The exhumation and burning of his body in 1428, when the ashes were cast into the Swift, gave rise to the saying that their distribution by the river to the ocean resembled that of Wycliffe's doctrines over the world.
The old form of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit, from the Gaelic Cil Cudbert, " the chapel of Cuthbert," the saint's body having lain here for a short time during the seven years that lapsed between its exhumation at Lindisfarne and the re-interment at Chester-leStreet.