill
and several of the saints of Ireland including St Columba himself. Born in
664, Faelchu was seventy-three when, on Saturday, 29th August, he was called
to the chair once occupied by St Columba. Indeed, it has been thought that
Fedlimid, 14th abbot of Hy (722-?), was an assistant abbot appointed to take
care of business because of Faelchu's great age.
Walla Kirk (Walloch's Church), as the church of Dunmeth in Glass was called,
stood in its burying-ground on the bank of the Deveron, but is now
represented only by some mounds. It was held in superstitious regard even in
post-reformation times for in 1648 the ministers of Strathbogie
ordanit to
censure all superstitione at Wallak Kirk
. About a hundred yards east of the
church once flowed St Wallach's Well. On its margin lay a stone with a
hollow in it, into which pins were dropped by health-seekers as offerings to
the saint. As the result of agricultural improvements the spring has been
drained, and the water gushes out further down the bank, where the stone now
lies unheeded. In the neighbourhood of the graveyard, where a foot-bridge
spans the Deveron, is Wallach Pot, a pool in the river said to be about
fourteen feet deep. Fully a quarter of a mile further along the river bank
is a long, trough-like hollow in the rock, known a St Wallach's Bath. Sickly
children used to be dipped in its water. Pieces of their clothing and also
coins were thrown into the bath as offerings. If there is any truth in the
tradition that St Wallach's Hermitage stood on a neighbouring mound, he
must, it is to be presumed, have arrived a number of years before he became
abbot of Hy.
1.
Registrum Magni Sigilli, 1424-1513, No. 3159.
2. David Camerarius,
De Scotorum Fortitudine (1631) p.94
3. Mackinlay,
Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, (1914) p. 143