Saint Ninian's Cave

St. Ninian (360-432) was a bishop generally credited as the first Christian missionary to Scotland, responsible for widespread conversions among the Celts and the Southern Picts. He studied at Rome and was given the mission of converting the Picts by Pope Siricius. He established an episcopal see at the Candida Casa in Whithorn, Galloway, Scotland. He is buried at Whithorn.

It is said that St. Ninian used to retreat from the priory at Whithorn, to a cave at the end of the Machars peninsula to use it as a hermitage for prayer and meditation.

The poems in this collection are "voiced" for St. Ninian; in other words St. Ninian is the speaker. They center round an imagined visit to the cave, in January 431 AD, a year before his death.