Nathalan

Saint Nathalan was a priest and later a bishop in the district of Aberdeenshire in Scotland and reposed in 678. His name also appears as Nachlan.

He was born in the village of Tullich, of which he later became bishop. The sixteenth-⁠century Aberdeen Breviary portrays him as a wealthy nobleman who resolved to till the soil and give himself to God as a hermit; he shared his harvest generously with the poor. He is said to have founded the first church at Tullich in the seventh century, as well as the churches of Bothelim and Colle, and a small chapel on the cliffs at Cowie.

A legend tells that in a rainy summer, in a moment of weakness, he cursed the rain that hindered his harvest. Grieved by his sin, he padlocked his right arm to his right leg, threw the key into the River Dee and set out on foot for Rome to seek forgiveness. At Rome, cutting open the fish set before him, he found the key he had thrown away so long before. A pool in the river is still called the key pool.

He is a saint of the undivided Church, honoured in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, commemorated on 8 January (new style); some calendars list him on 19 January.