Saint Wulmar

Saint Vulmar (or Ulmar, Vilmer, Vulmaire, Vulmar of Samer, Vulmarus, Wulmar; died 689) was a French priest, hermit and then abbot who was later venerated as a saint. He turned to religion after his wife was taken from him and given to the man to whom she had previously been betrothed. Vulmar was born near Boulogne in Picardy, France. He married, but was separated from his wife. He became a lay brother at the Benedictine Hautmont Abbey, formerly in Hainaut. Later he became a priest and was the founding abbot of Samer monastery near Boulogne. It is said that Vulmar hid in a hollow oak at Caëstre for three days to avoid unwelcome honors. He is depicted as a hermit living in a hollow tree who receives bread from a peasant. His feast day is 20 July. According to the hagiographer Alban Butler, /* start https://en.wikipedia.org/ */ .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px}.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;margin-top:0}@media(min-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{padding-left:1.6em}} /* end https://en.wikipedia.org/ */ According to Sabine Baring-Gould, Vulmar was the son of a Frankish nobleman named Vulbert. When he was a young man he was married to a girl named Osterhilda. However, when she was a child she had been promised by her parents to someone else. That person complained to the king of the Franks, who ordered the separation of the young couple and gave Osterhilda to the person to whom shed had been betrothed. Vulmar reacted by turning his back on the world and joining the monastery of Hautont in Hainault. He was given the job of looking after cows. Eventually Vulmar was ordained a priest, but decided to live alone in the oak forest. For many years he lived in the Eeken forest, but when he was discovered returned to his place of birth and built a hermitage in the forest near Samer.